PHOENIX
(AP) — Yvonne Knight, who has respiratory problems that make her
especially vulnerable in the coronavirus pandemic, can’t buy groceries
online with her food stamps — even though each trip to the store is now a
risky endeavor.
Going
out to buy food terrifies the 38-year-old woman with cerebral palsy,
but she is one of millions of people who receive food aid through the
federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that can’t be used in
flexible ways.
“Every
time I go out, I put myself at risk — and other people,” said Knight,
who lives in Erie, Pennsylvania. “I’m so terrified when people come up
to me now. I don’t want to go out to the store.”
Buying
groceries online — which many Americans are doing to drastically reduce
how often they leave their homes — is only open to SNAP recipients in
six U.S. states, and Pennsylvania is not one of them.
Now,
state governments and food security activists across the country are
imploring the U.S. Department of Agriculture to make the program more
flexible and easier to access at a time when so many people are losing
their jobs and turning to the government for support.
The calls have even come from conservative states where lawmakers have tried to reduce or limit food aid.
In
Arizona, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has asked the agency to waive
interview requirements for applicants, allow families to purchase hot
meals, waive work requirements for some and enact other changes that
would help families deal with the economic fallout of the pandemic.
Ashley
St. Thomas, the public policy manager for the Arizona Food Bank
Network, lauded the governor’s request, adding that relaxing
requirements that program recipients prove they are working at least
some hours each month is “critical right now” — especially as millions
get laid off and jobs dry up for people who work in the informal or gig
economies.
Amanda
Siebe, a 35-year-old who lives in Hillsboro, Oregon, suffers from a
chronic pain condition and has a compromised immune system, so she tries
to avoid leaving the house.
But
she struggles to stretch her SNAP benefit — $194 a month — in normal
times, and she would love to have more cash now to be able to buy larger
food quantities to limit grocery trips.
“We
need food that will not only last the whole month but give us a little
bit to stock up so we can get ahead without having to worry what’s gonna
happen in the future,” Siebe said. “Especially because the majority of
us cannot leave the house very often.”
For
most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For
some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems,
it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and can lead to
death — meaning those people need to take special precautions.
The
increased need for food aid and calls to make it more flexible come
directly on the heels of a stalled Trump administration attempt to purge
an estimated 700,000 people from SNAP rolls. The changes would have
taken away states’ ability to waive a rule that able-bodied adults
without dependents show a certain number of hours worked per month. A
court blocked the changes, and the USDA vowed to appeal.
Agriculture
Secretary Sonny Perdue now says he’s undecided and notes that the
congressional virus relief package contains a blanket waiver on the work
requirement — though the agency seems likely to revisit the issue in
calmer times.
For
now, with large parts of the economy shuttered, state governments are
clamoring to expand the recipient ranks and cut the red tape.
In
Pennsylvania, where Knight lives, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday
asked the agency to waive several requirements. He urged the federal
government to expand a pilot program launched in New York and Washington
state that allows people to use their debit-style benefit cards to
order online groceries. Amazon and Walmart now accept SNAP payments
online in Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington and New York, where
ShopRite also accepts the payments. In Alabama, Wright’s Markets, Inc.
accepts the online payments.
In
Missouri, the state’s social services department requested and was
granted waivers to extend SNAP certifications by six months so that
people won’t be kicked out of the program during the pandemic.
Food security advocates recommend the government go further, giving states blanket latitude to adjust their programs.
That
would allow states to expand their beneficiary ranks with minimal
paperwork, said Ellen Vollinger, legal director for the Food Research
and Action Center.
“One can imagine a set of waivers that are so common that every state would benefit,” she said.
Among
the specific changes she recommends: eliminating the personal interview
that precedes a recipient’s entry into the program — as Arizona’s
governor requested — and allowing a recipient’s status in the program to
automatically renew without paperwork.
The
built-in flexibility of the program has proved vital in natural
disasters that devastated individual cities or regions — and activists
argue that SNAP benefits could be one of the core instruments used to
help Americans endure a pandemic hitting the whole country at once.
“The benefits turn over quickly in the economy. They get spent,” Vollinger said.
___
Khalil
reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Summer
Ballentine in Columbia, Missouri; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; Brian Witte
in Annapolis, Maryland; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Gary
Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Patrick Whittle in Portland,
Maine; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; and
Jim Anderson in Denver contributed to this report.
