Federal Budget Cutting and Hunger in Vermont

A popular meme these days is “budget cutting.” In Washington, D.C. it seem like they talk about nothing else. I have prepared many budgets over the past 10 years, and had to make some very hard choices, including for the past few years here at the Foodbank. As the steward of millions in donations the Vermont Foodbank has an obligation to know where every dollar goes, and to ensure that it contributes to the mission of seeing that no one in Vermont goes hungry. That is why when budgeting for the Foodbank we are always focused on the achieving the mission, the long-term financial health of the organization and effectively executing our programs. But the current budget cutting meme doesn’t seem to leave much room thoughtful reflection.

As I write this, budget cutting proposals in congress focus on 12% of the federal budget for all the cuts, and includes large reductions that will directly affect Vermont’s hungry. There are proposed reductions in SNAP benefits (called 3 Squares Vermont here and formerly food stamps) that will drive more people to food shelves and meal sites as their benefits run out sooner in the month. Community Service Block Grants are proposed to be cut in half. These federal grants support Vermont’s 5 community action agencies, 4 of which operate one or more food shelves in Vermont, including the states largest. The cuts could cause our community action agencies to scale back or even close the food shelf operations because they are largely funded with the flexible block grant funding. We are also facing a loss of USDA food and funds to food banks. Loss of all this support will leave a big whole in our communities. How big?

The charitable emergency food network that we run together cannot make up for the loss of strong federal safety net programs. The 3 Squares VT program distributed almost $11 million in benefits in December, 2010. Annualized, that’s more than $130 million last year. Over 90% of those benefits are spent locally within 30 days. Any reduction in that $130 million a year in federal food assistance transfers the burden to the charitable food system. In contrast, the Vermont Foodbank distributed more than $12 million dollars’ worth of food during all of 2010. Try as we might, we can’t possibly fill that gap.

And speaking of gaps, a recent study released by Feeding America, a national organization of over 200 food banks, looked at the “meal gap” in every county in the United States. It measures how many meals it will take so that everyone reports having enough food to eat for the whole family. According to the study, in Vermont over 82,000 of our neighbors are missing 13,745,000 meals per year. We would need to provide $41,440,980,00 worth of food to fill that gap. That would mean more than tripling our food distribution.

This country’s future economic prosperity depends on our people. People who are worried about how they will feed their families tomorrow cannot focus on being good employees, serving their country, being active in their communities or starting a business. A country looking to a strong future cannot afford to let its people go hungry and fall into despair and poverty.

That’s why I am asking for you to join with me and let our elected representatives, state and national leaders know that hunger is unacceptable in our communities, our state and our country.

Should we restrict what people buy with SNAP benefits?

This is an editorial written recently by me and Marissa Parisi, Executive Director of Hunger Free Vermont that has appeared in the local press. I feel that this is an important topic, and one that can't be discussed too many times.

A recently-introduced resolution in the Vermont House has many of us in the anti-hunger community concerned about peoples’ understanding of the effectiveness and importance the 3SquaresVT program (nationally called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and formerly Food Stamps). 3SquaresVT currently serves over 90,000 of our neighbors – that is more than 1 in 7 Vermont households. Proponents suggest that 3SquaresVT dollars are “all too often” spent on foods with limited nutritional values. This perception is often backed up by anecdotes about how someone was seen buying food that doesn’t seem nutritious with their benefits. The reaction can be visceral, even if the intentions are good. But good public policy is not made based on anecdotes or good intentions; it is made based on facts. There is no research-based evidence that restricting what our neighbors can purchase with government benefits leads to improved health outcomes down the road. Research does show that 3SquaresVT participants make similar food choices to non-participants at all income levels. In fact, public health officials and physicians across the country support increasing participation in 3SquaresVT as an overall obesity-prevention strategy. Moreover, studies by both the USDA and Children’s Health Watch have shown that chronic hunger and food insecurity have much greater impacts on the health of our citizens than poor nutritional choices. Hunger and malnutrition increases the risk of poor health, obesity, academic failure, and developmental delays. 3SquaresVT decreases poor health and hospitalization among participants, especially among young children and elders. The food choices we all make are influenced by many things, but we all are susceptible to constant advertising, often for non-nutritious foods. We are fortunate because Vermont is way out front when it comes to the availability of local food and making healthy eating easier. We believe the Vermont way to encourage healthful food choices for our neighbors receiving 3SquaresVT is to support 3SquaresVT usage at more farmers’ markets and for CSA shares, offering incentives for fruit and vegetable purchases, enhancing nutrition education across the state and the nation, and improving benefit levels so people can afford more healthful foods. These changes would save scarce health care dollars and bring more federal dollars to our state and into the pockets of our farmers and food producers.