Thoughts on the SNAP Crisis: Disability, Resources, etc
Disability, rural areas, and lack of transportation need to be talked about more.
I’m sure you’ve heard by now: the US government is deliberately withholding SNAP benefits starting November 1st. We don’t know how long this will go on for. Food banks will be even more stretched thin than they were before. Millions of people aren’t sure how they will eat or how their family members will eat.
If the US government wanted to, it could feed every single person who lives here for free. If it stopped spending so much money on war, ICE, the police, billionaires, and corporations, nobody would starve. Nobody would have to worry about access to housing, healthcare, or clean air and water either. They could take care of all of our needs, but they choose not to because of the greed and violence that have been the foundation of this country since the very beginning.
Everyone deserves to have access to food. If you truly agree with that statement, you won’t add conditions like “as long as they’re working,” “as long as they voted the same way I did,” or “as long as they don’t live in a red state.” Everyone deserves to have access to food. Capitalism, white supremacy, and ableism have brainwashed us into thinking that food is something you have to “earn” access to. But you earn it by existing.
Food insecurity is a disability justice issue. In Feeding America’s 2014 Impact Study, 66% of respondents reported choosing between medical care and food. According to Feeding America, food insecurity can lead to chronic health conditions like Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. For patients with conditions like Diabetes, choosing between food and medical care can lead to complications. Certain medications need to be taken with food, and certain health conditions come with dietary concerns, like sodium intake to manage POTS or people with low blood sugar due to hypoglycemia needing an immediate source of sugar. I’m also concerned about the number of disabled people who may be unable to make it to food banks due to their symptoms and limitations (such as being bedbound) or lack of accessible transportation (especially during this shutdown). I have seen very little discussion about the reality of food insecurity for disabled people and this really worries me. People need to be thinking about the various needs of their neighbors with different disabilities and health conditions instead of simply assuming that existing mutual aid organizing will be enough. Disabled people are too often an afterthought and this needs to change.
It’s also important to mention that many disabled people have specific diets they have to follow due to allergies and other chronic illnesses. There will be people who need gluten free food because they have Celiac Disease, or food free of other allergens, but allergen-friendly food can be harder to find because they don’t get donated as often. People shouldn’t have to worry about an allergic reaction in addition to the stress of food insecurity. If you happen to have allergen-friendly food you can donate, that would be incredibly helpful. If you’re financially able to purchase food to donate, it would be a great idea to add some food free of various allergens to your order. Here is a list of the most common allergens. As someone with Celiac Disease, I know gluten-free food can be expensive, so if you need help finding affordable options, you can look for resources for people with Celiac Disease.
I’ve been thinking about how many food banks simply won’t have the resources to feed everyone, especially after the funding cuts this year. But something I’ve seen very little discussion about is that many people won’t have access to food banks at all. I’ve been thinking about how I live in a mostly rural state. Out of curiosity, I looked at a map of food banks in the state - and there are many towns without one at all. Some towns require people to travel to other towns for food bank access, but what if someone is unable to drive due to disability or lack of a car? It’s heartbreaking to think about this and it needs to be talked about more.
The best advice I can give people who want to help is that in addition to donating (money, food, and/or time) to your local food bank, repost every single person you follow on social media who posts a mutual aid fundraiser so they can eat. Repost people you don’t follow too. Donate to those fundraisers if you can, but if you can’t, reposting can increase visibility so people who can donate will see it. I recommend doing this for other causes too, especially fundraisers for Palestinians and Sudanese people.
RFK Jr has spent so much time talking about the “chronic disease epidemic.” Some people who fell for this concern and thought he had good intentions, even if they disagreed with him on some things, might be surprised to find out that he actually does not care at all about people who receive SNAP benefits, even though lack of access to food puts you at far greater risk of chronic disease than the “toxins” and “chemicals” RFK Jr spends his time fearmongering about. But RFK Jr has actually fueled the misinformation and stigma surrounding SNAP benefits this year. Huffington Post reported in August that RFK Jr said “We are poisoning 60% of our kids who are getting food stamps. We are poisoning them and giving them diabetes, and we’re paying for it upfront with food stamps and we’re paying for it again with Medicaid.” This is obviously completely false, classist, and ableist. If you saw through his “concern” and knew that his interest was actually in eugenics all along, you probably are not remotely surprised that he doesn’t actually care about the health of Americans.
But back to things we can actually do to help. Certain towns will have “blessing boxes” or “mini pantries” where people can leave donations. You can probably find them in your area by searching online or asking people if they know where any are located. You can also join local Facebook groups, such as general community news or “buy nothing groups,” where you may see people asking for help or posting info about food drives and other events where people can help out or receive help. If you live in a rural area where people may not have access to food banks, Facebook groups can be a great resource for those people in your community to ask for help, so joining them can put you in touch with community members who are in need of assistance. On whatever social media platform you use, it’s a good idea to follow local mutual aid groups and non-profit organizations that may post updates about your community’s needs.
If you are someone who needs help, please don’t be afraid to ask the people in your community for it. And if you are someone who feels inclined to shame people for needing help, just remember what you did in this moment when our violent system one day fails you too.
Nation-wide resources for you to use and share:
To me, living in "the best nation in the world" would mean ensuring that every baby has food every night. That's prosperity in action. But that's still too collectivist an idea for our bootstrap ideology. Thank you for sharing.
Exactly. Especially for disabled people, the elderly, homeless people, people without reliable transportation, people with limits on what they can or will eat for any number of reasons, and people who can't take time off to get to a food pantry even if they have the transportation to be able to, or the people food pantries don't have enough resources to help, telling us to just go to a food pantry is utterly useless. If you can't cook a lot or at all because you're disabled, elderly, or homeless, you still need and deserve food you can safely eat. If you have restrictions because of health issues or moral or religious reasons, you still need and deserve food you can safely eat. If you work a lot and/or are busy taking care of young kids or elderly or disabled individuals, you still need and deserve food you can safely eat. If you're homeless, you can't safely store a lot of food, if any (some shelters don't allow you to bring any food in, so you need food you can eat during the day with minimal to no cooking or keeping it cold). Etc. And it's even more evil that they're doing this right before the holidays, when they already massively reduced the funding for food banks earlier in the year, when they're sitting on approximately $6 billion they're refusing to use to cover most of the SNAP benefits for November (claiming they legally can't do it, as if this administration gives a damn about doing things the legal way), and when we could afford to provide for the basic needs of everyone in this country if those in control weren't married to continuing using the threat of homelessness, starvation, and abject poverty to control the masses. I could go on because I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this nonsense, but I'll leave it at that.