>> Well, this is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson and our connection this hour is going to be made on Saturday, November 1st, when millions of Americans lose their Snap benefits.

As NPR reports, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Snap is a mandatory entitlement program that provides about 1 in 8 U.S.

residents an average of $187 a month in food aid.

But the roughly $8 billion a month to fund Snap benefits comes through annual congressional appropriations.

Of course, those lapsed on October 1st.

So there's been a lot of talk about this happening.

And then a new banner popped up atop the U.S.

department of AIG's website, published on Saturday.

It says the well has run dry, and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture's website blames Senate Democrats as being responsible for the department's decision not to send out benefits starting November 1st.

This Saturday, Monroe County Executive Adam Bellows office offered these numbers on Monroe County alone.

First of all, roughly 104,000 people receive snap here.

That includes 36,000 children, 22,000 older adults and 18 individuals over the age of 100.

They're going to lose these benefits starting Saturday.

So what could be done?

There's talk of schools sending home extra food with students, food pantries emptying their supplies, doing whatever they can.

But, you know, it's hard to get your head around the full scope of the need here.

And so we're going to try to do that this hour, along with talking about where this program is going.

Because if you remember the last time we talked to the team from Foodlink, we not only talked about the possible snap cuts, we talked about new work requirements and what that will mean for people who are going to receive or would like to receive Snap benefits.

So let's talk about all of that with the president and CEO of Foodlink.

Julia Tedesco is back with us.

Thank you for being with us.

>> Thanks for having us.

>> Mitch Gruber is senior Vice President and chief impact officer at Foodlink.

Welcome back to the program.

Greetings and welcome to Debbie Evans founder, President and Executive Director of the Irondequoit Community Cupboard.

First of all, thank you for being with us.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> Tell us what you do there.

>> Well, I like it said that or like you said, I'm the founder.

And right now what we do is we take obviously all the intake and calls for residents who are in need of emergency assistance.

We provide food for at least a week.

We provide weekend backpack programs and warm clothes for for the residents around.

>> I know you're going to be busy, and I know a lot of folks are already busy and I want to start unusually here.

I want to start with an email to get this out of the way, because I think this matters.

If you are feeling like you need to give and need to help people right now, we're going to talk about ways to do that.

I also don't want to paint a picture that is unrealistic, which means could we just eliminate snap entirely and just philanthropy covers it all.

Could food food districts just send home extra lunches with kids?

Could, you know, the debbies of the world do more?

So is that even possible?

Well, Charles emails to say, I'm pretty sure the problem you're talking about has already been solved by local philanthropy.

He points to a story on a local news station in which the Rochester Area Fund is offering Wegman's gift cards.

Amid the snap shutdown.

He says this is the way it should be.

Charities, churches and other forms of community supporting community support.

Addressing issues at the lowest possible level instead of the government.

That's from Charles.

So, Julie, I'll start with you there.

Is that a plausible long term fix here?

Philanthropy.

People giving to step up here and cover snap entirely?

>> Well, I want to first start by acknowledging that we do have a very philanthropic community.

I know, I know what he's talking about.

We do it's a wonderful guy.

Jeff knows who's making that offer and funding.

I think they're $150 gift cards for folks.

We've had other foundations.

step up to support us, but it is it is not the fix.

And and I want to start by just painting the picture of what a typical snap household looks like.

Typical snap household has children in it.

40% of Snap recipients are children.

The typical snap household is working.

Snap goes to basically supplement low wages that, you know, our federal minimum wage is still $7.25.

They're taking those maybe $200 in benefits.

Typical household allotment per month, hardly enough to live off of to the grocery store.

They're spending that.

There's an economic ripple effect.

Economic activity.

They're they're keeping grocery stores in business, keeping workers employed.

It's going to help kids in school, help them focus, help keep health care costs.

There's a whole ripple effect.

So it is a smart government investment and goes much further than the private sector than than the the philanthropic sector really, really can do.

And we've said that before Snap distributes, you know, for every one meal a food bank can cover ten meals, nine meals from snap across across the country.

There's no way that private philanthropy can make up for that gap locally in our very generous market or in any community in this nation.

>> Mitch Gruber do you want to weigh in on that too?

Yeah, it's.

>> The the author of that email I would direct you to go to places like Irondequoit Community Cupboard.

You'll hear from Debbie shortly, but what that email completely neglects to consider is the logistics of food distribution.

there is so much work required.

Oftentimes of volunteers, like the people who help Debbie do food distributions on a very regular basis.

But it's not just people.

It's physical space.

It's refrigeration.

It's freezer space.

There can only be so many hours of operation to be able to do food distributions.

The best way to make sure people are fed is for people to have money in their pocket to buy food.

We live in a time and place where we have some of the best grocery stores in the world who are open 18, sometimes 24 hours a day.

You can buy anything you want, any season of the year.

The best thing to do is make sure to have for people to have money in their pocket and relying on the emergency food system to do that work is going to lead to a lot of hungry people, and I just want to I want to make a point that should be made over and over and over again.

No one benefits when people are hungry.

People can't do well at school.

People can't do well at work.

And frankly, there becomes a lot of desperation right now.

One of the things that I'm hearing all the time is that people are concerned that if in fact, and I want to keep using the word if Snap benefits have not been cut off for the month of November yet, there is government activity happening each and every moment of every day, if in fact Snap benefits are cut off at the end of this month, we are going to see an unprecedented amount of crime of activity that nobody wants.

Because when people are desperate, people do desperate things.

>> You're talking about theft, you're talking about, yeah, correct.

Yeah, yeah.

but before we even go further here, I've seen this in a lot of places.

So this is an important point to, to hit here.

Even if this projected snap cut or snap elimination, temporary elimination, I presume starting Saturday, even if it happens, if your household needs snap, don't stop with the application.

Don't stop being part of the system.

Right?

I mean, like everything I'm seeing says, don't sort of pull yourself out of the system for a number of reasons.

Is that right, guys?

>> Correct.

There's two distinct things happening right now.

Okay?

And I think it's really easy to conflate them, but let's pull them apart the best we can.

And it's really it's deeply unfortunate and in some ways may even be intentional that they're all converging at the same time.

One is the impacts of the bill that was passed in July that began to limit the eligibility of certain populations for Snap benefits.

If you get if you are Snap participant now and your eligibility requirements are going to change, you are going to get a letter from your county Department of Human Services.

That's mandatory by law.

They have to send you a letter.

No one's going to have changes happen willy nilly.

All of a sudden.

Please pay attention to your mail.

If you get a mailer from a county DHS, open it, read it.

If it's confusing, make a phone call and ask someone to help you understand what it means.

That is one thing happening.

And yes, stay in the system.

Follow the the the argument that that letter is making.

Do this, this and this separately from that.

The government shutdown means that if in fact, there's not activity from the federal government or from the state government in the next two days, November benefits won't be issued and that will keep being the case every month until there is funding and appropriations from the federal government.

Those two things are separate, but they are very related to people who are themselves.

Snap participants.

>> Okay.

Do you want to weigh in on that, too, Julia?

>> I think the main message Mitch hit is that pay attention right now.

Certainly I don't think anyone's going to go to Unenroll themselves, but pay attention.

Open your mail.

the county and Foodlink is going to do everything we can to make sure that you have really clear information, you know?

And just one last point about, you know, the email you started reading at the snap cost the government $8 billion per month.

There's no way that private philanthropy, it's $30 million that comes into our region every single month.

And as I mentioned before, it's multiplied.

It has a positive effect on our economy, has a positive effect on every single person, whether you're a snap recipient or not.

There is no way, even with what Hochul put out at New York State and with our local philanthropy, there's there's no way to cover that.

>> Well, that's one theme that we've heard from Congressional Republicans.

And this administration this year is you know, you heard the speaker of the House say earlier this year, well, we wouldn't cut Medicaid.

We wouldn't cut food assistance.

But what we might do is cut its budget and tell the states to fill in.

So we we wouldn't consider that a cut.

We'd just be directing the states to fill in the not cut, whatever.

I mean, whatever terminology.

And the last time you were here, Mitch, you basically said that's that's a bunch of baloney.

>> Well, there's I mean, part of part of their argument, part of what was passed in the big bill from several months ago was a cost share at the state level.

Yeah.

Every state is going to have to put in some amount of cost.

And they did it.

They did a calculation based on the error payment rates.

So, you know, if you want to if you want to be gracious to the argument that you just described, fine.

But that has nothing to do with the government shutdown.

I mean, Speaker Johnson, who hasn't brought the House back into session for six weeks now, the state of Louisiana of all states, has said they're going to put $150 million to deal with the potential ramifications of Snap not being issued in the month of November.

Do you think Speaker Johnson's constituents want the state to spend $150 million when, by the way, the U.S.

has 6 billion in contingency contingency right now to fund this.

>> And they won't use it.

>> So let me let me make this point crystal clear.

There are two potential ways that Snap gets funded by November.

First, I'll say three ways.

There's three ways the snap gets funded by November 1st.

The first way is that the USDA does what they should do, and they should spend their contingency dollars 6 billion to fund Snap benefits until the government shutdown ends, which will happen at some point, it's inevitable that the government will come back at some point.

6 billion contingency.

They should spend it now.

That is what Congressman Morelli has been championing, and that is what every single member of, of the House that I've had communication from has communicated.

That's one.

>> But what's USDA saying.

>> About the USDA is saying that that contingency money is only for emergencies, and emergencies would be things like a hurricane.

a natural disaster, not a man made disaster like a government shutdown.

So that is one.

And to put a coda on that, state's attorney generals, including Tish James, has sued to make sure that the USDA does spend this money.

And tomorrow there's a hearing in front of a federal judge.

So tomorrow we should learn a lot more about if, in fact, the judge says no, of course you have to use that money for this purpose.

Of course it's an emergency.

>> What do you think is possible?

>> I think it's incredibly possible.

Okay.

I'm not going to put money on it, but I think it's very possible.

>> Okay.

So that's.

>> One that's one.

Number two is that Congress could the the government could act amid a government shutdown.

They don't have to bring back the government if they don't have their health care argument solved.

They could still just fund Snap benefits.

Josh Hawley, the Republican out of Missouri, has a bill right now with ten Republican Cosigners and one Democratic cosigner.

The Democrats have a similar kind of similar bill that's floating around.

I believe the Senate has a lot of eagerness to get something done today or tomorrow.

The question is, would Speaker Johnson bring back the House and would, in fact the president sign it?

So that's a second opportunity to use new, appropriate new money for this.

And the third is that states can come in and fund Snap benefits.

Admittedly, Non-reimbursable the USDA says they will not reimburse for these, but the state of Virginia specifically has said we are going to spend every dollar it takes to make sure the 750,000 people in Virginia are able to get Snap benefits amid a government shutdown.

Virginia, by the way, which is led by a Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin.

So that's all three of those things are possibilities.

We will know with some level of certainty by the end of the day Friday, if any of them are going to happen.

>> What has New York State said vis a vis what Virginia's of the world have done?

>> Virginia?

I mean New York state has not commented on that quite yet.

They did a press conference a couple days ago.

The governor offered awarded $30 million in part to help organizations like Foodlink and food banks across the state gear up, which is great, but that was about helping the emergency food system.

We're going to take that money and pass it on to partners like Debbie.

That's the purpose of that announcement.

It wasn't an announcement about what will the state do?

And admittedly, the state the state of New York has a much different reality than Virginia.

We have 3 million people on Snap benefits in New York State.

That's a that's four times what Virginia has and four times the cost.

So there's a lot of things to consider, but there's not been an opinion given about that quite yet.

>> Okay.

So that's where we are.

And I take the point from Mitch here a lot happens in three days.

We'll see.

But we're trying to prepare and everyone's trying to prepare.

I say as journalists, we're trying to prepare the community with good information.

And then people like Debbie are trying to prepare as best you can for a number of different outcomes here.

So what do you what are you trying to do and what do you think your role is here?

Debbie.

>> Well, first and foremost, to make sure that we're feeding our community.

But to go back to what they were saying, you do get food stamps every month and it hasn't run out yet that November.

It could it could, but there's not enough money during the month and people have already run out of their Snap benefit for October.

So they're panicked already.

I have not seen panic like this since COVID.

My my phone is running like crazy and I'm sure every other food pantry is as well.

What we're trying to do is get the word out to our residents to make sure they call us if they need to.

We are reaching out to Foodlink to get as much as we can in advance, especially things like our shelf stable milk.

That's something we can't buy locally.

And then also we put out a newsletter and Facebook page and note other notifications to our residents that can also donate.

And we, we do.

I do what's called a top ten list.

So those are items that are most popular within the people who come to us.

But then also things that are also running low.

>> What are a few of them?

Give me the top three.

>> Peanut butter macaroni and cheese soup.

>> You're ready to go even longer.

You got a long list.

When you talk to people about their their panic that they are feeling, I don't, you know, you don't want to overpromise anybody, but you want to communicate.

What do you tell them?

>> Well, the first thing they're asking me is, will we get food stamps in November?

And I clearly have no idea, but I'm telling them to bank on the fact that they probably will not.

and then they're also receiving the letters that they spoke about regarding the changes in Snap.

And many of them don't know what that means.

So I've been trying to find more information on how I can help them with that.

And then different referrals that I can make with that.

We will probably be having someone come to our pantry to work with local residents that are in need of help with those changes.

We have a lot of people that don't even speak English, so it really will help to have somebody that's more knowledgeable than than that, than me.

>> Let me ask the Foodlink team to.

They do obviously, a lot of advocacy and have a lot of relationships with lawmakers in both major parties, in all different parts of government, all different levels of government.

And this is an issue.

If it hits on Saturday, that is not a blue state or red state issue.

I mean, it will affect what 40 plus million Americans across the country, in every county, in every district.

And so I wonder if this will become more real very quickly and there will become a kind of a bipartisan consensus, or is that unrealistic?

What do you think, Julia?

>> I don't know if they'll be bipartisan consensus that that reopens the government, but I think that you can look back at certain points in our history and see what the response was in moments like this during COVID 2008 is when Mitch and I started at Foodlink and there was a recession then, and you see that there is very low tolerance for people facing hunger, going hungry, you know, that there's an enormous response from community members and from politicians hunger.

We've always said this is a is a nonpartisan issue, and we've sat in front of all sorts of lawmakers who say this is a priority, to make sure that people are fed.

So I think they'll say it.

I think there's nothing else to say other than it is completely immoral that that children and seniors are forced to stay in lines at at food pantries.

but but what actions are taken, I think is, is what ultimately matters.

>> What do you think, Mitch?

>> I can't believe how much time I've spent in the last day talking about Josh Hawley.

This is not a this is not a guy that I that I have a great deal of admiration for.

he wrote an op ed in the New York Times several months ago saying, let's not cut Medicaid, then voted to cut Medicaid, then immediately introduced a bill saying, let's reinstate some of the Medicaid cuts.

So I don't I don't have a lot of sympathy for Mr.

For Senator Hawley, but he wrote an op ed, another op ed in the New York Times.

yesterday saying the same thing he said about Medicaid six months ago or three months ago, saying, let's not let's not cut food stamps right now.

And the entirety of it was that this is a bipartisan issue.

The entirety of it was that, you know, Democrats blame Republicans, Republicans blame Democrats, which is precisely what's happening right now.

But at the end of the day, everyone who is pointing those fingers has money in their pocket to go buy food.

And if they didn't, they'd probably be having different arguments.

It's a pretty compelling piece.

I don't think that we have to wait until Saturday for there to be some bipartisan effort.

It's really it's deeply unfortunate that Snap benefits have been and also for the Snap and food stamps will be used synonymously.

Snap is is the formal term of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

And part of me, if I slip into the colloquialism of food stamps but it's really unfortunate that food stamps have become the political football.

during the shutdown.

But something was going to be the football.

And I think that it's awfully telling of how much people are scrambling right now.

The panic that Debbie is feeling, the panic that we are feeling in inside Foodlink, the panic that every single person in this community, including the business community, are feeling, is because nobody wants this to become a reality except for maybe the president and his USDA secretary.

I don't think anyone else has done anything other than show some sympathy for this cause.

>> And yet there are times where I'm surprised at something that I didn't think would be either political or would engender opposition.

And an example of that was maybe a couple of weeks now.

When was the coalition on a couple weeks, maybe the the Breast Cancer Coalition of New York was on this program a couple of weeks ago.

They do not want to wait into politics.

They do advocacy for certain bills and certain care issues, but their leadership was blunt about a meeting they had with Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, who not only is is kind of helping block, she's not the only person, but helping block a piece of legislation that would expedite care for people with metastatic breast cancer, incurable breast cancer, but basically told them this this is just another waste, fraud and abuse issue.

And there's waste, fraud and abuse in all these programs.

And that's what this opposition is about, whether it's Medicaid, whether it's maybe food stamps.

I mean, I don't want to speak for Congresswoman Tenney or anybody else, but this is a refrain you hear, which is like, well, but, you know, look at all the waste.

Look at all the fraud.

And so I don't know if you will hear that this time around, but, you know, a clip from that program went viral.

And because people were going like, whoa, like, who is faking metastatic breast cancer?

So is this a reform moment?

Mitch?

I mean, like, you work in local government, you understand the concerns about waste, fraud and abuse.

Is there a lot of waste, fraud and abuse and food stamps that we should be currently cleaning out before we put this thing back online?

Or is that not even pertinent here?

>> No.

Every single report and study about this demonstrates that snap snap has one of the lowest rates of waste, fraud and abuse.

but that being said, I again want to keep these things separate.

Like there's Congresswoman Tenney and many others already voted on a bill in July that allegedly is going to minimize waste, fraud and abuse.

It will actually just kick people off the benefit for bureaucratic, administrative reasons.

But that's not what we're talking about when it comes to a shutdown.

I mean, when we're talking when we're talking about a shutdown, I think one of the really interesting things as an observer of this is that we're starting to see, like, what are the pain points where people where people in Washington understand we actually cannot take this any further.

There's never been a moment where Snap benefits were not issued.

It's never been a month where they were not issued.

There was one time in 2018 during the long shutdown, where they weren't issued on time, and there was a lot of confusion.

And a lot of issues that that Foodlink was ready to stand in the gap there and provide some additional food to the people.

There's never been a month where benefits just were not issued.

And I don't think anyone arguing against waste, fraud and abuse even would say, no, we don't want Snap benefits to be cut except for the president and the USDA secretary, because they have the contingency funds right now, they could click it and go, and they're choosing not to.

Although allegedly this morning on on in some quick kind of one off interview the president said we'll get it done now.

It didn't come with any other additional facts, but someone asked about what are you gonna do about snap?

He said, well, get it done.

>> Because he's probably starting to hear the pressure.

Correct.

But to the point that Mitch was making.

And really, all of our guests are making, if you are in the seven out of eight of America, eight Americans who don't rely on snap, I mean, again, one out of eight is a huge number.

It's a huge number.

But if you're fortunate enough not to be in that group, it might be easy to mistake just how quickly this can become.

This is a crisis.

If you cannot afford food, if you cannot afford food for your children, what is going to happen?

So Mitch said earlier, he thinks we're going to see crime go up next month.

If this happens, and it wouldn't take long because people are not going to let their children starve.

This is not a hypothetical.

This isn't like, well, by March, I mean, like we're going to be talking about families that cannot afford to buy food next month for their kids, which is why I do tend to think that the offhand remark from the president this morning indicates that everyone understands how fast this is going to become a disaster.

Probably, but that's part of why we're talking about it today, because there's not a current solution where three days away and people ought to know what's up.

So what we're going to do is after the break, I've got some questions from listeners and listeners.

If you want to weigh in on this questions, comments, go ahead.

It's Connections at wxxi.org.

That's the email.

You can call us toll free.

8442958442958255263 WXXI.

If you call from Rochester 2639994.

If you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube, you can join the chat there.

but we need to also talk about something else that is related, which is when we talk about work requirements.

The last thing I want is anybody to be confused about all of a sudden what happens.

And now you can't get benefits, even if what happens on Saturday doesn't happen.

So new work requirements are coming.

I think no matter what happens and what what you and someone you love needs to know about that, we're going to talk about that and make sure you're fully up to date.

As we talk to Julia Tedesco Mitch Gruber from Foodlink Debbie Evans from the Irondequoit Community Cupboard talking about possible the possible frozen snap benefits three days away, coming right back.

>> I'm Evan Dawson Thursday on the next Connections.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson I don't want anybody leaving this hour thinking like, well, he said, like philanthropy won't work.

I mean, philanthropy is great.

I think everybody at the table agrees that giving when you can is great.

Whether you're giving directly to a Foodlink or community cupboards or these programs like you mentioned, Jeff and his efforts.

I mean, I used to work with Jeff, great guy.

There's a lot of great heart out there.

So don't leave this hour thinking that that doesn't matter.

Or when when Debbie's got her list of things that really could use, you know, we'll go over those again before the end of the hour.

People should hear that.

Just also also do two things at once.

Put your heart and your ability to give there.

And also know that in the end, that's not going to cover for 42 million Americans and that something else has to happen concurrently.

So Debbie, next week, if we get to Saturday, Sunday, Monday and there is not a solution, there are no Snap benefits.

Can you describe for listeners who haven't been in that position what next week is going to be like?

>> It's going to be terrifying and awful.

As a child who grew up not always knowing where my next meal was going to come from, I feel that especially children are going to feel angry and not know what to do.

I know what it was like to sometimes have my lunch be the last meal of the day, and to try to get my friends to invite me to sleep over so I knew I would have a dinner.

And I think that these families are already feeling that.

I know that there's many seniors that have called me that have been self-sufficient, and they have been able to just sustain themselves with the Snap benefits and are now extremely afraid because all they have is their Social Security, which is also not a lot.

So I think that if everybody could just imagine what it would feel like to not know where your next meal is going to come from, instead of playing politics with human lives.

I think that we could really accomplish a lot more than what we're doing just by passing the buck and blaming other people.

>> Julia, do you want to add to that?

>> Yeah.

From our standpoint, and always a good reminder to differentiate between a food bank, which is really this regional hub of food infrastructure.

We distribute food to pantries like Debbie.

We have about 434 partners.

Our work right now is to make sure that we are in overdrive, supporting agencies like Iran Food Cupboard and hundreds of others, making sure they have the correct information for clients, resources and more than anything else, food.

So we are working to make sure their shelves are stocked.

We have just got another $1.2 million of New York State funds that will be available for agencies to access food.

We'll put that towards purchase food.

We have been knowing that this may come.

We've been raising money for emergency food response.

We're we're releasing about $500,000 that we're putting towards food as well.

Again, it won't come close to filling the gap, but we are trying to get as much on our shopping list, which is how all of our agencies access this food so that they can stock those shelves and have more available for the lines that are naturally going to get a lot, a lot longer.

We're also increasing our distribution.

So in addition to making sure we get as much food to our partners as possible, we also have pop up distributions, particularly in rural areas, which we are increasing by about 3,040% over the next month.

To make sure that, again, more food is getting out, especially in those pockets of rural poverty where there's less less bricks and mortar.

pantries or meal program sites for them.

So yeah, we we continue to raise funds for this.

I just want to raise up what you said about, you know, we have a really generous community.

the Wegman Family Foundation just gave us $1 million to make sure we had the food bank infrastructure and supports in place so that we could respond to a moment like this separately, Wegmans is running their annual checkout hunger campaign.

So if you feel like you can't give in big ways, there's always small ways to give.

Rounding up your bill at Wegmans.

And we've got a lot of other area foundations that have have stepped up and called on and reached out to us to see what we can need.

But our goal right now is to make sure that that Debbie and all of those who do that really critical work have as many resources as possible.

>> Yeah.

What is a monthly bill for?

What would it be for New York State if New York State was going to fill it the way Virginia would?

Mitch, do we know what the bill would be here?

>> I I'll have to look it up.

It's a it's an it's an easy number to find.

But I think in Monroe County it'd be about 5 million.

Okay.

So I think if you extrapolate and think that we're not the first, second or fifth biggest county in the in the state, it's going to be a pretty significant amount.

>> Okay.

>> It's bigger actually.

I mean, Monroe County alone, it's $22 million of Snap benefits come into here every single month.

>> Okay.

So it's a lot of money a lot of money.

Frank in Greece on the phone.

Hey, Frank, go ahead.

>> Yes.

I just wanted to say that I'm a U.S.

Navy veteran.

I am disabled, I do work, and I'm on food stamps.

I wanted to know.

I want everyone to know that if you're a veteran and you give your dd214 to the Veterans Outreach Center on South Avenue, they have an excellent food cupboard, and they let you go back once a week.

I'm a little concerned about some of the so-called Christian based food cupboards, because they very often give you a social, political, religious pitch before giving you your food.

And I have seen personally, Spanish speakers or people with dark colored skin turned away for strange and petty reasons.

And we need an official system.

To distribute food, not just charity.

And I like food stamps because they're good for farmers.

every time I buy something with my food stamps, I'm supporting farmers.

And I'm getting rid of the food surplus instead of having them dump their milk in the field like they did in the 1930s.

Thank you very much.

Goodbye, Frank.

>> Good luck to you.

Thank you.

Anything you want to add there?

>> I just want to comment.

If you do ever experience that.

First of all, we are part of Feeding America which is a network of food banks.

There are certain rules we abide by.

We also receive funding from Department of Health, which means there are certain rules.

And one of that is that all of our agencies you can speak to this a little more have to do civil rights trainings.

so if that ever occurs to you, you're forced to pray before you get food or you see any sort of discrimination.

All of our agencies that is off the table, not allowed.

You can feel free to call Foodlink directly and we will address that.

>> Yeah, she is absolutely right.

We do have to go through training every year and I know we have our volunteers.

We make sure that they sign off on it too.

Because if I ever found out that somebody was treating one of our residents with disrespect or turning them away based on their race or religion, I don't even know what I would do.

But they would be gone.

>> Okay.

anything to add there, Mitch?

You cover it.

>> Yeah.

I mean, Veterans Outreach Center is a partner of ours.

You know, we if for anyone who wants to know Foodlink and org, we have a fine food part of our website where you can go find places and and, you know, like, like Frank talked about, everyone's going to find a food pantry that is best for them.

the one point I just can't belabor enough is that this is not an issue only for one group of people or another.

There's oftentimes a belief that this is a an issue in urban America.

Only Debbie Evans serves the Irondequoit Community Cupboard based in the suburb of Aranda, every single town has a has.

Every single suburb in Rochester has a food pantry that we support.

All the rural communities do too.

To Frank's Point, there may be some where it appeals to a particular a particular person, a veteran, a new American.

That may be the case, but I just want to double down on what Julia said.

No one who receives food from Foodlink is allowed to proselytize.

No one who receives food from Foodlink is allowed to exchange food for any kind of service.

And we do an annual inspection to make sure that's the case.

>> Thank you, Frank, and good luck to you.

so let's talk a little bit about work requirements here, because at the same time that all this is happening, new work requirements for adults without dependents are supposed to be kicking in.

And I want to make sure that we understand what that means and what you want people to understand about that.

So they are not missing anything.

let me ask the folks from Foodlink, Julie and Mitch, if you want to start on what you want people to understand about work requirements.

>> Sure.

I'll try not to mince words here.

So there's always been work requirements.

There is an acronym out there.

It's you'll hear it a lot.

Abodh.

It's able bodied adults without dependents.

And those folks there are certain you know, categorization.

There have had to work or do a training program or a volunteer program in order to receive Snap benefits, but there are certain waivers in place for a variety of reasons.

If you're homeless, if you're a veteran, if you're an individual over the age of 54, those have been there's been waivers for those work requirements and some some geographical waivers.

Those are expiring on November 2nd.

as we've said, and we'll continue to say, if you currently receive Snap benefits, please keep an eye out for any information from your county office or from government so that you know how it's impacting you.

but the bottom line is that many folks who have not had to work 80 hours a week in order to receive Snap benefits, many are already working.

They just might not hit that amount, will now need to, or they may have an exemption and not know about it.

And that's what's really important to know.

And that's what Monroe County is trying to raise awareness of is there's a screening tool.

Now make sure that you are screened.

And because there are a lot of folks who may have a disability or may have a dependent, it's not documented.

We need to make sure it's documented so that they can continue to retain Snap benefits.

Bottom line, though, is that the first month that counts towards this, where you if you don't have an exemption, you have to hit those work requirements is December.

You got to work 80 hours a week.

December, January, February.

You have to do you get excuse me, you get a pass, if you will, for three months.

You're eligible to continue snap for three months.

>> It's 80 hours a month, right?

>> 80 hours a month.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

80 hours a month, 20 hours a week.

three months.

If you do not meet those work requirements, you are no longer eligible for Snap for the following three three years.

So March 1st is when we could see a fallout.

If folks are unaware of these new requirements and are not hitting that requirement or not screened to ensure that they have an exemption.

>> If the government shutdown were not a we're not on the table right now, we would not be talking about people losing their Snap benefits in the month of November.

They'd be getting letters that would be saying, hey, if you don't do X, Y or Z, you'll be out of compliance and therefore you might lose benefits.

But to Julia's point, that's about a three month window.

I want to I want to direct everyone in particular.

I want to give a tip of the cap to the folks at Monroe County.

DHS Monroe county.gov backslash bod changes.

Abbott is a b able bodied adults without dependents.

That is the term that the USDA uses a b, a d is the term that you'll hear talked about a lot.

So Monroe County government a Bod changes is a place to go for all this information.

Not every county has put out a website like that.

So it's really important.

And if you don't live in Monroe County, you can use that website and get the same information because it's true across the board.

Regardless.

So to be super crystal clear, you may have lost your waiver for a work requirement and you may have another one.

So the first step is screen yourself.

If in fact you still have a work requirement.

We are trying to work collectively on a place that people can go and find community service opportunities to maintain their benefits.

Although 80 hours sounds like a lot, it's actually for many people it will be significantly less than that because it's actually divided by the minimum wage.

And since our minimum wage is higher than other places, it may only be 13 14 hours of community service for someone to keep their benefits.

We're going to roll that stuff out.

But even though I say all this stuff with with some degree of certainty, no one's no one's thinking about this.

Amid the government shutdown.

And so I think in some ways, we have to kind of get through the crisis of the day and begin to go out and make sure we're re messaging this over and over, over again and making sure that food pantries like Debbie's have all the information so that people can see in writing what it means.

>> Well, Debbie, Jim in Rochester emailed this morning to ask if new Snap application requirements are coming.

Is there anything we as volunteers in Food Cupboard programs can do to translate those to our clients or otherwise help them navigate the new process?

>> Well, one of the things that we want to do, as Mitch was just talking about, is we want to get that information to all of our clients that come to us.

So we'll be looking for fliers and information packets as well to be able to share with them.

I don't know if we would have our volunteers do that, because I want to make sure that the clients are getting the exact information and feeling the time, the timeliness of it as well.

So is I would love to have volunteers work at the pantry, but I personally would not have them do that information unless it's something down the road, because I think that it's just too new for all of us to spread out, to have that kind of responsibility.

>> Okay.

anything to add here just in terms of Mitch?

I mean, Jim's wondering about making sure if he's with a food cupboard program.

I think I take Debbie's point.

You can't make the volunteers do everything.

There has to be a better infrastructure.

>> No, but the the more universally informed we all are, the better.

>> Okay.

>> Good point.

Yeah.

In particular, when it comes to these these work exemptions.

And, you know, we talked about this last time, but unfortunately, despite the fact that many of our Republican Congress members talk about the fact that they support veterans, the veteran work exemption, the veteran exemption for work requirements is one thing that went away as of the the bill that was passed in July.

So now, if you're a veteran who used to rely on that exemption to be able to receive Snap benefits, you might get a letter in the mail and say you're no longer exempt.

Go put in X number of hours.

But it may be that you're a caretaker for someone, or it may be that you have some other thing that allows you to be exempted.

Everyone.

Everyone from Debbie's volunteers to the caller, to the person who works in the library and the rec center needs to know how to use a tool to to rescreen people.

And thank goodness, with the help of Together Now and many of the folks around the Rochester community, we have some really good tools for people to use.

Again, they're all going to be centered there on that website.

at Monroe County.

Snap Abbott changes.

I encourage people to go there.

>> We'll put a link to that site in our show notes if you want to find it and share it with whoever needs to see it.

Let me work through some other feedback here.

Patrick is talking about small business owners, bodegas, small urban grocery stores.

He says, you know, imagine now you've lost 5000, if not more dollars per month.

I mean, he says, there's going to be an economic ripple effect that we're not just thinking about.

We're not thinking enough about even small businesses.

When it comes to the impact of food stamps, is do you think he's right?

>> Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you're going to feel that the most in rural areas, which in many cases and certainly in our region are represented by Republicans, you know, going back to your question, I think our our elected officials are going to feel this.

Their constituents are going to feel it.

But you have a small independent grocery store in a rural area, probably your first move is going to lay off folks.

So you've got more folks than lining up at food pantries, and then you're going to reduce your stock, and it's going to be something that impacts, again, not just people who received Snap, but everyone in the community.

That's that's certainly true of corner stores.

But it's also true of our bigger grocers, too, who go through millions of dollars of Snap transactions every single month.

will will see a hit.

>> And probably billions in the case of Walmart.

I mean, there's no there's no retailer who makes more money off of snap benefits than Walmart, which is also part of the reason why I'm sure that when President Trump was asked this morning he said, we'll get it done because I'm certain that some, some of the bigger business interests are also beginning to say something.

And also, when I talked before about the concern about about theft of stores, the number of people who have called me and asked me questions about rumors related to Walmart and what's going to happen on November 1st.

It's pretty interesting.

There is a lot of conversation happening right now.

I shudder to think of the kind of narratives happening in the world of social media.

But again, as I tell everyone, when people are desperate, rumors circulate.

Desperation ensues.

And so someone's got to get done in the next two days.

>> mm-hmm.

Hans writes in to say, Evan, do you or the other panelists consider it odd that the United States is experiencing a surplus of agricultural products due to soybean boycotts, bumper crops, et cetera., while at the same time not being able to provide necessary funds to programs like Snap.

The soybean thing is more related to the tariffs, as I understand it.

So you have a quarter of the American soybean market goes to China.

This is from the soybean farmers of America.

They've been all over the place, literally Kentucky, North Dakota, talking about this.

A lot of a lot of the president's sort of biggest supporters in that community.

But saying to The White House for the last several months, we're losing a quarter of our market.

And the president came out a few weeks ago and said, we're going to bail out the soybean farmers.

So they're going to grow soybeans.

They're not going to have a market for them.

Brazil is actually going to get that business from China, but we'll pay those farmers with money.

The president says from the tariffs that have been collected.

So we're doing tariffs raising money, The White House says.

And we're just going to give it to farmers, not to actually sell the soybeans.

And so I think that's what's going on with soybeans.

You can decide if you think that's an efficient way of doing things.

Bumper crops I don't know.

So anything stand out from Hans?

He's seeing a disconnect to snap benefits versus food production.

>> Yeah, there's a huge disconnect.

I mean, we have a we have an agricultural economy that could feed everyone very easily in this country.

But there's a lot of steps in between the distribution channels, packaging, processing retail.

All that makes it incredibly difficult and challenging.

You factor in food waste and the amount of food waste we have in this country.

There's lots of things that we can try to figure out how to solve long term.

But again, one of the beauties of the Snap program is how simple it is.

You put money in people's pockets and let them go buy it at the store and let it be on a card.

You know, it's not called food stamps anymore because it's not stamps.

It's people have a credit card, an EBT card, not a debit card.

Essentially, that functions in the same way a debit card does.

It's easy, it's simple, and it works.

And there's no reason for us to not just focus on that.

>> I will add separate from soybeans.

There is a process to a mechanism for that agricultural abundance in the U.S.

to be distributed through food banks.

That's USDA commodities program.

Tefap which is also on pause right now.

So so the U.S.

government for decades has been able to pay farmers, pay American growers, buy up their surplus and redistribute it to school districts and food banks will get what was ordered prior to the shutdown.

but we can place no, no new orders as long as the government's shut down.

So it's also another bottleneck in some of our our food access right now.

>> All right.

this from a listener who says regarding waste, fraud and abuse, couldn't snap narrow its eligibility for products to something similar to what Wick does.

I wonder if that would quell conservatives in Congress.

>> The trade off would be far more administrative.

I mean, you'd spend more money on administration and less money on actually getting people food.

So again, the fraud rate for Snap is under 1%.

the cost of Snap for our federal budget is one, and it's 1.5% of the budget.

It benefits 13% of our population.

there's there's no world in which even narrowing, you know, choice and dignity of choice for clients and Snap recipients.

has a positive trade off.

>> Mike in Penfield says your guests keep talking about Americans who have jobs and are still on food stamps.

If you have children and you have a job and you still can't buy enough food for your children, shouldn't you get a second job?

It's from Mike and Penfield.

>> Thanks for the compassion, Mike.

>> Enough said on that.

>> I mean, look, snap is an income qualified program.

It's not.

People aren't going to apply for Snap benefits with an arbitrary amount of money and getting it because they only have one job.

They're going and saying, I make x number.

I make under X number of dollars, it's vetted, it's verified, and if you make X number of dollars, the government supports your ability to buy food at local businesses.

It's really hard to imagine that someone that that the argument for this is go find additional work by itself.

Go find additional work as a fine response to that.

But also we can have a government safety net.

>> Also, while that the that the question isn't shouldn't the employers be paying more money to to the workers.

Right.

You work 40 hours a week, you should be able to feed your family.

But we know that minimum wage does not match living wage.

>> Also to that we do have people that work more than one job to be able to try to put food on their tables.

And with that second job, that's also then a disconnect to their family.

They're spending less time with their children.

They can't meet with teachers.

And then that creates all different kind of issues as well.

>> And then we judge them.

Right, right, right.

>> Do you think you mentioned compassion?

You think we a compassion deficit right now?

>> Certainly.

Undeniably.

So but hopefully, I mean, if there's one positive, positive thing that comes out of these types of crises is that I think people are more inclined to try to work together and collaborate to find solutions.

I will share, though, that a lot of a lot of the questions that have come in from the audience on this show have been, you know, about how much money someone makes or should we limit the types of products that they should get or some other version of kind of further qualifying the program?

Again, I can't stress enough the importance of the simplicity of this program.

You income qualify someone.

You make sure they're making under a certain amount of money based on how many people are in the household, and you give them a card that is populated to only purchase food only at qualifying vendors, all of whom happen to be local.

It's simple.

We don't need to overcomplicate the program, and one of the reasons why you're starting to see a bunch of scrambling at the federal level, even by people who voted to to cut eligibility requirements earlier this year, is because they know that, frankly, the revolution starts at the dinner table and you don't want people to be hungry in this country.

We don't need to make folks jump through a million hoops.

We have a wealthy enough country to have a simple social safety net.

That's what it is.

>> So as we get ready to close here, I told Debbie I would ask you for your.

Okay, you can give us the top five, top ten.

Well, the caveat applies here.

If you can give to Debbie, if you can give to the Foodlink to the world, if you can give to anyone who is providing a temporary solution for possible snap freeze on Saturday, I think that is a beautiful thing.

but we're talking about 42 million Americans and there's probably no amount of philanthropy that's going to cover that.

I mean, we're almost certain that there's not.

So understand your your doing your part and understand that bigger solutions are probably required to solve this.

And, you know, maybe, maybe in the next three days we'll report on that.

But for now, Debbie, what's on the list of the biggest needs for you?

>> I would definitely say protein items tuna, chicken, salmon, peanut butter soups.

I said also canned meals, tuna.

the the ham meals like spam hash, chili, pasta, meals for kids.

jelly pasta sauce, all of that.

And then you have to also take into account taxable items which are not covered by snap.

They will be spending more money on food that they make, so they won't have money for things like toilet paper, deodorant, toothpaste.

And so we always include that in our top ten list as well.

>> I imagine your your food cupboard partners across towns across counties probably agree with your list.

Is there something that people like to donate that you go, this is not all that helpful.

Even though people think it's helpful.

>> Really old stuff that they never use anymore.

Things like artichokes from seven years ago.

>> Oh boy.

>> Yeah, donating doesn't mean cleaning out your the back of your cupboard.

>> Thank you.

And going super expired.

Okay.

>> And I'll also add for Debbie there that she can use money all the whole emergency food network can stretch food dollars and know what their clients need.

So, so if food is what's available and most comfortable, donate food.

But we can make funds go a long way.

>> And people can.

>> Contribute directly to.

>> Foodlink.

>> Foodlink and Wxxi.org.

When you go to that website, you'll see a pop up there, see how you can donate, how we can stretch your food dollars, how you can run a food drive or fund drive.

>> And how you can find your local food pantry to connect with them as well.

>> I hope we provide and I know we have.

Our guests have provided a ton of great information.

It's not an easy moment.

but we'll be back very, very soon.

To give you an update on sort of which fork in the road it takes.

But in the meantime, I want to thank our guests for sharing with you and Debbie Evans.

Thanks for the work you're doing with your Irondequoit Community Cupboard.

Thanks for coming in here.

>> Thank you.

Thank you for having.

>> Me and.

>> Thank you.

>> Mitch Gruber Senior Vice President and Chief Impact Officer at Foodlink, also a member of Rochester City Council.

Thank you for making time.

Thanks from all of us at Connections.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for finding us on the various platforms.

And we're back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

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