'Our real fear is that people just don't eat:' Proposed cuts to SNAP could impact county residents

As Congress debates potential cuts to food benefits for citizens, Lorain County's sole food bank braces for the worst. In March, the Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio lost more than 148,000 pounds of food scheduled for deliveries this summer through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corp. Now, it awaits a potential cut for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), benefits and a subsequent rise in need. "There isn't another source of funding," Second Harvest Food Bank President/CEO Julie Chase-Morefield said. "Food banks can't make up the difference, philanthropy can't make up the difference — there's been too many cuts to federal grants, too many cuts to so many different things that without SNAP … there just isn't anything else. Our real fear is that people just don't eat." SNAP provides food benefits to low-income families, allowing recipients to purchase food from grocery stores as a supplement to their own food budgets. The program, formerly known as food stamps, has been in place since 2008; but the U.S. has had some form of food assistance in place since the late 1930s. House Resolution 1, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, looks to change work requirements and waivers for SNAP recipients and shifts more program costs to states. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the legislation, if passed, would see the greatest negative impact on the lowest income households through cuts to cash transfers like SNAP, social security benefits, temporary assistance for needy families and other assistance programs. The proposed legislation restricts updates to the model used to calculate SNAP benefits and changes work requirements and waivers. Currently, able-bodied adults ages 18 to 54 who do not have children are required to work, volunteer or participate in training programs for at elast 80 hours per month to receive benefits, but HR1 would expand work requirements up to 64 years old, and require parents with school-age children to work. The bill would cut about $295 billion in federal spending from SNAP over the next decade, with about half of those cuts coming from shifting costs to states and another third from expanding work requirements which would force some people off the benefit rolls. The Center for Community Solutions estimated the shift in program costs from entirely federally funded to a split with the states could cost the Buckeye State anywhere from $160 million to $800 million. The wide breadth is because the potential cost sharing is based on the error percentage of the state administration of the program — the higher the error rate, the more states would have to pay. "We've all just gone through the state budget process and that money just doesn't exist in the state in order to do that," Chase-Morefield said. "That is going to mean that you're going to see benefits reduced — there's no way that's not going to happen." Elyria resident Donna Woody receives SNAP benefits for her and her daughter, a recent high school graduate. Combined, the pair receives about $350 per month, she said. While that may sound like a lot, she said, it does not go far to feed the two of them. Woody is disabled and unable to work. She receives disability benefits, but those are not much, she said, and her family often relies on Second Harvest Food Bank and its mobile pantries to get meat, vegetables and other items. If Woody's benefits are cut, her daughter will have to get a job rather than attend Baldwin Wallace University in the fall. "It's trickling down," Woody said of the proposed bill and its sweeping cuts. "It starts with one and goes to another and another — it's not just one person, it's all of us. It's not just for the rich or the middle class or the poor, it's all of us. It hits us all in different directions." On average, eligible Ohio families receive about $187 per month in food benefits, Kimberly Hazelgrove, Second Harvest advocacy coordinator, said. The USDA estimates about 1.4 million Ohioans receive SNAP benefits, including about 34,000 individuals in Lorain County. "We're not talking about a ton of money that's helping them to supplement a grocery budget, depending on who they are" Hazelgrove said. "A senior who is living alone who doesn't have a lot of income, unfortunately that's the reality. And then the children on top of that within these families." While potential cuts would be devastating to individual families, they could cause a ripple effect on local economies, Chase-Morefield and Hazelgrove said. The Center for Community Solutions estimated of the more than $77 million Lorain County residents receive each year in SNAP benefits, they garner more than $119 million in economic impact. Beyond taking away food from senior citizens, children and disabled individuals, the sweeping cuts would impact the $3.2 billion spent by SNAP recipients in Ohio grocery stores, Hazelgrove said. "The program was designed to be a stabilizer in the economy, especially in times when people didn't have as much spending power and they still needed access to food," Hazelgrove said. "And the grocery stores are where they're getting that food." Without SNAP supplementing families' food budgets, Hazelgrove said it may not just be those families on benefit rolls going without. She and Chase-Morefield expect smaller, locally owned grocery stores may be hit the hardest. "It's going to be the whole economy that's going to be impacted," she said. "On top of that, it's going to be our agricultural partners who are supplying the produce to the grocery stores and the farmers' markets during the summer — it's going to take a whole slice out of their business model as well." Similarly, if families with children are required to work or risk losing food benefits, those same families may see an increased cost in childcare or leave younger children at home unattended. If sweeping cuts to benefits like SNAP or other cash assistance programs come to fruition, Chase-Morefield suspects Second Harvest would see another increase in attendance at its distributions. The Feeding American Network, which represents about a dozen food banks across the country, estimated the projected cuts to SNAP would be comparable to about 9 billion meals. The food banks' current supplies could only handle about 6 million meals nationwide. "We don't even meet that many meals to begin with," Chase-Morefield said. "This would be an unattainable goal that we would be distributing twice as much food as we currently distribute … And we're already meeting incredible need with less food." Hazelgrove added Second Harvest and its sister food banks are already facing federal and state budget cuts back to their 2019, pre-pandemic levels. Fund stretched farther six years ago, Chase-Morefield said. Second Harvest staff suggested federal legislators look to Ohio's benefit regulations, which balance encouraging individuals to work without dropping them off a benefit cliff. Ohio's model allows benefit recipients to maintain some SNAP benefit until their income is at 200 percent of the federal poverty level — considered a more economically stable level than the 130 percent FPL guideline many other states use. "It's a very positive model that keeps people moving toward achieving more at work, doing more, being not part of the SNAP program," Chase-Morefield said. "What we know from SNAP is the families who are receiving it are more food secure. If you are above that threshold … that group that's just above is really the most food insecure because they don't have that extra stabilizing force of SNAP, especially for families with kids." In a statement to The Chronicle-Telegram, Sen. Jon Husted, R-Upper Arlington, referenced his own SNAP-centric bill, which looks to limit what food the benefits are spent on. Introduced in April, Husted's legislation would exclude soft drinks, candy, ice cream and prepared desserts from eligible SNAP benefits. "To protect SNAP and encourage a nutritional diet, I am working to promote healthy food options and end abuses to the program that result in wasting taxpayer dollars," Husted said. "One of the smartest ways to do that is to direct government funding toward healthy foods rather than using it to buy soda and other junk food." U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Westlake, and Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, did not respond to a request for comment. President Trump wants lawmakers to send HR 1 to his desk by July 4. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com