Half of all households in West Virginia using SNAP include an elderly person. The delay in SNAP benefits — due to the federal government shutdown — is likely to push more seniors to food pantries and senior centers for help.
By: Amelia Ferrell Knisely and Lori Kersey for West Virginia Watch, www.westvirginiawatch.com
When Casey Russell visited her Clarksburg food pantry on Tuesday, items were already becoming scarce. She didn’t receive the normal amount of food, like fresh meat and canned goods, she relies to help feed three grandchildren and one great-grandchild who she raises full time.
She also depends on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, but that money for food won’t come late this month due to the federal government shut down.
“I’m very scared,” said Russell, 55, who adopted the four children in 2021. “I’m just going to try to go to different food pantries if I can. It’s hard for me because I don’t drive, so I have to find a ride. I just may not be able to pay some bills because of it to buy food, you know?”
About 270,000 — or one in six — West Virginia residents use SNAP benefits, including people 60 and older who qualify for the federal food stamp program.
Half of all SNAP households in the state have a disabled or elderly member — a higher rate than the national average.
“I think it’s going to greatly affect quite a few of our seniors,” said Beth Fitzgerald, executive director of the Harrison County Senior Center.
The West Virginia Department of Human Services posted on social media that delays in issuing SNAP benefits for October should be expected.
Asked whether the state could foot the bill to cover SNAP benefits, Drew Galang, spokesperson for Gov. Patrick Morrisey, said that West Virginia and other states do not have the money to shoulder the costs of the federal program. He blamed Senate Democrats for the “Schumer shutdown.”
“The solution is simple: Senate Democrats can vote to pass a clean [continuing resolution] — the same one they voted to pass 13 times under Joe Biden — at any time to reopen the government and prevent further delays to SNAP benefits,” Galang wrote in an email.
He went on to encourage residents to use Family Resource Network centers and food pantries and to contact their caseworker for help finding resources. On Thursday, Morrisey said he’d expedite money to food pantries that was previously appropriated by the Legislature earlier this year. No new state money has been granted for pantries at this time.
In Harrison County, Fitzgerald said that increased food prices have affected the senior center’s ability to keep its food pantry shelves full. Seniors rely on the pantry and its food boxes, she said, because SNAP already doesn’t cover their monthly food needs.
“We’re probably going to see an increase in people coming to the pantry for food,” Fitzgerald said. “I don’t know if we can meet the need.”
Many grandparents in West Virginia are raising their grandkids
West Virginia has a large number of grandparents raising grandchildren; it’s largely due to the state’s drug epidemic.
More than 100,000 SNAP recipients in West Virginia are children.
- Sergent, 58, has legal custody of two grandchildren who are 2 and 15 years old. The children receive SNAP benefits.
“I don’t know how I’m going to feed my family,” she said. “Because we already struggle, and this is going to make it worse. All of the Senate and all of these people in Washington are not understanding.”
Hanna Thurman is executive director of the Healthy Grandfamilies program, a free program housed at West Virginia State University that provides information and resources to grandparents raising grandchildren. The organization doesn’t collect information about who is using SNAP.
“Grandparents are already on a fixed income and face food insecurity often,” Thurman said. “This just makes it all the more difficult to make the choices that they’re having to make between food and medicine and utilities.”
She also noted that many grandparents they work with don’t have cars to access in-person food pickups.
Bobbi Holland, a board member for Meals on Wheels Inc. of Charleston, said the organization serves about 50 people in the city, and is at capacity. She expects she may get calls from people because of the delay in SNAP benefits, but the organization can’t take on many more individuals.
“We would love to do more but we are struggling to get volunteers,” Holland said. “We’ve been going over 50 years, but it’s getting harder and harder.”
SNAP benefits delay likely to continue into November
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, said Thursday that she doesn’t think the government shutdown will end by the Nov. 1 deadline.
The delay in SNAP benefits is very likely to stretch into next month, according to Department of Human Services.
Capito told MetroNews earlier this week that Republicans are willing to negotiate with Democrats over health insurance premiums, but that not while the government is “held hostage.” Democrats want “guaranteed results” that are an unreasonable ask, she said.
She added that people no longer getting SNAP and other federal benefits may be the “pressure point” needed to open the government.
“It’s sad in a way it has to come to that point but in a way we’ve got to have something that’s going to pop the bubble, and so this could be it,” Capito said.
At issue are subsidies that help thousands of West Virginians afford health insurance that would expire at the end of the year unless Congress extends them.
Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans vote with them to extend the tax credits that American use to purchase health care.
According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, the 67,000 West Virginians who buy insurance through the marketplace would see their premiums increase by an average of 133% or $1,400 annually if the subsidies are not extended. About 15,000 West Virginians would lose their health care because they can no longer afford it, according to the Center on Budget and Policy.
The McDowell County Commission on Aging, which serves seniors in the state’s poorest county, is preparing for possible increased need due to the SNAP benefits delay, according to executive director Donald Reed.
They’d already seen an increase lately in seniors eating at the center due to the grocery prices, he said. The center provides a free hot meal to more than 200 seniors on weekdays.
“If those benefits don’t hit, we are prepared to feed those additional people who show up,” Reed said.
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.