The Schenectady Food Council has three legislative priorities this year: raising the minimum SNAP benefits in the state, funding statewide hunger relief programs like the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program, and making it easier for institutions like schools and hospitals to purchase food products locally.
The federal minimum of SNAP benefits that a single-person household can qualify for is $23 a month, which advocates say does not adequately address the needs of those who are food insecure. The Schenectady Food Council is calling on the state legislature and the governor to raise the minimum to $100 through a $100 million investment from the state.
Reverend Dustin Longmire, a member of the Schenectady Food Council and interim board chair of the Rotterdam Community Center that manages three food pantries, said the federal government’s refusal to release SNAP benefits during the government shutdown last month only further exacerbated existing issues with the program.
“Even before that funding lapse, I had food pantry guests who were saying they were getting texts to verify their work, employment, and so on and so forth," he said. "And then, because there wasn't funding, they still weren't getting their benefits, we treated our neighbors horribly, and the go through that much paperwork just to perhaps be funded only $23 a month, like what? For many of our food pantry guests, there's no point in accessing that.”
111th District Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara said that making these bills part of the governor’s executive budget would set the tone for the legislative session.
“If the governor's budget has these priorities in that's a really good sign," he said. "If they're not there or they're underfunded, that's not so good of a sign. That means that the legislature now has to fight and push to get those things funded. So I'm hoping that this becomes a priority in our state of the state in that executive budget, so that we can see there is support for this coming out of the governor's office.”
During a press conference Monday, Hochul told WAMC she was uncertain as to what the state’s response to federally-funded assistance programs would be in the executive budget.
“I don't have the answer now on what that's going to look like, but certainly, you know this last year has been very complicated in terms of how we can foresee what our expenses are going to be," she said. "You know, what's happening with health care? What's happening with Medicaid? You know, where are the shortfalls? How are we going to manage this?”
Another priority of the council is the Good Food New York Bill, which would allow institutions like schools and hospitals to purchase food from local farms, which Longmire said would make it easier for institutions to access produce, and could boost local economies.
“With the current rules in place, a school district might need to buy apples from all the way across the country, where there's plenty of orchards right here, right? And so it'll prioritize the purchasing of local food in our food system,” he said.
Aldo Juarez-Romero, Acting Director of the Sycamore Collaborative, one of the largest food pantries in Schenectady, said the SNAP benefits stoppage led to an even further burden on the pantry, during which time they served almost 170 families each day.
However, Juarez-Romero said that the volume of people who are relying on food pantries has increased overall in the past several years.
“I joined the organization about three years ago, and over the last three years, we have seen somewhere between 15 to 20% increase in service levels year over year," he said. "And just to paint a picture, when I came on board, it was about 500,000 meals that we had distributed on that year, that fiscal year, this fiscal year that just ended in July, we reached 1 million meals.”
Jacqueline Clute, executive director of the St. Luke’s Daily Bread Food Pantry, said that the people who rely on food pantries also include immigrants or newer citizens who do not qualify for benefits.
“We see a lot of older senior citizens that probably immigrated long ago, a lot of them from Guyana," she said. "They're citizens, but they never got to earn enough points for Social Security, so they have nothing. So they tend to live in multi-generational families with their children, their children's children, and sometimes their children. And they all pool what little they have together.”
Juarez-Romero emphasized that food insecurity is a universal issue, and could impact anyone at any time, which is why food pantries seek to serve as many people as possible.
“When it comes to food insecurity, no one is safe," he said. "Families that may appear to be comfortably living, they're struggling with food insecurity, and we try to create a space in which everyone is welcome.”
