INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Hunger relief advocates on Wednesday said they’re already seeing more working families at food pantries even without changes to food stamp eligibility.

David Bethuram, executive director of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis’ Catholic Charities branch, said the archdiocese’s food pantry on Illinois Street has seen a roughly 40% increase in foot traffic in the past 18 months. About 50 families use the pantry every day. Bethuram said many of the people who use the pantry already use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, but use the pantry so they can stretch their benefits.

“A lot of times, their benefits, they can only use them for so many different types of things and then we can also provide them with household items like if they need diapers or other items like that,” Bethuram said.

Changes to SNAP eligibility requirements have become a major flashpoint in the negotiations over the federal budget bill in Congress. Current law requires 20 hours per week of work or volunteering for able-bodied adults ages 18-54 who do not have dependent children. The proposed budget bill would expand those requirements to cover adults ages 55-64 and to parents of children ages 7-18. In addition, states would have to pick up 75% of the administrative costs of the program, up from the current 50%.

The proposal comes at a time when food insecurity is increasing in central Indiana. In its most recent report, released early last year, the Indy Hunger Network found the absolute number of meals missed in Marion County had more than doubled since 2021. SNAP covered 63% of all food assistance, while food banks covered 20% of the need. According to Feeding America, nearly 16% of all Marion County residents are food insecure, and nearly half of those people are eligible for SNAP benefits.

Indy Hunger Network Advocacy Director Mark Lynch said the average family is only able to use SNAP for about 2-3 weeks before their benefits for the month run out. He said even before the COVID-19 pandemic, food pantries were seeing more and more working families at their doors as opposed to people who were either unemployed or underemployed.

“As inflation has happened and then COVID happened, we’ve seen more and more working families forming those lines,” he said. “So you actually have people who are not only working one, sometimes two, sometimes more, sometimes three jobs or working and helping out another family member, they’re also receiving SNAP or they’re receiving WIC benefits if they have young people at home and they’re still not making ends meet even with all those sources of revenue.”

Gleaners recently estimated the proposed changes to SNAP would impact about 610,000 people in Indiana and lead to a loss of 133 million meals, which exceeds the 108 million meals Indiana food banks provided last year.

Hunger relief programs, such as SNAP, are administered by the USDA. As a result, the proposed changes to the program went through the House Agriculture Committee, of which Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind., is a member. Baird praised the proposed changes in a statement after they cleared his committee last week.

“These reforms simply do not leave children, the elderly, veterans, or other Americans in need without a lifeline or access to nutrition. Instead, this bill prevents non-citizens, except green card holders, from receiving federal SNAP benefits, closes loopholes in work requirement waivers, corrects the Biden Administration’s overreach, roots out fraud, and creates incentives for Americans to find opportunities that lift them out of poverty.”
Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind.

During a marathon House Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning, House Republicans said the SNAP program’s costs have risen by more than 80%. They said their goal is to ensure the program’s dollars go to people who truly need them. Lynch and Bethuram both said in their experience, fraud is rare. Lynch said the real culprit in most SNAP fraud cases is inadequate security for SNAP purchase cards. He said cybersecurity improvements and fully implementing chip cards would be a better investment.

“Do we think that there are folks out there who are gaming the system? Absolutely, but that number is miniscule,” Lynch said.

Lynch and Bethuram said work requirements are harder to meet than they sound because people who are food insecure often face numerous other challenges. Lynch said caring for one’s child is not counted toward work hours, nor is attending college.

“They have so many other things going on in their lives that they are working with,” Bethuram said. They’re having difficulty with shelter, they’re having difficulty with daycare and so forth, so to volunteer somewhere or to work is going to be a problem.”

Bethuram said if the SNAP changes go through as currently proposed, he expects his food pantry will see still more people. He said he would have to find more volunteers as well as more sources for donations. Bethuram said Gleaners provides a large portion of the food Catholic Charities carries in its pantry and Gleaners likely would be at capacity under that scenario.

Lynch said anyone experiencing food insecurity should start planning ahead now in case the SNAP eligibility changes go through. He said families should use Community Compass to familiarize themselves with food pantries and other resources in their neighborhoods. Community Compass is a joint project of Indy Hunger Network, the city of Indianapolis, and the Indiana Department of Health.

The budget bill is far from a done deal. Once it clears the House, it would have to go to the Senate, where further changes are likely. That would require negotiations between the two chambers to hammer out the differences between each version.

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