Virginia leaders urge contingency funding for SNAP come November

With a halt to federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Project benefits looming at the start of November following the Oct establishment shutdown Virginia s state and local leaders are demanding new revenue streams for the campaign The U S Department of Agriculture sent a letter earlier this month to all regional and state agency directors for the initiative commonly known as SNAP or food stamps informing them that approximately million Americans nationwide would lose their SNAP benefits next month According to the department that includes about Virginians or about of the commonwealth s population over of whom are children and over of whom are adults under with disabilities In a news conference this week Democratic state and congressional lawmakers as well as local anti-hunger groups including the Federation of Virginia Food Banks and Voices for Virginia s Children advocated for the use of department contingency funds to pay for SNAP By tapping into its contingency funds the department could cover about billion of the billion nationwide November benefits total Yes to particular people s surprise even Gainesville Bristow and Haymarket we have very real hunger demands announced state Sen Danica Roem who represents parts of western Prince William and Manassas and Manassas Park This is why the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry exists that far west in the first place U S Sens Mark Warner and Tim Kaine signed on to a letter alongside fellow Senate Democrats to U S Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins calling for continued funding of food-assistance programs We were deeply disturbed to hear that the USDA has instructed states to stop processing SNAP benefits for November and were surprised by your latest comments that the operation will run out of money in two weeks the senators letter read In fact the USDA has several tools available which would enable SNAP benefits to be paid through or close to the end of November The letter continued First the USDA must at a minimum under the law use the contingency funding that is available for SNAP as noted by USDA authorities Second the USDA has interchange authority under U S C that permits the transfer of funds from other USDA nutrition programs Virginia Gov Glenn Youngkin on Thursday declared a state of emergency to combat SNAP-induced hunger across the commonwealth and lamented the negative byproducts of the Democrat shutdown This is an extraordinary action and is only necessary because of the shamelessness of Congressional Democrats including every Democrat in our entire delegation- who refuse to pass a clean continuing resolution to open the Federal governing body Youngkin reported in a news release I once again call on Senator Mark Warner and Senator Tim Kaine to end this nonsense and vote to pass a clean continuing resolution Residents in the Prince William area are encouraged to dial or visit the website for further SNAP information Source