A Missouri anti-poverty advocacy group says some families are already struggling to keep their food assistance benefits.
Lucas Caldwell McMillan with Empower Missouri says concerns are growing as new SNAP verification requirements are set to take effect October 1st.
“Missed meals, stressed on family budgets at a time when utilities, electric bills, gas, all these other costs are rising," McMillan says. "Over 40,000 folks have lost SNAP in Missouri because of some of the extra paperwork and hoops people have to jump through.”
McMillan questions whether the state's food assistance system has enough resources to process the added documentation without delays.
“We have big concerns about that, which is the staffing level, because bottom line is these are things that need to be processed by caseworkers," McMillan explains. "These are questions that need to be answered by DSS staff and we have big concerns because they're already really stressed by the current requirements.”
McMillan says he's not convinced the additional paperwork will achieve that goal.
“Every time you add more of those steps, you're making one, more chances for them to make a mistake in entering it, and two, just putting a higher burden in workload," McMillan says. "So, they're going to be rushing through and overwhelmed by all these extra changes that are new to them.”
The new requirements take effect October 1st and will require applicants to provide documentation for expenses such as rent, mortgage payments, utility bills, childcare costs and certain bank account resources.
Missourinet