In a room half-full of people, Linda Stone held up a piece of paper and circled two numbers to illustrate the bad news. The paper was a letter from the state, one that some of Spokane’s Marshallese had already received. It told them that, starting in July, the state Food Assistance Program benefits would be cut in half. Where a person used to get $112, now they’ll get $56, says Stone, food policy director of the Children’s Alliance.
“It’s not exactly a hefty benefit to begin with,” Stone says. “Like everybody else, times are tough.”
Spokane has become a refuge for an estimated 2,000 Marshall Islands immigrants, whose homes were irradiated by nuclear testing. And with jobs scare or low-paying, many rely on the state program to pay for groceries.
“Their income is very low,” says Erme Atlaia, a Marshallese immigrant who works as a translator in local schools. “Half of the population is not working.”
People from the Marshall Islands are governed by an arrangement between the U.S. and their country that allows them to live and work in the U.S. generally without a visa. But under changes to welfare laws that happened in the late 1990s, Marshallese immigrants can’t receive federal food stamps, says Babs Roberts, director of the Community Services Division in the Department of Health and Human Services.
The state came up with the food program in order to provide some cushion not just for the Marshallese, but also other groups who haven’t been in the country long enough to qualify for food stamps, Roberts says. The benefit is calculated based on income and, before the cut, maxed out at $200.
“That’s the difficulty for all of us in the recession [in] taking this resource away. This is the resource the department had to help families living in poverty,” Roberts says. “We have no other resources.”
The move will save the state $31 million. The slash to the food stipend was regarded by some of the Marshallese at a meeting in the East Central Community Center last week as another slight by a country that had already poisoned their home islands with nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s.
“The way I see it, it’s not fair, but there’s a lot of things the U.S. government has done to our people,” says David Sandbergen, a Marshallese immigrant who arrived in the country a month ago. While he doesn’t receive food assistance, many of his children and grandchildren do.
“The U.S. government was using us as guinea pigs. And now the guinea pigs have no food.”
Community leaders at the meeting talked of lobbying their state lawmakers to reverse the cuts. Whether the Legislature will have the money to do that remains to be seen.
It is a shame that the budget cuts fall on the very vulnerable, just as they did when in the dark of a frigidly cold February 2011 the state of Washington cut 5000 families with 10,000 children entirely off cash assistance with little notice and, to be honest, little resistance from politicians. But I think it is important to have this current situation more clearly explained for the sake of being able to argue and discuss it properly.
Just a few clarifications about the article. I will be referring to the EAZ manual of DSHS, one of the publicly available manuals used by DSHS Financial Service Specialists (what people usually either call "my caseworker" or "my financial worker"). Just type into google: EAZ manual DSHS to find the manual.
(And just as an aside by way of clarification, unless a person is on TANF cash for families and pregnant women in which case they will have an assigned WorkFirst Program Specialist and perhaps also an assigned social worker or unless they have a disability social worker with the ABD (Aged, Blind and Disabled program, formerly GAU) or a few other ´specialized" kinds of cases, no one has a "caseworker" anymore. The pendulum has swung completely the other way and virtually any financial worker can work on virtually any case from anywhere in the state.)
1) The federal food stamp program is called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The state of Washington program created for people that don´t qualify for SNAP but meet requirements for state food assistance is called FAP (Food Assistance Program). FAP is what the Marshalese are getting. This "person" referred to in the article - and I assume that means exactly what it says, i.e., one person - getting $112/month is getting less than the one person maximum grant of $200/month because apparently they have some income. A person with no income from any source would get $200/mo. As of July 1, 2012, that person now getting $112/month under FAP will get $56/month. The person with no income will get $100/month under FAP, instead of the current $200/month. This is the EAZ manual section on FAP with a very thorough description. http://www.dshs.wa.gov/manuals/eaz/sections/FAP.shtml
2) The SNAP program and the FAP program both have income standards that determine the amount of food benefits depending on the size of a household. As the EAZ manual shows, a family of 7 with no income or little income (depending on deductions for rent, etc) could receiving a maximum SNAP food benefit of $1052/month. http://www.dshs.wa.gov/manuals/WAC/388-478-0060.shtml That same family of 7, were they Marshallese or another group eligible only for FAP, will qualify for $528/month as of July 2012.
This change is certainly a hardship. The originally announced decision was to completely eliminate FAP due to budget problems. Subsequently it was announced - as I recall and understand it - that funds were located to reinstate FAP at a lesser benefit level, i.e., 50% of the federal SNAP benefit level.
So the Marshallese only qualify for FAP and as of July 1 it is FAP at a 50% level of what it has been. Only a few states have a FAP type program. Likewise only a few states have a GUA (now ABD) type disability program. Washington has long been at the forefront of social services (higher benefit rates than many states, more expansive coverage, etc). The budget cuts are cutting the heart out of not just the programs but, it seems to me, even some of the defenders of these programs and of the people who receive them.
Personally, given what the US did to the Marshal Islands and the Marshallese people - dropping the equivalent of 7000 Hiroshimas over the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 - I believe that they should be given US citizenship.
And keep in mind also that as of 1996, as a result of President Clinton´s "end of welfare as we know it", these victims of US nuclear testing are no longer eligible for medical coverage under Medicare. There children are in the state of Washington, but the adults are not.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122148970
If anyone sees that I have explained any of this incorrectly, please feel free to correct me. Jun 27, 2012 | Reply to this comment
We just wanted to add that in the coming legislative session we will be working hard to get these benefits restored. Join us at www.childrensalliance.org! Jun 28, 2012 | Reply to this comment