Media Coverage

Local food banks and pantries have been fighting tooth and nail to keep up with the significant increase in people needing food since emergency funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ended in March.

Throughout the pandemic, people enrolled in SNAP received an average of $90 more per month. Those temporary benefits ended in February 2023. Mike Stanley, who lives in Northeast Ohio, is one of 1.5 million Ohioans who lost those extra SNAP benefits. The loss removed about $126 million worth of SNAP dollars that were available to Ohioans, according to the association.

Stanley, who uses a wheelchair and can’t easily work, used to get $200 a month. Now, he’s back to receiving $35 a month. He said he could stretch that out before, but high prices make it nearly impossible now.

Protesters gather at the Ohio Statehouse; demonstrate against state budget cuts to childcare, food banks, education, and healthcare.

"We've been calling for $50 million per year in the state budget to help us try to fill some of that gap for food insecure Ohioans," Novotny said. "We received $15 million in additional funding for a total of just shy of $40 million per year in funding in the Ohio house budget. However, the Senate stripped that additional funding out."

States across the country have taken matters into their own hands to assure SNAP benefit adequacy for older adults by exploring ways to supplement the fully funded federal benefit with state dollars. Ohio lawmakers should do the same.

For Jasmine Wooten, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an already grim situation.

The 33-year-old social worker and mother of two, who lives on the Near East Side, was already getting food benefits when the pandemic hit. Nearly three years later, it's become even more difficult to put food on the table, due in part to inflation, misperceptions about those who get benefits and lack of empathy from people in power, she said.

"It's absolutely worse because the price increases in groceries have shot up astronomically," Wooten said. "What used to just get us by … even with supplementation, is not enough."

Wooten's financial situation will take yet another hit in a few weeks when she and more than 163,000 other Franklin County residents lose a collective $10 million in food benefits in March, when a needed supplemental boost in food benefits due to the COVID-19 pandemic comes to an end.