Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Story Archives

U.S. Department of Agriculture Expands WIC Options

A new rule by the U.S. Department of Agriculture allows more flexibility for families who depend on government assistance for groceries.

The West Virginia Department of Health (DH) announced changes to the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, commonly referred to as WIC.

According to a press release, the program increased the amount of money available to low-income families to purchase fruits and vegetables while allowing more flexibility in selecting foods from a variety of cultures.

“These changes reflect the program’s commitment to promoting healthy eating habits and catering to the diverse nutritional needs of West Virginians. By offering a wider variety of healthy choices, WIC empowers participants to make decisions that boost the health of West Virginians who depend on this program,” said Heidi Staats, director of WV WIC, housed within DH’s Bureau for Public Health.

For 50 years, the federal program has given states the power to provide supplemental food, health care referrals and nutritional education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breast-feeding postpartum women.

The program also benefits infants and children up to five who are found to be at nutritional risk.

According to the DH, West Virginia WIC serves 70 percent of all babies born in the state.

“In a time of rising food insecurity and high food costs, increasing participants’ purchasing power for healthy foods is critical,” Staats said. “The Office of Nutrition Services will work diligently to implement the more complex flexibilities of the WIC food package final rule within the two-year regulatory timeline. However, families can immediately access the enhanced Cash Value Benefit to purchase fresh, canned or frozen fruits and vegetables.”
To learn more about WIC services or how to apply for benefits call 304-558-0030. Visit dhhr.wv.gov/WIC for more information.

Lawmakers Consider Requiring Photo ID On EBT Cards

Recipients of federal benefits like SNAP will have to have an identifying photo on their EBT card if a bill moving through the legislature becomes law.

Recipients of federal benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will have to have an identifying photo on their Electronic Benefits Transfer card if a bill moving through the legislature becomes law.

Senate Bill 450 would require everyone with an EBT card to be issued a new card, with their photo on the card, to prevent theft and fraud.

Jacquelyn Hoppe, director of the West Virginia EBT office, was questioned by lawmakers about the possible changes to the benefit system.

Sen. Laura Chapman, R-Ohio, asked Hoppe whether trusted family members would still be allowed to use the EBT card on behalf of the recipient.

“If they present the card and have the correct pin, then they’ve been authorized to use that card by the actual primary, they’re probably a person in the household,” Hoppe said. “The retailers, on the other hand, have a different aspect to look at, and retailers can’t discriminate against anyone who presents an EBT card.”

The committee passed an amended committee substitute to the Senate Finance Committee. The amendment was to extend the date of implementation from July 1, 2024 to July 1, 2025, to allow for time to create policies.

Department Of Health And Human Resources To Change Family Assistance Eligibility Systems

Residents in Clay, Hardy, Kanawha, Mercer, Mingo, and Randolph counties that participate in family assistance programs will become part of a pilot program beginning Monday, according to the Department of Health and Human Resources.

Residents who receive benefits from assistance programs will begin the transition to a new system. They will be moving from the RAPIDS system to WV PATH. DHHR programs supported by the new WV PATH include: Medicaid, West Virginia Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and other state-operated assistance programs. A statewide transition is slated for spring of 2024.

The transition will not impact the way residents apply for assistance programs. This switch will allow DHHR to receive a better funding match of 90 percent of federal dollars to 10 percent of state dollars.

Us & Them Encore: Court Of Second Chances?

In West Virginia and many other states, there’s a court of second chances; a court-monitored drug treatment program designed to help people stay clean and out of jail. In this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay explores how treatment courts work for adults and juveniles. This episode was first released in December 2022, and since then has received a regional Edward R. Murrow award from the Radio Television Digital News Association for best podcast.

This episode of Us & Them was first released in December 2022, and since then has received a regional Edward R. Murrow award from the Radio Television Digital News Association for best podcast. We’ve updated the episode and want to share it with you again now.

In West Virginia, there are nearly 50 specialized court programs designed to help teens and adults kick their drug addictions. Drug courts divert people away from incarceration into a rigorous, court-monitored treatment program. They are intense experiences, some more than a year long. Participants are drug tested regularly and require monitoring devices.

Graduation rates across the country show success rates from 29 percent to more than 60 percent. There are many supporters within the justice system, but critics say drug courts only work with the easiest first-time offenders and don’t take violent offenders or sex offenders. Some drug courts require a guilty plea before someone can participate, which can limit a person’s options if they don’t make it through the program.

In this Us & Them episode, host Trey Kay talks with people about this court-designed approach to sobriety that began nearly 50 years ago when the first drug court opened its doors.

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the Just Trust, the West Virginia Humanities Council, the CRC Foundation and the Daywood Foundation.

Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond.

Joanna Tabit, a Circuit Court Judge in Kanawha County, W.Va., has been at the helm of a juvenile drug court for the past six years.

*Courtesy Photo*

Sheila Vakharia, deputy director of the Department of Research and Academic Engagement at the Drug Policy Alliance, a national advocacy organization, describes the organization’s mission as “working to end the war on drugs.”

*Courtesy Photo*

Gregory Howard is chief circuit judge in Cabell County, W.Va. and oversees the Adult Drug Court.

*Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Kerwin Kaye, a scholar who has studied the effectiveness of drug courts, is a professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and author of a book called “Enforcing Freedom,” about drug treatment courts in America.

*Credit: Wesleyan University*

Adam Fowler speaks to those gathered in Judge Gregory Howard’s courtroom in Cabell County, W.Va. as he graduates from the Drug Court Program. Fowler told *Us & Them* host Trey Kay, he had tried to recover from substance use disorder many times before with no success. “I was doing it for all the wrong people. I was just doing it to make the judge happy … to make my probation officer happy. This time I did it for myself,” he said.

Fowler told Kay his new commitment to turn his life around came after an overdose that left him in a coma. “I had to learn to walk and talk again. And from that moment on, I just knew there’s more to life than death,” he said.

*Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Robin Sullivan, a support specialist with the people in the Cabell County, W.Va. Drug Court Program, graduated from treatment court in 2019. She told *Us & Them* host Trey Kay she started using drugs when she was 13.

“My mom is an addict. She was one of the first people who I started using with. And as a child, we don’t ever think that our parents are going to steer us in the wrong direction. But, you know, sometimes people make a choice. Some people, you know, eventually it does become a choice. Some people are born into it,” Sullivan said.

*Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Jan Rader, former fire chief in Huntington, W.Va., was a central figure in the critically-acclaimed Netflix documentary “Heroin(e).” She now leads Huntington’s Council for Public Health and Drug Control Policy.

*Credit: Netflix*

SNAP: Do The Hungry Get More Policy Than Nutrition?

Hunger and poverty are universal challenges, but in the U.S., for more than 50 years, support programs like SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, have provided help to those in need. On this Us & Them, host Trey Kay talks with three West Virginians — a retiree, a mom and a lawmaker — who all say that nutritional support has made a difference in their lives.

More than 12 percent of Americans, or 42 million people, need help getting enough food to eat.

In West Virginia, that number is about 18 percent. That help comes from a federal program called SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps. The Mountain State is one of the top recipients of SNAP benefits — nearly 45 percent are older adults or families with someone who’s disabled, while nearly 60 percent are families with children.

The government’s food support program actually has its roots in McDowell County, West Virginia where it began as a pilot project in the 1960s. Since then the program has reduced poverty and hunger across the nation. Today, SNAP gets caught up in political debates and election cycles.

On this Us & Them episode, host Trey Kay talks with three people, a retiree, a mom and a lawmaker who all say that nutritional support has made a difference in their lives.

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council, and the CRC Foundation.

Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond.

Reenie Kittle, who’s 74, from Harding, W.Va., is a widow and retired with a physical disability. She does what she can to get by on a meager fixed income.

“How do I live on a fixed income? Very scarcely,” Kittle told *Us & Them* host Trey Kay as they sat in the living room of her converted double-wide home. “So I have to buy pellets for my wood stoves in the winter months. I have to pay the water bill… all my bills. I don’t go out very much ‘cause I can’t afford the gas. With my income and my bills of $1,300 a month, I am lucky if I have $200, maybe $250 left over to try to find food. My neighbor sometimes will bring me supper, and that’s been a blessing to me. They try to help me food-wise as much as they can. For SNAP, I qualify for $23 a month. It is nothing. They just tell me that they’ve reviewed my case and that’s as much as they can do. They have no extra money to give and that’s it.”

*Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Each month, Reenie Kittle heads to the grocery store in Elkins, W.Va. with $23 from the federal government’s SNAP program. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — it used to be called “Food Stamps.”

Reenie beelines past the produce section, beyond the tower of packaged strawberries, the cold case full of carrots and greens. She’s not here to buy what she *wants* to eat. She’s here to stretch the money she is allotted to the very last penny.

*Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Roughly 18 percent of West Virginia residents use SNAP benefits. Nationally, that number is more like twelve percent, which means that 42 million people across America need help getting enough to eat.

Seth DiStefano, with the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, lobbies to support programs like SNAP — which became a centerpiece of the social reform programs in President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” initiative. DiStefano says SNAP has its roots in West Virginia. This goes back to when President John F. Kennedy started the original “Food Stamp” program in McDowell County.

“It truly is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in the history of the United States,” DiStefano said.

*Credit: West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy*

Mary Kathryn Molitor, 34, lives in St. Albans, W.Va. with her three daughters and an old dog named Brenda. Mary Kathryn works full-time at a local credit union, making about $13 an hour. When the *Us & Them* team first spoke with her, she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk on the record about her relationship with SNAP saying it was her “dirty little secret.”

“I don’t tell people that I use SNAP benefits because I know what that person looks like and that person doesn’t look like me,” Molitor explains while pulling one of her wriggling twin daughters up onto her hip. “That person doesn’t have a college education. That person doesn’t have a full-time job. That person isn’t who I am. I find it embarrassing. I don’t want to admit that I need help.”

*Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

To supplement her family’s food supply, Mary Kathryn Molitor often goes to the Capital Market in Charleston and checks to see if they have wilted vegetable plants that are about to be discarded. She takes them home to plant in her garden.

“Those are pumpkins right there? Volunteers. All those tomatoes? Volunteers. Sunflowers? Volunteers,” Molitor said while showing *Us & Them* host Trey Kay the plants around her home. “After Halloween – I threw my pumpkins into a couple of different areas and they rotted, seeded and they are giants now! They grow on their own. They volunteer! If anybody needs a free pumpkin this year, just come to my house!”

*Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Del. Jonathan Pinson represents the 17th District of West Virginia’s House of Delegates, on the western border of the state including parts of Mason and Jackson counties. Pinson, a Republican and a Baptist pastor, was first elected in 2020.

“I cannot say that I have issues with [SNAP] in general,” Pinson told *Us & Them* host Trey Kay when they met in Point Pleasant, W.Va. “One of the reasons that I can’t say that I’m opposed to that is because I think back prior to my adoption… at 15 years old… I go back to Saturday mornings sitting in a line at the armory in Florida, picking up corn flakes and powdered milk and five pound jugs of peanut butter. And I can tell you that there were many, many meals that I wouldn’t have had, had my parents not been on food stamps — and at the time, ‘commodities,’ that’s what it was called. So I can’t say that I’m opposed to the government helping when help is warranted.”

*Credit: West Virginia Legislature*

Arriving At The New Normal

As the world steps into the actuality of the “new normal,” how do the end of these designations affect West Virginians?

The End Of The COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Brings Changes To Benefits

Thursday, May 11, the U.S. officially canceled the designation of COVID-19 as a public health emergency in the country.

Also this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) removed its designation for COVID-19 as a “global health emergency.”

For the first time in more than three years, the general public and health providers will live in a post-COVID-19 world, at least on paper.

As the world steps into the actuality of the “new normal,” how do the end of these designations affect West Virginians?

The Virus

While COVID-19 is no longer a health emergency, it is still an infectious illness that is a significant cause of acute illness and can cause long-term health complications all over the body known as long COVID. In special populations, COVID-19 is still life-threatening.

According to Clay Marsh, West Virginia’s COVID-19 czar, current research shows that staying current with recommended vaccination reduces the risk of long COVID, as does taking the oral anti-viral paxlovid or the drug metformin, if one tests positive for COVID-19.

“We have learned a lot about COVID-19, and to further ensure our health, we need to continue to practice what we learn,” Marsh said. “COVID-19 will remain an infectious disease that will cause illness, hospitalization and death, but by staying smart and following the guidance of our healthcare providers, we can keep each other safe and stop more preventive deaths from COVID-19.”

The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have recommended another booster for those over 65 years old and are four months or more from the last Omicron COVID-19 shot. Those who are immunocompromised will benefit from another shot as soon as two months after the last, according to the CDC.

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) recommends West Virginians check the state’s vaccine calculator to see if they are due for a booster shot.

In West Virginia, 8,125 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19, as of May 10, 2023.

Pandemic-Era Healthcare Benefits

During the Public Health Emergency, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (WVCHIP) suspended eligibility redetermination processes, allowing coverage to continue regardless of changes in circumstances.

However, Medicaid and WVCHIP continuous eligibility provision was separated from the Public Health declaration in December 2022. This signaled the beginning of the unrolling of beneficiaries from these programs.

“For the past three years, the Medicaid program has been growing,” said Rhonda Rogombe, health and safety net policy analyist for the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. “One because people were not losing coverage. And two, the pandemic triggered an economic downturn that like made a lot more people eligible for the program.”

When the upcoming unrolling of benefits was announced, advocates worried beneficiaries would lose their coverage because they may have moved over the pandemic.

“Most of the denials that we’re seeing on the national level, are for procedural reasons, which means that somebody didn’t determine their paperwork or fill it out correctly,” Rogombe said. “We don’t have specific state numbers yet. We still see them by the end of the month. But West Virginia follows natural trends when most people who are losing coverage are losing it because they didn’t complete and return that paperwork on time.”

Jaqueline Hale is the Virginia State Network Director at Unite Us. Unite Us West Virginia is a network of health and social service providers. The network is supported by an West Virginia-based Unite Us team focused on community engagement, network health and optimization and customer success. Hale also covers portions of southern West Virginia.

“The fact that people haven’t had to do this for three years, so one, that could be out of practice,” Hale said. “I know, I’m always struggling to find, you know, where’s the shot record? Where’s that last pay stub? Right? How do I download it from wherever if you even have that capacity to have access to an online payroll. So it’s just a heavy administrative burden and recognizing that a lot of our families, a lot of our individuals are dealing with multiple complex issues.”

Those who may have lost their benefits or health insurance coverage during the unrolling process can submit the required renewal forms for coverage redetermination through West Virginia People’s Access To Help (WVPATH).

For those who no longer qualify, West Virginia Navigator is a free, non-profit program that offers enrollment assistance for the Health Insurance Marketplace and is available to any West Virginia resident.

SNAP and Food Banks

According to advocates for food security, charitable programs are unable to support those facing hunger fully. A combination of charity and government assistance programs are necessary to help bridge the meal gap, especially in a post-COVID economy with record-breaking inflation rates.

Cyndi Kirkhart is the CEO of Facing Hunger Food Bank, based in Huntington. It is one of only two food banks in West Virginia. The other is Mountaineer Food Bank, based in Gassaway.

Food insecurity will only increase along with inflation costs. Kirkhart said she budgeted $2.5 million to purchase food for the Facing Hunger Food Bank in 2022. The bank actually expended $4 million to feed its community.

Along with other changes to beneficiary requirements, on July 1, the work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for “able bodied adults without dependents” resumes, statewide.

Since April 2020, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources has issued SNAP emergency allotments, increasing each household’s monthly benefit.

Now, those monthly SNAP benefits have returned to the pre-COVID-19 Public Health Emergency level based on the household’s income, assets, household size, and other non-financial factors. About 170,000 households have been affected.

SNAP is a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture administered by DHHR’s Bureau for Family Assistance.

The “able-bodied adults without dependents” work requirement reinstatement will impact SNAP recipients ages 18 to 49 without children or other qualifying dependents, and who lack an identified condition that would prevent them from participating in a qualifying work, volunteer, or education activity.

“The stigma associated with the word ‘able bodied’ insinuates that they are unable to ascertain work and that’s not entirely the case,” Devon Lopez, associate director of customer and community success at Unite Us West Virginia, said. “However, our platform really is designed to empower organizations to help connect individuals in need for services. And so really taking the stigma associated with what asking for help might look like for individuals in the community, and really empowering organizations to help be the advocate for them and connect them to those resources.”

According to the DHHR, all potentially affected individuals will receive a letter in mid-May with more information.

“We know that someone’s overall health is adversely affected by their ability to be able to access food and proper nutrition,” Lopez said. “So in the past three years, they’ve been able to access, you know, these benefits that have been providing them with food boxes and meals. However, as they no longer qualify on this public health emergency ends, and they’re, they’ll have to re enroll for these or just not qualify for them at all anymore, we’re going to see a severe increase in those with those food needs.”

Kirkhart said work requirements are more complicated for those living in rural areas.

“You know, obviously folks focus on some of the expectations that there’s work associated with getting benefits and those type of things,” Kirkhart said. “The narrative never changes about that, because we serve very rural and remote communities where there is no public transportation. There are few if any jobs are volunteer opportunities to complete hours.”

Kirkhart also said her food bank and its mobile units are already seeing an increase in need in the community from the beginning of this year’s unrolling of beneficiaries. She expects to see more families in need after their stores of food run out.

“We’re kind of seeing the increases that I kind of expected would occur,” Kirkhart said. “So right now we’re about 25 percent (of spent funding), over the previous like 23 percent. Our mobile pantries in this last month have really started to grow. So I expect statistically, after review of this month, we’ll probably see more than 35 percent because sometimes people had food resources, and you know, they had kind of stocked up in anticipation.”