There you go. Thanks for coming from food distributi
events in san Diego California. That's a huge thing
that I have to worry about every month to Staten isl
new york. You're constantly looking at how many fruits
and vegetables can I realistically purchase in a wee
or two weeks No matter where you go. Hunger advocates
say you'll find military families facing food
insecurity because of what they call a bureaucratic
oversight. I really do think this was initially an
oversight and I think this is sort of economic forces
over time. I think most americans would be surprised to
find out that 24% of all active duty service members
have experienced some sort of some level of food
insecurity. In 2020 and 2021 it comes down to what's
known as the basic allowance for housing or B.A.H.
Those payments to members of the military offset the
cost of off base housing. It's not counted as income by
the I.R.S. Or some federal assistance programs, bu
is counted as income in the eligibility formula for
snap benefits, the supplemental nutrition assistan
program. So on paper families appear to have more money
than they actually do in the way in which the statutes
are written around snap are that all of your income is
included to determine your eligibility accept. And then
there's a long list of exceptions. So you would have
needed someone in Congress to have thought, oh wait,
the military could be eligible for this. It's helped
many military families say they could desk we use. It
would definitely mean I could maybe stop scrimping,
stop pinching every penny. I think it's an easy fix. So
did abby Liebman when it first came on her radar at a
hunger conference more than 10 years ago, she met with
the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers
snap, called the general counsel that in that meeting
got the general counsel of the line to say and said,
why can't we just do this What's the problem And she
said because it's a statutory requirement and that
means Congress must amend the statute. And Congress has
tried multiple times without su It's up to you to
make the changes. That's Liebman testifying in a House
subcommittee hearing seven year ago, seven years of
military families struggling to put food on the table
and no fix. I can remember this meeting very clea
our advocacy team and said, what is it we really want
What is the straightforward goal that we had getting
rid of the BHS income And we're like, okay, let's jus
push it. That's what we want. That's what we're going
to ask for. And Senator Duckworth's was right t
with us and that makes a huge difference. We first
interviewed Senator Tammy Duckworth's a democrat and
Republican Senator lisa murkows about this last May.
Later in the year, we met up with Democratic Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand at a military food pantry in new
york. They shouldn't have to be struggling like this.
Gillibrand signed onto a bill introduced by Duckworth's
murkowski to fix the bureaucratic mix up. Now they'r
trying again thursday and more than a dozen co sponsors
introduced yet another bill which zone a jewish
response to hunger helps craft Senator Duckworth's
tells scripts, news. This new bill is straightforward
and directly aimed at the statutory language of the
snap program and it brings that program back in line
with other federal programs lik the Rs or the WIC
programs which do not consider your basic allowance f
housing as income. And and so this this actually is a
nice simple fix. It takes the onus off of D.O.D. It
puts it back because this is a hunger issue back within
the Department of Agriculture and the staff program. Um
And we will be able to fix this problem permanently
opposed to something that could potentially sunset. Do
you feel confident that this straightforward bill will
get through this time I really do. We worked out a lot
of the misconceptions um through the FDA process for
the last two years. And so now the folks, you know, I
have republicans who voted to d this in the past and I
can come back to them and say, okay, now let's fix the
problem permanently so that we don't have our military
men and women worried about whether or not their
families are going to eat tonight and more broadly Doug
wants to look at military pay as a whole because she
says the nature of the military has changed. So many o
the men and women at all levels at all ranks are
actually older, they're actually married, they actually
have Children and that puts the pay scale in a place
where it just can't quite cover the needs of our
military families and we have to fix that problem.
Until then, struggling military families keep lining up
at food pantry events like this one in SAn Diego,
hoping the latest attempt to help them get snap
benefits finally sticks Maritsa Giorgio scripts news.