“My kids went without hardly anything” to eat during this period, she recounted. Renee described how her SNAP account went abruptly from about $3,000 to $66 after being hacked. Senators also heard from Renee, a single mother of three from Baltimore County who did not give her last name. Department of Agriculture.īut the hearing in certain ways seemed like it was upside down - and that state officials should have been made available at the end to respond to the questions, complaints and fears of food stamp recipients and the groups that advocate for them. The session began with testimony from leaders of the Maryland Department of Human Services, which is responsible for administering the federal SNAP program, which originates in the U.S. The state of the state’s response to the pandemic - and specifically, the ups and downs of SNAP - was the topic of Tuesday’s two-hour hearing. “It was like going into the Twilight Zone for days just to get information” on how to navigate the post-pandemic system, Griffin said. And now, with emergency federal regulations on food stamp benefits being phased out, extra benefits are diminishing and families are once again scrambling to make ends meet. Many families saw their SNAP accounts drained by fraudsters. Yet as the number of beneficiaries increased, so did the number of SNAP fraud abuses. State officials say the rolls of Marylanders seeking food stamps swelled by 35% (though a Maryland Department of Human Services spokesperson on Tuesday evening did not provide statistics on the raw number of recipients). But for several, like Griffin, the additional or extended benefits were a godsend. The pandemic was a financial disaster for hundreds of thousands of Marylanders. “I was happy that I was able to feed myself as well as catch up on some bills.” “I had to go to any program that I could just to survive.”īut when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Griffin’s monthly SNAP benefit went up to $250 a month. Griffin qualified for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - commonly known as food stamps - but gradually saw his monthly benefit decline from about $170 a month to $11 a month. But a catastrophic car accident a few years ago eroded his financial stability dramatically.Īt a Senate Finance Committee hearing in Annapolis on Tuesday, Griffin described how he was able to piece together a subsistence living using several government assistance initiatives. Mark Griffin had a good-paying job as an ophthalmological assistant for two decades, earning enough to purchase a $150,000 home in Baltimore. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today. This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Business & Finance Click to expand menu.
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