Reply #19: Not every family qualifies for Food Stamps. [View All]

[Lyric]

There are many families, even some with small children, who can't get Food Stamps. Immigrants without legal documentation. People who have lost their children's birth certificates, Social Security cards, immunization records, etc. and can't afford to replace them--or have to wait 9-12 weeks for new copies to come in the mail. Families who live in rural areas and are having a difficult time finding transportation to the welfare office 35 miles away. Families who have been impoverished for a long time, and whose "lifetime Food Stamp allowance" (introduced in the welfare reform act that Clinton signed) has run out. Families where the parent or parents made a stupid mistake (failed to report income, for example, or failing to report a new job, or a change of household size) who are being "penalized" by having their Food Stamps revoked for a certain period of time. Single-parent families where the parent is working dayshift at a job where his or her employer refuses to give said employee a weekday off to go to the welfare office when it's actually *open*, and the parent can't risk losing the only job around to call in and go anyway.

Many of these situations are more "delays" than insurmountable obstacles, but delays mean hungry weeks and sometimes months. Some of these situations are the fault of the system, and some are the fault of the parents, but regardless, NONE of them are the fault of the children. But the children suffer right along with the parents. And that doesn't even count the thousands of "adult" families--the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed who can't find work or don't have transportation.

Food Stamps are a vital and important program, but they aren't always a cure-all for hunger in America.