Elected officials, food pantries scared about SNAP cuts
Food assistance for Westchester County's most vulnerable would be slashed under a just signed federal budget bill, according to leaders who spoke out about it at press conference in Port Chester on Tuesday.
Food assistance for Westchester County's most vulnerable would be slashed under a just signed federal budget bill, according to leaders who spoke out about it at press conference in Port Chester on Tuesday.
State Sen. Shelley Mayer said she's worried about the 77,000 people in Westchester who rely on SNAP benefits to eat.
"The impact of these budget cuts on SNAP, which used to be called food stamps, is absolutely enormous and is going to affect all the communities of Westchester," Mayer said.
She voiced her concerns about the cuts at a press conference at the Carver Center in Port Chester.
The location is a community hub with a food pantry that CEO Anne Bradner said has seen a tenfold increase in the number of visitors who need food in the last five years.
"Because the people who were getting SNAP benefits, and have those cut, their rent isn't going to go down, their Con Edison bill doesn't go down," Bradner said. "So, they will come to Carver Center for food."
The Carver Center gets food from Feeding Westchester - a food bank in Elmsford that is now trying to keep up with demand across the county, according to Director of Marketing Bruce Jackson.
"Since 2019 and 2020, there has been a big upsurge in demand from the pandemic. Our numbers from then until now doubled from 10 million pounds to 20 million pounds per year," Jackson said.
Jackson said that number could double again in the next two or three years.
"So we've largely doubled our storage space, both regular and cold storage, but it's not going to be enough to keep up if the demand gets to where it very well could largely because of this bill," Jackson said.
Democratic Rep. George Latimer argued at the press conference that the bill will hurt families who need help the most.
"Come to the Carver Center... and then tell me that this bill is worth the paper that it was printed on," Latimer said.
