Marian Rose Lucas: Lack of empathy is heartless and cruel
Open letter to Yamhill County Commissioner Mary Starrett:
I am writing in response to your incredibly offensive and completely out of touch statements regarding the locally devastating federal cuts to SNAP and Medicaid as a result of Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
As reported in the July 8 edition of the News-Register, you stated at board’s July 3 session:
“Right now, two and a half times more people are on Medicaid than are in poverty. So really, when you talk about the concerns about Medicaid funding, SNAP benefits funding, the bill is focusing on eliminating waste and fraud and abuse, and tightening some of those eligibility requirements. So to say that children and elderly people are going to be seeing a reduction, those claims are inaccurate. There are going to be work requirements because, let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to get on SNAP.
“We’re also looking at SNAP beneficiaries being more obese and less healthy than those who still are low-income but are not receiving SNAP, and that is because if you’re giving people money, they might be able to afford a six-pack of Pepsi, because now they don’t have to make a decision between a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. When these food stamp programs were created, a lot of low-income Americans were basically not getting enough food. Now they’re consuming too much food.”
We have a crisis of food insecurity in our community. For you to nonchalantly say it’s too easy to get SNAP benefits, and that SNAP recipients are eating so much they are getting fat, is completely out of touch with the realities our community is facing.
You blame and belittle the constituents you have been elected to represent with those comments.
Getting SNAP benefits should be easy. However, if you’d ever been in a position of needing to rely on those benefits, you would know the process is anything but.
In the very same July 8 News-Register are two separate articles highlighting examples of local food insecurity.
The first notes that the Saturday Morning Breakfast program is having to pause all service as it is “experiencing shifts in food availability and reductions in key resources.”
Decreased USDA funding has meant fewer resources to the Oregon Food Bank and partners like the Yamhill Community Action Program food bank. That hurts all pantries and programs that receive food from YCAP, including Saturday Morning Breakfast.
This free community breakfast program serves 250 to 300 meals every Saturday. This break will deprive members of the community of 1,500 to 1,800 meals.
The second story notes the Hope on the Hill food pantry is “seeking donations in the wake of cutbacks on resources, such as federal and state food bank assistance.” Board member Kassandra VanDyke explains the program is witnessing a “significant increase in need as well.”
This pantry serves 60 to 90 families each week, or up to 400 in a month.
Previous cuts to the USDA by the Trump administration have already wreaked havoc on food stability, as highlighted by the pause of the Saturday Morning Breakfast program and the plea from Hope on the Hill for donations. Food pantries across our county are making similar pleas for donations, volunteers, and support.
The Grand Sheramina food pantry in Sheridan has had to reduce its services due to lack of supplies. The Grand Ronde Food Bank lost funding for its monthly Healthy Food Box distribution. Here in Willamina, we have seen more than double the usual pantry visitors at our local library food pantry.
Everyone I know working and volunteering in our communities is painfully aware of this crisis. We are scared for one another, as well as for our friends, relatives and neighbors.
As an elected leader in a community with so much food insecurity, you should be working to make the process of applying for and receiving those benefits easier, not harder.
There is absolutely no reason for anyone in this country to be hungry. The idea that people experiencing poverty should have to jump through challenging hoops and red tape just to buy groceries is heartless and cruel.
Empathy is greatly lacking in our current national political landscape, and it’s certainly lacking in your leadership here locally as well. Yamhill County deserves better.
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