Thousands of Vermont households will lose a portion of their food stamp benefits beginning on Oct. 1.
On average, families could see a reduction of $29 a month for groceries. The average benefit is $244 a month, according to Rene Richardson, Food and Nutrition programs director for the department. The reductions will be between $7 and $40 a month. Benefits range from $155 to $375 a month, depending on the income and size of the household.
That $30 to $35 reduction in groceries will be difficult for low-income Vermonters to make up. “When you have only $150 or $200 a month for food, that can be really significant,” said John Sayles, executive director of the Vermont Food Bank.
The program, 3SquaresVT, which is run by the Vermont Department of Children and Families, serves roughly 85,000 individual Vermonters. About 16,000 out of 43,000 households that receive food stamps will see a reduction.
In the aggregate, those households will lose $5.5 million worth of annual support, according to Richardson.
The reduction is part of an annual review of benefits for each state, which takes into account the cost of heating fuel, she said. Each year, FNS reviews fuel and utility rates that are part of an income deduction calculation used to determine benefit levels for individual households.
Heat and utilities are considered part of the housing deduction recipients can claim when they apply for 3SquaresVT support.
Over the last two years, the federal Food and Nutrition Service has allowed Vermonters to claim a higher deduction for heating fuel, as part of the calculation for income eligibility to the program. The larger deduction helped poor Vermonters compensate for the high cost of oil. The standard deduction including fuel use went up from $572 to $744 a month, and the higher deduction led to more money for food for many households.
In 2008, oil cost $4 a gallon on average. Though fuel costs dropped in 2009, Vermont, along with a handful of other Northeastern states, was granted a one-year waiver to maintain its higher fuel deduction rates. Last year, a gallon of fuel oil cost $2.66.
“Any time you take money away from a household relying on money to payfor food, it’s going to be detrimental to the household,” Richardson said. “It’s a federal requirement based on the fact that if the cost of fuel goes up you have less money for food; if they go down, you have more money for food.”
Richardson said the state asked for another waiver and the feds refused.
“We will see a change in food benefits,” Richardson said. “It’s not a pleasant thing to have to do. Unfortunately, it’s a federal requirement.”
Letters went out to 3SquaresVT beneficiaries this week, and in the last several days, about 200 people called the food bank for help, Sayles said.
The state sent out a list of additional resources, including the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. The food bank runs the federal food distribution program, which supplies about $50 in commodity foods a month for women and children and income-eligible residents over 60. The program can take about 500 more applicants before it reaches the maximum number of recipients in Vermont, about 4,000 people, according to Sayles.
Families and individuals who are part of the 3SquaresVT program typically come to the food bank for groceries.
“We know for a fact that the 3SquaresVt benefit doesn’t last a family an entire month,” Sayles said. “They come to the food shelves.”
Sayles said the food bank has already seen a 35 percent to 45 percent increase in the number of Vermonters seeking assistance from local shelves. In all, about 13 percent of Vermont’s population, or about 86,000 people, rely on the food bank. He expects more 3SquaresVT recipients will turn to local food shelves in the coming months.
“We just do what we always do, and that’s try and keep the food moving,” Sayles said. This year, the nonprofit organization will distribute 8 million pounds of food. “It’s a matter of … finding new sources of food to distribute and being as efficient and effective as we can in getting food out to agencies.”
In 2009, the state dramatically expanded the food stamps program. It changed the eligibility rules so that more people at slightly higher income levels could receive benefits. Any household that is within 185 percent of the national poverty level qualifies for 3SquaresVT now; the cutoff used to be 130 percent.
The number of Vermont households receiving benefits as a result of the new rules and the recession went up 62 percent, from 28,000 participating households to 43,000, Richardson said.
“We really brought more people through our doors, and we did this intentionally,” Richardson said.
She said seniors who have more than $35 a month in medical expenses can include out-of-pocket costs in their income deductions, such as insurance premiums, prescription co-pays, transportation to the doctor, over-the-counter medications and hearing aids and dentures.
