The announcement on the Your Texas Benefits app reads: “SNAP benefits for November will not be issued if the federal government shutdown continues past October 27.” I logged in to see a mere $16 left in my account. It wouldn’t last the week, even if I was careful.
The message was cold and clinical, like every other notice. However, it wasn’t a policy update this time; it was a countdown. The notice was sent to every Texan receiving SNAP: Your food is about to stop coming.
Like many social work students, I’ve been watching the headlines gather like dark clouds over our classrooms—each warning about the shutdown felt less like politics and more like a hunger forecast. Texas A&M University–Central Texas (TAMUCT) is labeled a non-traditional university; in reality, this means many of my classmates are working mothers and recently discharged veterans with limited incomes. The Campus Cupboard, a student-run food bank, serves to reduce the staggering 20 percent of students who are labeled “food insecure” when they transfer from a community college to the university. However, resources are limited and sometimes lack variety.
On October 6, the university received a donation of 2,000 pounds of locally grown gold potatoes. Students like me use food bank items to supplement the caloric and nutritional value of our meals, but they are not a primary resource. It isn’t easy to achieve a nutritionally balanced diet when every meal must consist of potatoes and whatever protein can be scrounged from the canned goods shelves. Those of us who qualify for benefits use SNAP to ensure we have access to fresh meat and produce.
However, on November 1, SNAP benefits will no longer be distributed. About 11.4 percent (nearly 3.5 million) of Texans will lose access to healthy, nutritionally complete meals. I will no longer be able to buy meat or fresh vegetables. I will lose the only reliable way I have to eat lunch every day. I worry about how well I will be able to survive on snacks from the student union, how much of a burden I will become to my family when I eventually have to ask for help, and how my classmates’ focus on academics will decline as they concentrate on ways to keep themselves and their children healthy.
Dr. Claudia Rappaport, a social work professor with 25 years at TAMUCT, described her recent conversations with food bank volunteers about the SNAP lapse: “When people can’t get their SNAP, they’re going to go to the food banks. There isn’t enough food in the food pantries to handle this need. I mean, they’re all saying we’re going to run out of food. There’s no way we can replace everybody’s SNAP benefits.”
She described seeing many families in line at food banks recently, as October SNAP balances have decreased: “Many are single mothers with children of all ages, sometimes even babies in strollers.” Some of these single mothers are my classmates, working hard to further their education. A few have expressed concern about how they will obtain formula; breastfeeding is only an option when mothers are fed. Modern folktales about welfare recipients scamming honest, hard-working taxpayers to buy luxury items have damaged the reputation of honest, hard-working people who happen to be poor.
On November 1, we will go hungry. This is not a fearmongering tactic used for likes and views; this is reality. Students on SNAP, like myself, will be forced to think about where our next meal is coming from rather than what’s coming up on our next test. My teachers and working peers are donating to family income pools so that their relatives won’t starve. Politicians thousands of miles away are arguing over a bigger, more beautiful future while depriving students who are desperately trying to prepare for their own.
Those of us who reach graduation have no guarantee of a livable income at the finish line. “It makes me so angry when people say, ‘You should have prepared better,’” said Nicolette Bergdahl, a veteran studying at TAMUCT. “My uncle was an emergency surgeon. Smartest man anyone would ever meet. He had a stroke five years ago; he thinks like a 12-year-old now. His wife is a stay-at-home mom, and they’re on SNAP. Now we are all having to chip in as a family to make sure that they can get grocery money. … You can do everything right, and life still happens.”
I don’t know when this shutdown will end or when my benefits will be reinstated. But I do know this: The people in our classrooms, our food banks, and our families are worth more than the petty arguments of political powerhouses. Washington may not care that our community is going hungry—but we should.
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