Community

Food Insecurity, Hunger Expected to Soar After Cuts to Extra SNAP Benefits

Food security advocates, policymakers, and others had been warning of the dire consequences to those most in need if Congress chose to halt the extra allotments of SNAP benefits. Still, the Republican-led House let the COVID-era supplemental payments wind down at the end of February.

Published

3 years ago

April 15, 2023

Oakland Post

Those closest to the problem say the consequences are already evident in the days since the extra allotments ended. The issues of hunger and food insecurity are being pushed to the forefront of the nation's myriad challenges.

By Barrington M. Salmon
NNPA Newswire

On the frontlines, activists fighting the twin scourges of hunger and homelessness, like Anne Miskey, Kymone T. Freeman and Daniel del Pielago, contend that this and other crises were avoidable. Still, Congress, other elected officials, and society at large lack the political will or the compassion to eliminate what is essentially a man-made problem.

“Yet, although the SNAP extra allotments, stimulus funds and other assistance from the federal government helped stave off hunger and homelessness during the COVID crisis,” Kymone T. Freeman said, “the politicians have inexplicably allowed a critical lifeline to expire.”

Freeman said politicians are more concerned about staying in office and catering to the donor class and the wealthy instead of focusing on and delivering programs, projects and policies to working and middle-class Americans, particularly African Americans.

“This sounds like more austerity to me. The fact that they are cutting anything now is obscene and immoral. All it means is more hardship for the poor,” said Freeman, a social justice activist, playwright, and co-founder of WEACT Radio in Washington, DC. “This will increase crime, poverty, distress and misery. The cuts are contributing to hunger. Thirty percent of the children in Washington, DC, live in poverty. A budget is a moral document, and this is where their morality lies.”

Miskey, executive director of Union Station Homeless Services in Los Angeles, California, agreed.

“Much of the inflation and high prices we’re seeing is because of corporate greed. We’re expecting homelessness to skyrocket,” Miskey said. “During COVID, we rented all these hotels and shelters. We managed pretty well during COVID as local, state, and federal money poured in. But with the funding money gone, we’re trying to figure things out. The cost of living, rent, and evictions are going up. The cost of living is driving people into homelessness. Things are going to get pretty bad because of the cost of living.”

Miskey contends that separating food insecurity from gentrification, low wages, displacement, and homelessness is impossible. “COVID-19 has laid bare the structural, institutional, economic, and racial inequities that separate African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans from their white counterparts,” she said. Marginalized communities have been hit particularly hard by many challenges, many not naturally occurring.

“Healthcare workers, people of color, and immigrants are making horrible wages,” Miskey said. “They cannot afford afterschool care for kids, don’t have money for affordable housing, and struggle to make ends meet. This is a war against the poor. They tell people that they did this to themselves. Millions of people have no opportunity or are intentionally excluded from opportunities. Racism is the #1 factor for excluding people.”

The SNAP emergency allotments were designed to alleviate food insecurity and stimulate the US economy throughout the COVID pandemic public health emergency. According to DC Hunger Solutions, the cuts to SNAP benefits will affect more than 90,000 people in the District of Columbia. On average, when this “hunger cliff” hits, each SNAP participant will lose over $90 a month, DC Hunger Solutions officials explained on the website.

“As a result, average SNAP benefits will fall to a meager $6 a person a day. The “hunger cliff” will hit all age groups and all parts of the District of Columbia. The steepest cliff will be for many older adults who only qualify for the minimum SNAP benefit — dropping from $281 a month to $30,” staff said.

The “hunger cliff” — a perfect storm of a striking reduction of benefits in the face of high inflation and climbing grocery costs — will exacerbate food insecurity and hardship in the District of Columbia and elsewhere. The District will lose more than $14 million in benefits monthly. Emergency food providers can’t fill this gap. Even before the cuts, food banks, pantries, and soup kitchens have reported high demand for assistance, DC Hunger Solutions said.

All over America, Miskey said, people are vulnerable, have health problems, are aging, have been homeless for a long time, including seniors.

“It doesn’t take much: a single income, losing a spouse, an increase in the cost of housing. People are precariously housed. People have to put themselves in danger sometimes,” said Miskey. “People are stealing to survive. People need help, but needing help is seen as something weak or bad. Of course, the Republican Party sells the lottery mentality. People figure they’re going to be up there one day and dream that they’re going to get there.”

Daniel del Pielago agrees with Miskey that Republicans and others who support their ideas and agenda are committed to former President Donald Trump’s promise to dismantle the administrative state.

Del Pielago, organizing director of Empower DC, said these cuts and Republican plans to disembowel the social safety net — including Medicare and social security — is a deliberate policy choice aimed directly at the working class, low-income households, and the poor in this country.

“It’s part of this onslaught of safety net services being cut. I just heard from the city that they’re cutting the Emergency Rental Program 6½ months earlier than expected. And rents in May will go up 8.9% here in the District,” del Pielago said. “DC is super expensive, there are no livable wages for a certain population segment and there’s a sustained attack on low-income people. What we’re seeing in terms of the onslaught is the Trump effect coming into play. We have a bunch of people making these decisions which don’t benefit low-income residents and Black people. They were attempting, and now they’re having success.”

Miskey said as she views the challenges and devastation food insecurity has wrought on poor, near-poor, low-income, and middle-class Americans, she feels anger and frustration because most of this is and was avoidable.

“I think our systems have massively failed people,” she said. “I shouldn’t say that. I don’t think our system has failed. I think our system was set up to fail. They are set up to keep up the status quo, ensuring that those people of privilege and wealth maintain their privilege and wealth.”

Meanwhile, everyone else is blamed for their supposed character defects or failures because supposedly all the opportunities are out there if you grab them, Miskey explained.

“The fact is, our system creates massive barriers for opportunity and doesn’t allow huge chunks of our communities to actually access those things. That’s the shame of our system, the shame of our government. As I said before, we’re a system where we have a war on the poor, not a war on poverty.”

Matthew Desmond, a Princeton University sociologist and the director of the university’s Eviction Lab, said America has a poverty problem, and poverty and food insecurity are deeply intertwined.

“Poverty is measured at different income levels, but it is experienced as an exhausting piling on of problems. Poverty is chronic pain, on top of tooth rot, on top of debt collector harassment, on top of the nauseating fear of eviction,” said Desmond. “It is the suffocation of your talents and your dreams. It is death that comes early and often. From 2001 to 2014, the richest women in America gained almost three years of life while the poorest gained just 15 days. Far from a line, poverty is a tight knot of humiliations and agonies, and its persistence in American life should shame us.”

Desmond said housing assistance and food stamp programs are “effective and essential, protecting millions of families from hunger and homelessness each year,” he said in a March 16 column in the New York Times. “But the United States devotes far fewer resources to these programs, as a share of its gross domestic product, than other rich democracies, which places America in a disgraced class of its own on the world stage.”

That disgrace is illustrated in the stats showing that 33% of Americans live in households making less than $55,000, he said.

“Many are not officially counted among the poor, but there is plenty of economic hardship above the poverty line,” Desmond said. “And plenty far below it as well. According to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which accounts for government aid and living expenses, more than one in 25 people 65 or older lived in deep poverty in 2021, meaning that they’d have to, at minimum, double their incomes just to reach the poverty line.”

He said Americans must commit to becoming poverty abolitionists to break this cycle.

“Like abolitionist movements against slavery or mass incarceration, abolitionism views poverty not as a routine or inevitable social ill but as an abomination that can no longer be tolerated,” he said. “And poverty abolitionism shares with other abolitionist movements the conviction that profiting from another’s pain corrupts us all. Ending poverty in America will require both short- and long-term solutions: strategies that stem the bleeding now, alongside more enduring interventions that target the disease and don’t just treat the symptoms.”

This includes appropriately addressing the housing crisis, which forces most poor renting families to devote at least 50% of their income to rent and utilities; immediately expanding housing vouchers to reduce the rent burden; pushing for “more transformative solutions” like scaling up the country’s public housing infrastructure; building out community land banks; and providing on-ramps to homeownership for low-income families.

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Support Your Child’s Mental Health: Medi-Cal Covers Therapy, Medication, and More

Published

4 days ago

December 14, 2025

Oakland Post

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When children struggle emotionally, it can affect every part of their lives — at home, in school, with friends, and even their physical health. In many Black families, we’re taught to be strong and push through. But our kids don’t have to struggle alone. Medi-Cal provides mental health care for children and youth, with no referral or diagnosis required.

Through California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM), the state is transforming how care is delivered. Services are now easier to access and better connected across mental health, physical health, and family support systems. CalAIM brings care into schools, homes, and communities, removing barriers and helping children get support early, before challenges escalate.

Help is Available, and it’s Covered

Under Medi-Cal, every child and teen under age 19 has the right to mental health care. This includes screenings, therapy, medication support, crisis stabilization, and help coordinating services. Parents, caregivers, and children age 12 or older can request a screening at any time, with no diagnosis or referral required.

Medi-Cal’s Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Program

For children and youth with more serious mental health needs, including those in foster care or involved in the justice system, Medi-Cal offers expanded support, including:

Family-centered and community-based therapy to address trauma, behavior challenges, or system involvement.
Wraparound care teams that help keep children safely at home or with relatives.
Activity funds that support healing through sports, art, music, and therapeutic camps.
Initial joint behavioral health visits, where a mental health provider and child welfare worker meet with the family early in a case.
Child welfare liaisons in Medi-Cal health plans who help caregivers and social workers get services for children faster

Keeping Kids Safe from Opioids and Harmful Drugs

DHCS is also working to keep young people safe as California faces rising risks from opioids and counterfeit pills. Programs like Elevate Youth California and Friday Night Live give teens mentorship, leadership opportunities, and positive outlets that strengthen mental well-being.

Through the California Youth Opioid Response, families can learn how to avoid dangerous substances and get treatment when needed. Song for Charlie provides parents and teens with facts and tools to talk honestly about mental health and counterfeit pills.

DHCS also supports groups like Young People in Recovery, which helps youth build skills for long-term healing, and the Youth Peer Mentor Program, which trains teens with lived experience to support others. These efforts are part of California’s strategy to protect young people, prevent overdoses, and help them make healthier choices.

Support for Parents and Caregivers

Children thrive when their caregivers are supported. Through CalAIM’s vision of whole-person care, Medi-Cal now covers dyadic services, visits where a child and caregiver meet together with a provider to strengthen bonding, manage stress, and address behavior challenges.

These visits may include screening the caregiver for depression or anxiety and connecting them to food, housing, or other health-related social needs, aligning with CalAIM’s Community Supports framework. Notably, only the child must be enrolled in Medi-Cal to receive dyadic care.

Family therapy is also covered and can take place in clinics, schools, homes, or via telehealth, reflecting CalAIM’s commitment to flexible, community-based care delivery.

Additionally, BrightLife Kids offers free tools, resources, and virtual coaching for caregivers and children ages 0–12. Families can sign up online or through the BrightLife Kids app. No insurance, diagnosis, or referral is required.

For teens and young adults ages 13–25, California offers Soluna, a free mental health app where young people can chat with coaches, learn coping skills, journal, or join supportive community circles. Soluna is free, confidential, available in app stores, and does not require insurance.

CalHOPE also provides free emotional support to all Californians through a 24/7 support line at (833) 317-HOPE (4673), online chat, and culturally responsive resources.

Support at School — Where Kids Already Are

Schools are often the first place where emotional stress is noticed. Through the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI), public schools, community colleges, and universities can offer therapy, counseling, crisis support, and referrals at no cost to families.

Services are available during school breaks and delivered on campus, by phone or video, or at community sites. There are no copayments, deductibles, or bills.

Medi-Cal Still Covers Everyday Care

Medi-Cal continues to cover everyday mental health care, including therapy for stress, anxiety, depression, or trauma; medication support; crisis stabilization; hospital care when needed; and referrals to community programs through county mental health plans and Medi-Cal health plans.

How to Get Help

Talk to your child’s teacher, school counselor, or doctor.
In Alameda County call 510-272-3663 or the toll-free number 1-800-698-1118 and in San Francisco call 855-355-5757 to contact your county mental health plan to request an assessment or services.
If your child is not enrolled in Medi-Cal, you can apply at com or my.medi-cal.ca.gov.
In a mental health emergency, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Every child deserves to grow up healthy and supported. Medi-Cal is working to transform care so it’s accessible, equitable, and responsive to the needs of every family.

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Activism

Ann Lowe: The Quiet Genius of American Couture

Lowe was born in Clayton, Alabama, into a family of gifted seamstresses. Her mother and grandmother were well-known dressmakers who created exquisite gowns for women in the area. By the time Lowe was a young girl, she was already showing extraordinary talent — cutting, sewing, and decorating fabric with a skill that far exceeded her age. When her mother died unexpectedly, Lowe – only 16 years old then – took over her mother’s sewing business, completing all the orders herself.

Published

4 days ago

December 14, 2025

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of National Archives.

By Tamara Shiloh

Ann Cole Lowe, born Dec.14, 1898, was a pioneering American fashion designer whose extraordinary talent shaped some of the most widely recognized and celebrated gowns in U.S. history.

Although she designed dresses for society’s wealthiest families and created masterpieces worn at historic events, Lowe spent much of her life in the shadows — uncredited, underpaid, yet unmatched in skill. Today, she is celebrated as one of the first nationally recognized African American fashion designers and a true visionary in American couture.

In 1917, Lowe moved to New York City to study at the S.T. Taylor Design School. Although she was segregated from White students and forced to work separately, she, of course, excelled, graduating earlier than expected. Her instructors quickly recognized that her abilities were far above the typical student, especially her skill in hand-sewing, applique, and intricate floral embellishment – techniques that would become her signature.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she designed gowns for high-society women in Florida and New York, operating boutiques and working for prestigious department stores. Her reputation for craftsmanship, originality, and elegance grew increasingly. She was known for creating gowns that moved beautifully, featured delicate hand-made flowers, and looked sculpted rather than sewn. Many wealthy clients specifically requested “an Ann Lowe gown” for weddings, balls, and galas.

Her most famous creation came in 1953: the wedding gown worn by Jacqueline Bouvier when she married Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy. The dress – crafted from ivory silk taffeta with dozens of tiny, pleated rosettes – became one of the most photographed bridal gowns in American history. Despite this achievement, Lowe received no public credit at the time. When a flood destroyed her completed gowns 10 days before the wedding, she and her seamstresses worked day and night to remake everything – at her own expense. Her dedication and perfectionism never wavered.

She eventually opened “Ann Lowe Originals,” her own salon on New York’s Madison Avenue. She served clients such as the Rockefellers, DuPonts, Vanderbilts, and actresses like Olivia de Havilland. Yet even with her wealthy clientele, she struggled financially, often undercharging because she wanted every dress to be perfect, even if it meant losing money.

Lowe’s contributions were finally recognized later in life. Today, her exquisite gowns are preserved in museums, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the last five years of her life, Lowe lived with her daughter Ruth in Queens, N.Y. She died at her daughter’s home on Feb. 25, 1981, at the age of 82, after an extended illness.

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Activism

2025 in Review: Seven Questions for Black Women’s Think Tank Founder Kellie Todd Griffin

As the president and CEO of the California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute, Griffin is on a mission to shift the narrative and outcomes for Black women and girls. She founded the nation’s first Black Women’s Think Tank, securing $5 million in state funding to fuel policy change.

Published

4 days ago

December 14, 2025

Oakland Post

Kellie Todd Griffin. CBM file photo.

By Edward Henderson
California Black Media

With more than 25 years of experience spanning public affairs, community engagement, strategy, marketing, and communications, Kellie Todd Griffin is recognized across California as a leader who mobilizes people and policy around issues that matter.

Griffin spoke with California Black Media (CBM) about her successes and setbacks in 2025 and her hopes for 2026.

Looking back at 2025, what stands out to you as your most important achievement and why? 

Our greatest achievement in this year is we got an opportunity to honor the work of 35 Black women throughout California who are trailblazing the way for the next generation of leaders.

How did your leadership, efforts and investments as president and CEO California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute contribute to improving the lives of Black Californians? 

We’re training the next leaders. We have been able to train 35 women over a two-year period, and we’re about to start a new cohort of another 30 women. We also have trained over 500 middle and high school girls in leadership, advocacy, and financial literacy.

What frustrated you the most over the last year?

Getting the question, “why.” Why advocate for Black women? Why invest in Black people, Black communities? It’s always constantly having to explain that, although we are aware that there are other populations that are in great need, the quality-of-life indices for Black Californians continue to decrease. Our life expectancies are decreasing. Our unhoused population is increasing. Our health outcomes remain the worst.

We’re not asking anyone to choose one group to prioritize. We are saying, though, in addition to your investments into our immigrant brothers and sisters – or our religious brothers and sisters – we are also asking you to uplift the needs of Black Californians. That way, all of us can move forward together.

What inspired you the most over the last year?

I’ve always been amazed by the joy of Black women in the midst of crisis.

That is really our secret sauce. We don’t let the current state of any issue take our joy from us. It may break us a little bit. We may get tired a little bit. But we find ways to express that – through the arts, through music, through poetry.

What is one lesson you learned in 2025 that will inform your decision-making next year?

Reset. It’s so important not to be sitting still. We have a new administration. We’re seeing data showing that Black women have the largest unemployment rate. We’ve lost so many jobs. We can have rest – we can be restful – but we have to continue the resistance.

In one word, what is the biggest challenge Black Californians faced in 2025?

Motivation.

I choose motivation because of the tiredness. What is going to motivate us to be involved in 2026?

What is the goal you want to achieve most in 2026?

I want to get Black Californians in spaces and places of power and influence – as well as opportunities to thrive economically, socially, and physically.