Despite SNAP’s return, indigenous Americans still struggle with food insecurity : Shots

The snow-capped mountains surrounding the Flathead Reservation in northwestern Montana are a sign that winter is approaching.

Mary Lefty pulls her truck up to a warehouse in the valley below.

She drove along city ​​of St. Ignatius to pick up free food from product program under the Confederacy of Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

Tribal food programs are federally funded but have not been impacted by the federal government shutdown.

Unlike SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which was under threat.

41 million SNAP recipients during government shutdown didn't know if they would receive benefits for November.

Lefty gets SNAP. She prefers this program to the grocery program because SNAP allows her to go to the grocery store and pick out her own groceries.

But during the shutdown, she became increasingly concerned about the uncertainty over SNAP benefits.

She decided to switch to a breeding commodity program.

“Because I have three growing grandchildren who eat a lot,” she explained.

Lefty relies on food assistance for his entire food budget. But often this is still not enough for her and her three grandchildren.

“Towards the end of the month, I feed them plain rice and whatever else I can find,” says Lefty.

When the Trump administration said it would not send out SNAP payments for November, tribes scrambled to fill the gap. Any disruption to food aid supplies could hit American Indian communities particularly hard.

“More than 60% of indigenous people rely solely on this food source as their primary source of nutrition,” says Valarie Blue Bird JerniganProfessor of Medicine and Rural Health at Oklahoma State University.

Research shows that forty six percent Native Americans struggle with food insecurity each year, compared with about 10% of the general U.S. population.

SNAP has resumed regular payments, but tribes and their members may continue to experience financial hardship due to the program's disruption.

For some tribes, food programs provided partial support. Tribal members living on reservations are allowed to enroll in the Commodity Program or SNAP, but not both.

Many people on the Flathead Reservation, like Lefty, couldn't wait to see how SNAP benefits would work, said Nicholas White, who manages the Salish and Kootenai Tribes' Commodity Program.

“I have a pretty good stack of people,” he says, looking through a thick stack of applications. “It’s the number of people who come to our program.”

Tribal communities that do not participate in the commodities program are left struggling to keep families from going hungry.

The Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana has declared a state of emergency. killed 18 buffaloes from his herd. Tribes in the West also killed more bison than they otherwise would have.

However, many tribes are in the early stages of raising their herds. Any animal they kill now could slow down that growth significantly.

Tesha Hawley runs the nonprofit Day Eagle Hope Project on Forth Island. Belknap Reservation in northeastern Montana.

She was able to redirect some of the grant funding to purchase livestock and send that meat to temporary food banks throughout the reservation, where the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes live.

The grant was originally intended to help tribal farmers and ranchers sell their food locally. Many tribal communities are food desertsso tribes and the nonprofits that work with them are trying to increase access to local food sources.

During the shutdown, many tribes also increased the amount of food they distributed through their self-funded food assistance programs.

Tribal and nonprofit officials say they won't be reimbursed for the extra money and resources they spent. Yadira RiveraDirector of Investments in Local Agriculture and Food Systems First Nations Development Institute.

“This will present them with a problem in the future,” she says.

Some tribal food programs will continue to extend throughout the holiday season, traditionally the busiest time of year, Rivera said.

Tribal families may still be feeling the cascade of financial fallout from the outage, even though SNAP ultimately received a full year of funding as part of the deal that ended the shutdown.

Rivera notes that during the weeks of uncertainty, families may have missed paying rent or another bill to put food on the table.

Research showed when people lose access to food assistance, they suffer other financial consequences.

“A lot of people get evicted when they lose food assistance because they spend their money on food and you have to eat,” said the Georgetown law professor. David Superstudying social security law.

Another example: Losing SNAP could force people to choose between buying medicine or buying food, according to Super.

Lefty was grateful that she was able to quickly switch to her tribe's commodity program. She said this prevented her from falling behind on her bills.

“I'm going to stay on raw materials for a while. When they bring food stamps back, I'll probably go back to it,” she says.

But first she will have to overcome a bureaucratic obstacle.

To re-enroll in SNAP, Lefty will have to leave the Tribal Feed Program for at least a month to become eligible.

This story comes from NPR's health reporting partnership with Montana Public Radio And KFF health news.