Many residents from Oregon who are eligible to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will still receive emergency food assistance in January next year, based on an announcement by the Oregon Department of Human Services.
The agency said that roughly 382,000 SNAP recipients in the region would get a total of $61 million in extra benefits on top of their regular aid. Dan Haun, the director of the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS), Self-Sufficiency Program, said a lot of Oregon residents were still not able to meet the basic needs due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
SNAP Benefits
Current SNAP households who are eligible for the benefits will receive their financial support on Jan. 11. In a statement, Dan Haun said that the agency was grateful to have been given the opportunity to distribute emergency benefits to the majority of SNAP households in Oregon.
The official added that they knew there were still many Oregon residents who were in dire need of assistance to meet their basic needs. Dan Haun said the agency encouraged them to contact their partners at 211 and the Oregon Food Bank for support amid the crisis, Marca reported.
The situation also comes as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced that Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP) benefits were approved. This would give residents in the region who live or work in the 14 counties impacted by the Dec. 10 to 11 tornadoes financial assistance.
But there are still two counties on standby and waiting to be added to the list in the future. In a statement, the governor said that they were appreciative of the extra assistance that the federal government has given the state that will help families who have lost so much to the disaster to have access to healthy food at this critical time.
Financial Assistance
Beshear said that when people were worried about how to rebuild their homes and their lives, they should not have to worry about where they could get their next meal. The Kentucky governor announced on Monday that beneficiaries who were affected by the disaster could request benefit replacements through a waiver that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved.
A second waiver is expected to be provided for replacements that will be given out to counties that have been severely affected by the tornadoes, such as Warren and Hickman counties. The Kentucky governor also said that hot food could be purchased from authorized SNAP retailers, FOX56 reported.
Additionally, more than 300,000 households in South Carolina who are receiving Emergency SNAP benefits will get expanded assistance for at least one more month. In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Henry McMaster and President Joe Biden confirmed that South Carolina had been granted an extension of the program for January.
The USDA estimated that roughly 303,858 households in South Carolina were getting SNAP benefits every month, coming to a total of $54,459,545 in aid. The numbers represent an average of $179.22 for every household per month, WYFF4 reported.
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