Working poor in US

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

'Artemis of the wildland' and the food stamp haters

Portland, Oregon has been plagued by a vigilante threatening to 'out' food stamp recipients. Because hunger needs stigmatising



Nick Mattos
theguardian.com, Tuesday 24 September 2013 13.30 BST



In August of 2013, plain printed flyers began appearing on doors in Portland, Oregon. Signed by "Artemis of the wildland", the roughly-cut half-sheets claimed that their author would soon be posting lists of the registered voters in the area who were also recipients of disability payments or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as Snap, or food stamps).

"There are 27 people in this neighborhood who vote and receive food stamps," one note read. "The names of these people are being posted where they can be seen by taxpayers and the neighborhood can decide who is truly in need of food."

Among those names was mine.

As a 29-year-old, university-educated, able-bodied man with no dependents, I am squarely within the demographic that many believe should not have to use Snap food benefits. Furthermore, I have had the good fortune and poor timing of starting my career as a journalist – a field that notoriously leaves most of its workers existing on diets of rice and beans – at the very moment when newspapers across America are going out of business, shrinking their staff, and converting to a freelance-only business model.

These facts didn't dissuade me from entering the field, but after the looming threat of student loan default and losing my apartment began to weigh too heavily on my mind, I ultimately had to face a hard fact. Per the Department of Human Services, I was actually eligible to receive assistance from the government in order not to be forced to live on a mono-diet of ramen noodles in order to both work in my field and pay my rent.

Soon after Artemis of the wildland's flyers began appearing on Portland doors, the local Craigslist boards began to yield posts of people offering support to Artemis on the crusade. These were full of thinly-veiled bitterness at "the way things are" and the so-called "entitlement mindset" of those who dared to both participate in the electoral process and qualify for food assistance.

As unsettling as these were, the truth of the matter was that Artemis already had ideological compatriots in Congress. Last Thursday, 217 representatives voted in favor of House of Representatives Bill 3102, which will cut over $40bn from Snap programs over the next three years. As described by the House rules committee chairman, Pete Sessions (Republican, Texas), the bill includes "reasonable changes" to address the "growing and growing and growing" number of Snap recipients.

The bill was rife with the sentiment that Snap recipients are largely lazy, unemployed, or underemployed, and that the solution to Snap's expansion was to force its recipients to take jobs. "There are still jobs available in America," Sessions was quoted as saying in agricultural industry publication AgriPulse. "They may not be ones you want to stay in your whole life."

The problem is that even taking what jobs are available does not necessarily diminish the need for food assistance. My local cornershop is situated squarely between an upscale residential district and a troubled industrial zone. Its owners, a first-generation Korean couple, note that among their customers, a huge percentage purchase their food using government benefits. "It's even the workers," the shopkeeper told me, gesturing at the warehouses outside. "They work hard, and they still need help." He sighed as he handed back my Snap card. "It's hard times for everyone."

It's easy to talk about Snap benefit recipients through the abstract lens of political ideology. It's seductive to diagnose the 46.6 million Americans who currently receive such benefits with "entitlement mindsets" and to prescribe treatment of hard work in a sub-optimal job. But when we talk about Snap, we are talking about survival – for a diverse array of individuals and families who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads during the great recession whose effects we're still feeling. When we talk about Snap recipients, there is no single stereotype available.

If we are to unravel the stigma that affects those who receive food assistance and ensure that this critical program remains for the Americans who need it, we must break the silence around Snap. So, Artemis of the Wildland, I shall beat you to the punch: I am a voter, and I am a recipient of Snap food benefits. Congresspeople: I am a garbageman's son, a working-class journalist, a dreamer of the American dream, and in these hard times, quite hungry.

Finally, to my tax-paying neighbors: Artemis was right about one thing – I am truly in need of food.


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