D.C. SNAP recipients will get temporary boost in February, city says
D.C. households receiving food assistance will see their benefits increase temporarily starting in late February, the District’s Department of Human Services said Friday.
The announcement ends a weeks-long standoff between Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) administration and the D.C. Council on whether the city would implement a local boost to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from this month to September, stemming from a near-$40 million budget provision passed by the council last year. The supplementary local benefit — up to 10 percent of a family’s federal maximum monthly allotment, determined by household size — will help about 83,000 households, DHS said in a statement.
DHS will mail SNAP households a notice Feb. 17 informing them of the new temporary benefit. On Feb. 23, D.C. will issue retroactive supplementary payments for January and February SNAP benefits directly onto each customer’s existing EBT card. Beginning March 1, the supplemental benefit will be paired with regular SNAP payments, according to the news release.
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SNAP recipients are not required to fill out a separate application to receive the temporary increase, but the program’s limited funds, combined with SNAP’s fluctuating caseload means the benefit “may be reduced in September if funds run short,” the statement said.
“It’s a relief that we actually have some firm dates in hand when we know benefits will be disbursed to residents,” said LaMonika Jones, director of D.C. Hunger Solutions, which is among the many advocacy groups that had pushed for the increased benefit.
The 10 percent increase to SNAP was contingent on excess revenue that the city’s chief financial officer determined was available in the fall, but Bowser’s administration and DHS said weeks later that the temporary boost was not viable when the agency was already facing a budget shortfall and has been stretched thin while operating existing social services programs that have also seen heightened demand.
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But the administration changed its position last week after an area nonprofit threatened to sue DHS over its refusal to implement the increase. The day before, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) introduced a resolution authorizing the council to sue or support other litigation related to SNAP. On Tuesday, Mendelson pulled the resolution ahead of the council’s legislative meeting, telling colleagues that while he wanted to leave the council’s options open, he did not think it would be a good look to proceed just after securing a commitment from the mayor.
“I think people on the outside taking from this that we’re still going to sue the mayor is not a great perspective,” Mendelson said Tuesday at a breakfast with members, noting the mayor was “quite clear that she considered it an affront” if the council moved forward with the resolution.
He said his main interest was not whether the administration would go forward with the SNAP enhancement, but when — a question that was answered in Friday’s announcement from DHS.
In November, Bowser’s administration had proposed funding the administrative costs for Summer EBT, a federal program that provides families with school-aged children $40 per child per month over three months, instead of temporarily increasing SNAP as a trade-off, council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) said previously. While the city met a Jan. 1 deadline to submit a notice of intent to operate the Summer EBT program, Henderson said in an interview Friday that Bowser’s administration is now looking to begin that program in 2025 as a result of increasing SNAP.
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A spokesperson for Bowser did not immediately return a request for comment.
Henderson, whose unfunded 2022 bill to create a local SNAP supplement inspired the temporary boost passed by the council last year, noted that Summer EBT would require residents to take additional steps like submitting an application for a new benefits card, potentially straining DHS further.
There was never an intent to pit SNAP and Summer EBT against one another, Henderson said. But at the same time, the latter program would have required DHS to find an additional $2 million to implement it, which would be another hurdle for the agency. An existing local summer meals program for students remains available to D.C. families.
Meagan Flynn contributed to this report.
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