WV needs to renew SNAP stretch

 In many parts of the world, autumn is a time for harvest festivals celebrating the end of the growing season and laying up stores for the winter. One example is the recent celebration of Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, known in Hebrew as Succoth. That’s also part of the basis for the American Thanksgiving holiday. 

In the Bible, harvest time demands special consideration for the poor. In Leviticus (19:9,10) it says, “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.”

Unfortunately, many low-income West Virginians lost out on the chance to glean and store up for winter when the popular SNAP Stretch program was suspended in mid-August due to lack of funding. 

SNAP is the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP Stretch is a program that boosts the purchasing power when people use SNAP benefits at participating farmers markets. It provides a dollar-per-dollar match to buy locally grown fruits, vegetables, herbs, plants, and seeds. The matching rate goes up for seniors and families with children.

SNAP Stretch is a winner all around, but let’s start with those for hungry people. Regular SNAP benefits aren’t nearly as generous as some people tend to believe. They average around $6 per person per day, an amount many people spend on fancy lattes at a coffee shop. The boost in buying power from SNAP Stretch can make a big difference.

There are also health benefits. While heavily processed foods can be a cheap source of calories, they are often high in sugar, salt, fat, and other ingredients associated with increasing risk of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other ailments. That’s a sharp contrast with fresh local foods.

There are the economic gains. I’ve read that the average food item purchased by Americans comes from around 1,500 miles away, usually made and distributed by (publicly subsidized) food conglomerates. God knows what’s been done to it by whom by the time it gets to us.

 And that “food product” is often sold in big box retail stores that siphon money out of the local economy. There’s a huge difference between that and putting money directly into the hands of neighbors in exchange for healthy homegrown food.

According to the Food Research and Action Council (FRAC), each dollar’s worth of SNAP benefits generates $1.79 in economic activity, supporting local farmers, markets, businesses, and jobs.

There are other benefits. Eating fresh locally grown food helps us reconnect with the turning of the seasons. There’s a big difference between opening a bag of frozen corn versus shucking a few ears grown by neighbors. If you eat animal products such as dairy, eggs, or meat, chances are that those from small local farmers were produced more humanely than those from huge factory farms where many animals never see the light of day.

SNAP Stretch helps build community. You can spend hours wandering the aisles of big box stores without a lot of human interaction. You can even check out with a machine without as much as nodding at the checkout clerk. That’s not going to happen at a farmers’ market. At my local market, it’s not unusual to see people hit every truck and table, talking to growers and fellow shoppers as well.

The influential food writer Michael Pollan said it well:

…there is a lot more going on in them than the exchange of money for food. Someone is collecting signatures on a petition. Someone else is playing music. Children are everywhere, sampling fresh produce, talking to farmers. Friends and acquaintances stop to chat. One sociologist calculated that people have ten times as many conversations at the farmers’ market than they do in the supermarket. Socially as well as sensually, the farmers’ market offers a remarkably rich and appealing environment. Someone buying food here may be acting not just as a consumer but also as a neighbor, a citizen, a parent, a cook. In many cities and towns, farmers’ markets have taken on (and not for the first time) the function of a lively new public square.

In times like these, we need more of that.

This program was developed by the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition and funded by a mixture of USDA and local funding, sometimes provided by a mix of philanthropy and COVID-era public money. It has reached nearly 80,000 families and put around $3 million into local farm economies. When funding dried up this summer, activities, 26 markets in 21 counties lost out.

One way to make sure this doesn’t happen again—and to do so before the next growing season—is for the legislature to provide annual funding to match federal contributions in the next session. A few hundred thousand dollars a year is decimal dust in a $5 billion state budget, but it would benefit families and farmers statewide. We’ve spent much more on stranger things with less public benefit.

Since I started with a Bible verse, I might as well end with one. In chapter 6 of Matthew, Jesus said “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Roll the union!

 The United Autoworkers strike against the Big Three car companies in late 2023 gained national attention and enthusiasm. That might have just been the beginning. 

Following the successful strike, which linked issues related to class and climate, the UAW turned its attention to organizing the unorganized. Those efforts have recently been crowned with success by the overwhelming vote of workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  

The vote was 2,628 in favor of joining the union and 985 against, meaning around 73% supported the drive. Earlier efforts to unionize the facility failed in 2014 and 2019. Next month, workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama will also vote on joining the union. 

If this trend continues, this win in the traditionally anti-union South could be as historic as last year’s victory—or the epic organizing drives of the 1930s. 

It’s no secret that for decades corporations have been shifting production to southern states, where the power of unions has traditionally been thwarted by so-called “Right to Work” (RTW) legislation. I call it “Right to Work for Less.” 

RTW laws lower labor standards, undermine the democratic process, weaken unions, and allow free riders to benefit from collective bargaining agreements without providing dues to support the process. And unfortunately, these laws have spread beyond their southern origins. 

Many people may not be aware, however, of the vile and explicitly racist origins and motivations of RTW. 

The person who came up with the name and launched the movement to enact it as law was a Texas businessman and politico named Vance Muse, who lived from 1890 to 1950. An unabashed racist and anti-Semite, he bitterly opposed the labor law reforms of the New Deal, which he referred to as “the Jew Deal.” 

At the time, the labor movement was making huge advances and helping to build working-class power. However, it faced serious obstacles in the South, where a racial caste system divided workers and kept wages low for everyone. 

Vance and his allies in the “Christian American Association,” an organization he founded to promote RTW, were opposed to unions not only for their promotion of better wages and conditions but also for their potential threat to the system of racial segregation. But they soon gained powerful supporters beyond the South and began to win major victories. 

According to Dartmouth historian Marc Dixon: “The Christian American Association out of Houston was the first to champion Right-to-Work as a full-blown political slogan in 1941. The organization stood out in a crowded field for its fiery rhetoric against President Roosevelt and especially labor. But Right-to-Work quickly moved from the fringe to the mainstream. After the war, organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers championed the laws with great effect. By the early spring of 1947, fourteen states had adopted Right-to-Work, and the Taft-Hartley Act, passed by Congress later that year, solidified the rights of states to pass and enforce these laws.” 

Muse was able to play on racial biases to promote RTW with considerable success — but not a lot of subtlety. Some of his anti-Black and antisemitic remarks are too inflammatory to include here. Suffice it to say that he believed anti-labor laws and repression were necessary to “keep the color line drawn in our social affairs” and “protect the Southern Negro [sic] from communistic propaganda and influences.” 

When union organizers with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) dreamed of launching “Operation Dixie” in the 1940s to organize southern workers and overcome segregation, Muse’s wealthy backers of millionaires, corporations, business associations, and demagogic politicians were able to largely neutralize the effort. 

It won’t be easy, but perhaps this most recent UAW victory will be a major step toward undoing that shameful legacy of racism and greed. 

I don’t know of anyone who spoke the truth about RTW—and the connection between the struggles for racial and economic justice—more clearly than the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work’” he said. “It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights.” 

King elaborated that RTW’s “purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. … Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped.” 

Amen to that. 

(This appeared on the AFSC website. The UAW has won another victory since this came out.)

Criminalizing homelessness?

 Yesterday, April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in what is likely to be a landmark case about the criminalization of poverty and homelessness. The case, City of Grants Pass, Oregon v Johnson, involves a town that passed ordinances prohibiting people from sleeping outside in public while using bedding materials such as blankets, pillows, or sleeping bags. Those found violating the ordinances could be subject to fines and jail time. 

The court’s decision will have far-reaching impacts on cities around the U.S. with growing homeless populations. If the ordinance is allowed to stand, it would basically outlaw an essential biological function for people unable to afford conventional housing—a violation of human dignity even more extreme than homelessness itself. 

Fortunately, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the town from enforcing the ordinances. The court found that punishing homeless people where no other housing options were available constituted cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. Now the case is headed to the Supreme Court.  

AFSC joined diverse faith-based organizations in filing an amicus brief opposing the punishment of homelessness on both constitutional and religious grounds. The brief states in part: “The universal bedrock beliefs of faith traditions have affirmed for centuries that punishing poor and homeless people for the effects of their poverty and homelessness fails to honor the holy nature of creation, and thereby fails society as a whole.” 

Among the groups that joined in filing this brief were the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Justice; Friends General Conference; Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice; Hindus for Human Rights; Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing; Metropolitan AME (African Methodist Episcopal); National Council of Jewish Women; National Clergy Council of the National Union of the Homeless; NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice; Riverside Church; Sisters of Mercy of the Americans; and the Unitarian Universalist Association. 

AFSC has a long history of working on issues related to housing justice—including addressing, preventing, and attempting to end homelessness, from supporting public housing for displaced workers in the Great Depression to challenging evictions and predatory mortgage practices in the Great Recession of the 2000s and beyond. 

Today, AFSC’s work for housing justice involves struggles for tenant rights; advocacy for adequate funding for housing assistance at the local, state, and federal levels; support for housing options for people dealing with issues of recovery and reentry; and the development of housing alternatives such as community land trusts and cooperatives. 

However the court rules, we know that long-term solutions to problems associated with homelessness will not be found in punishment. Instead, we must make investments in affordable housing, supportive services, mental health, recovery and reentry programs, and economic policies that end poverty and promote shared prosperity for all.  

Interested in learning more about the court case and how you can advocate for the rights of homeless people?  

Check out this recap of a webinar hosted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, and the National Homelessness Law Center. 

In addition, several of these organizations are hosting a national week of action this week to oppose the criminalization of homelessness and advance long-term solutions. To take part, use this toolkit, which includes tips for meeting with legislators, hosting educational events, and raising awareness through social media.  

Want to help reduce child hunger? Here's one way

Everybody's got to eat 

It’s no secret that hunger affects kids’ health and makes it harder for them to learn and thrive in school. In recent years, there has been growing awareness that millions of children in the U.S. rely on school breakfasts and lunches—and increasingly after-school snacks and meals—for a significant part of their nutrition. 

This has led many to ask about what happens to those children when school is not in session. This is an especially crucial question in a time of pandemics, extreme weather events, and other disasters. 

Even a polarized Congress has recognized the importance of this issue. Recently, Congress enacted a permanent program to help low-income kids get the food they need when schools are out for summer. The Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) program, which will take effect this year, is modeled on the Pandemic EBT cards issued during the COVID public health emergency.  

The new program will provide pre-loaded cards worth $120 in grocery-buying benefits to low-income families with school-age children. As many as 30 million children could benefit, according to the Food Research and Action Council (FRAC). With the help of other programs—such as SNAP Stretch, which doubles or even triples the purchasing power of EBT cards at farmers’ markets—Summer EBT can dramatically improve child nutrition. That means more kids will have access to the food they need year-round, which will pay off in the long term for their health and well-being.   

There are economic benefits to the program, as well. Summer EBT could provide a boost to local businesses, farmers, and economies worth at least $3.6 billion from the EBT cards alone. In addition, the USDA estimates that every dollar of EBT benefits spent generates a multiplier effect of 1.54.  

How you can help  

The Summer EBT program is based on a federal-state partnership, with states having to share administrative costs. Recognizing the value of this program, most states—whether led by Democratic or Republican administrations—have chosen to implement it.  

Unfortunately, as of this writing, 14 states have chosen not to participate in 2024. That leaves more than 10 million children without this critical benefit. Those states are: 

Alabama 

Alaska 

Florida 

Georgia 

Idaho 

Iowa 

Louisiana 

Mississippi 

Oklahoma 

South Carolina 

South Dakota 

Vermont (they plan to next year, but a nice nudge woudn't hurt)

Wyoming 

Do you live in one of these states--or know people who do? You can help by joining AFSC’s campaign to persuade leaders in your state to implement Summer EBT.  

AFSC, with our over 100 years of experience in working for food security, is partnering with national and state allies to ensure that all eligible children can benefit from this program. We will share ideas, talking points, media toolkits, data, materials, and other tools to support you in working to achieve this goal. 

Together, we can ensure more kids have the food they need while school is out.

If you’re interested in working toward a No Hunger Summer, please contact us at nohungersummer@afsc.org. 

One more push for an expanded Child Tax Credit

 Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021 in response to the human and economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a complicated piece of legislation that included aid to state and local governments as well as individuals and families.

One of the most important—if temporary— parts was an expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which provided monthly payments to families with children based on the age and number of children. During the all too brief time that it was in effect, child poverty dropped with record speed in 2021, reaching an all time low of around five percent. Workforce participation of parents and caregivers increased while the expanded CTC was in effect.

Research showed that families spent most of the additional income on things you might expect food, housing costs, child care, utilities. People who study child well-being have long regarded economic security as a protective factor that reduces the probability of maltreatment and abuse. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, receipt of CTC payments were associated with a decline in maltreatment reports and emergency room visits.

Statistics alone aren’t the whole story. Between July and December 2021, I was part of a group effort to collect stories from West Virginia parents and caregivers about what effect the CTC had on their families. The results were about as basic as you can get. 

One family was finally able to fix a broken toilet, which is kind of a big deal. Some children got beds of their own for the first time in their lives. Other parents were able to buy tires or repair vehicles so they could go to work. Another bought enough firewood to get through the winter. Others bought clothes and shoes for school. Some children were able to take part in sports, extracurricular activities, or go to lessons they would otherwise have missed.

You get the idea. If you were in one of those families, you can probably add to the list.

Unfortunately, in January 2022, Congress allowed the expanded CTC to expire. This ended much needed assistance for millions of working class and low-income families. The child poverty rate more than doubled in 2022.

Now there’s a chance to undo at least some of that damage. Despite extreme political polarization, the Republican-led US House of Representatives approved a bipartisan tax plan that would partially expand the CTC again. To her credit, Republican Representative Carol Miller, who represents southern West Virginia, supported the measure. It passed the House by an incredible 357-70 margin. 

This expansion of the CTC is not as generous or inclusive as the 2021 version, but it could benefit 16 million low-income families and lift as many as 500,000 children out of poverty by 2025.

The bill is now stalled in the Senate but it’s not dead yet. In an era of razor thin majorities, every vote counts. It would probably have more of a positive proportional impact in West Virginia than in most other states.

West Virginia’s senators could help move it across the finish line. This time around I hope they do.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

The end of an era

 It's hard to believe that this (now irregular) blog started 18 years ago t next month. The name Goat Rope came from three sources:

*First, when the Spousal Unit and I were on the local volunteer fire department, we went to an auto extrication class led by someone with a hilarious voice. In a mixed class of men and women, he'd often say "Boys--you know what I see here? I see a goat rope." The term may have rodeo roots, but it mostly means a hot mess these days. It stuck.

*Second, when we moved out in the country, we decided to call the place Goat Rope Farm even before it was anything like a farm.

*Third, around 19 years ago, we became the proud caregivers of Venus, a pregnant Alpine diary goat. Venus was the first of several to grace our farm and torment their human caregivers. On some occasions, they even gave milk for drinking, cheese, yogurt, and soap as produced by said spouse (although they were probably more happy sticking their feet in the milking pail).

Yesterday, that era came to an end. We were down to two old dairy goats who had never given birth or milk (we tried) and were basically walking lawn ornaments that were becoming more of a challenge to manage. We were lucky to find a home for them in our extended family on a farm with kids (the human kind) who love goats.

So the goats are gone...but the goat rope remains.

Reflections on Gaza

(A photo I took there in 2015)

 In 2015, I was part of a delegation to Palestine, with stops in Israel in Tel Aviv and Jaffa.

We visited Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, and East and West Jerusalem. And Gaza. That sounds like a lot, but everything is close there in terms of geography. In terms of Palestinian people’s ability to freely move around and between the West Bank and Gaza, not so much.

Obviously, that doesn’t make me an expert, but I saw things I wish I hadn’t seen and learned things I wish I didn’t know. Sometimes knowledge brings no joy. 

I’m not interested in picking any fights, justifying any atrocities, minimizing anyone’s suffering, or valuing some lives and deaths over others. But I can say some things about Gaza or what Gaza was with some confidence.

One, it has often been called an open-air prison. Don’t take my word for it—just google the term. In my experience that wasn’t far off the mark.

Two, it’s tiny. For comparison, one of our smaller counties is Wirt with around 235 square miles and a little over 5,000 people. Gaza is more than 1/3 smaller, at around 140 square miles, but it has—or had—2.3 million people, one of the world’s densest populations. In parts of it, you’d have a hard time shaking a stick without hitting someone. 

Three, it’s been under military blockade for 15 or so years. Everything was scarce, including safe drinking water, food, power, sanitation, and all the basics. At the time, people were trying to rebuild after the last conflict. Around then, the UN said it wouldn’t be livable by 2020. As for the accuracy of that prediction, I guess it’s a matter of definition. It’s definitely true now.

Four, the unemployment rate was around 50 percent before the war. I saw lots of people sitting at tables and hoping to sell things nobody would ever buy. Before this crisis, around 80 percent relied on aid from the UN.

Five, about half the population consists of children under 18 living in very adverse conditions. There’s lots of science about how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can lead to all kinds of problems down the road. 

Six, it wasn’t easy to get into and almost impossible for most residents to leave. I found the sense of claustrophobia overwhelming. 

Seven, I’m sure most people there were not connected with those wielding power. That’s true everywhere in the world and is especially true of the women and children who have made up the bulk of casualties.  A pre-war poll found that 44 percent of Gazans had no trust at all in the government and 23 percent had “not a lot of trust.” 

Eight, there are Christians there, representing Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, although church buildings have been damaged or demolished by bombings from recent or previous conflicts. Gaza’s only Christian hospital, once connected with Southern Baptists, was bombed in mid-October. It was the only that treated cancer.

Nine, it has one of the world’s highest literacy rates for men and women, above 97 percent, higher than ours. Gazans value higher education, although resources were slim and are now nonexistent. I remember talking with men and women university students about their love for English language writers like Dickens, Twain, and Hemingway. Reading and writing were their ways of dealing with the feeling of isolation from the world.

Ten, most people there are or are descended from people displaced from Israel. Many are or were still  living in refugee camps.

As a thought experiment, try closing your eyes and imagining a situation like this happening anywhere in the world.

One of the most striking things about the people was their refusal to be defined by their situation. More than once, members of the delegation teared up when seeing the conditions. “Why are you crying? We’re living our lives” was their typical response.

I’m sure many of the people I saw have been killed or injured and all have been displaced and are dealing with horrible conditions  of hunger, thirst, disease, lack of medical care, and trauma.

Watching this reminds me of the aftermath of 9/11, when people were understandably afraid and outraged. Unfortunately, the response by US leaders had disastrous consequences, including invading Iraq, which wasn’t involved in the attacks. The result was around 4,500 US military fatalities and 32,000 wounded. Well over 30,000 US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have committed suicide, a number that grows every day. The death toll for Iraqis is impossible to calculate, although it’s in the hundreds of thousands. The long-term cost will be around $2 trillion. And the situation in that part of the world still isn’t rosy.

The use of force is always unpredictable, with unintended consequences for all parties, as any glance at history shows from the days of the Iliad to our time. Violence tends to lead to more of a growing spiral than a cycle, with each act leading to a more severe reprisal. Who knows how many seeds of spiraling violence have been sown over the last few months- or who will reap that whirlwind?

No wonder that public opinion polls in the US and across the world show overwhelming support for de-escalation, massive humanitarian aid, and a ceasefire.

One thing seems clear to me: the longer this situation lasts, the worse the long-term outcomes are going to be. For everyone concerned.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)