>> More than 300,000 Illinois residents are at risk of losing their snap benefits.

Major changes are happening to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program come February.

1st, when stricter federal work requirements will begin phasing in.

The report comes as new Purdue University data indicates that food security in security in the United States has increased climbing from 12.5% of households last year to 14%.

Now.

Joining us now to discuss all of that and more our Kimberly Gunther chief impact officer the United Way of Metro Chicago and Kate Mayor seal of the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Thank you, ladies for joining us today.

I want to start off kicking it off.

Let's start with these new work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents, ages 18 to 60 for you will need to work, volunteer or participate in job training at least 80 hours per month.

Also, extensions have been repelled repealed for veterans Unhoused individuals and young adults aging out of foster care.

Those school do not meet these requirements may be limited to receiving benefits for only 3 months within a three-year period.

Now, Kate, I want to start off.

How concerning are these new benchmarks set recipients have to meet?

It seems a little bit all confusing and overwhelming.

Almost absolutely.

And so let me just the bill that was passed in July 4th by Congress and signed by President Trump.

>> Makes major changes to the SNAP program.

Snap is what we sometimes call food stamps.

It's actually an amazing program.

More than 60 years we've had in place in this country.

It provides assistance benefits that people can use at grocery stores to get food.

It also is a really powerful tool for stimulating our economy.

And this bill brought forward really significant changes, including making sure that people have to work.

Now, people have always had to work on snap what the bill actually does is it takes away some of the waivers that states had.

But at the end of the day, it's super confusing for a lot of our neighbors who don't understand what it is.

They have to do when they have to do it and they are really worried, particularly after we just had a government shutdown that for hundreds of thousands of people across the state and millions of people across the country meant that they had no snap benefits.

People who rely on these benefits.

Now these changes are tied to the building.

You talked about rules outline in the one big beautiful bill.

Now in a statement, the Illinois Department of Human Services said Trump's budget bill is designed to deliver really prevent Americans in Illinois for receiving assistance to the SNAP program by implementing new requirements that burden states and individuals rely on 100% federally funded benefits.

Source.

>> Kate, what do you view as the most important immediate impact of the stricter requirements?

I think the most important thing is right now, if there are people watching who are part of the program, they're receiving snap benefits to go to the Illinois Department of Human Services website and find out you likely may have to provide some additional information in order to make sure that your SNAP benefits continue.

>> We know that they're going to be many people, including some immigrants who have in the past been able to legally receive SNAP benefits as well as some people who no longer meet these new requirements that are being put forward.

going to lose their benefits to those folks.

What we need to make sure that they are aware of is that there is an amazing network of charitable organizations, food pantries and soup kitchens all across this community who might have the food that they need to be able to feed themselves and their families.

The deadline was originally December 8, you know, I was changed or I do.

And it's this is part of the confusion.

There have been a series of lot of lawsuits, legal actions taken by states in order to test whether or not some of the provisions in the law are, in fact, legal.

And there's been a lot of question about that right now.

We are trying to navigate this and we understand the provisions won't begin until February one.

Again, it is really confusing for the families out there who are just trying to make sure that they have groceries for the children in the household.

And so go to the Illinois Department of Human Services website.

You can get great information there.

You can also go to the Food Depository website and learn whether or not you need to take additional steps in order to keep your her.

Some some of these families we have heard from a lot of families, families are scared.

Families are worried about what is in front of them.

People are wondering how they're going to make ends meet.

And I will just say this is on top of, as you noted at the beginning, historic and unprecedented hunger in this community and in this country, we are serving more people today at the Greater Chicago Food Depository than we ever have served and are close to 50 year history.

You are reserving the deposit or is already serving hundreds of people in general.

We are serving hundreds of thousands of our neighbors and this is sobering reality that we are going to see even more people for every meal we are able to provide the SNAP program provides 9.

So taking that back from people is going to have huge ramifications can really want to bring you in.

What has that been like for Metro Chicago and especially to 1, 1, Have you seen an increase in calls?

Its there has been a tremendous increase just.

>> Looking from the first 2 weeks of October to the first 2 weeks of November, we saw 149% increase in calls for food assistance.

Only we also know that there are calls for things like employment services that our probably in line with some of these upcoming requirement meant remind people to 1, 1, someone's calling for assistance.

You're hooking them up or league S directing them to different food depository is a han trees are 1, One is a 24 call line where people can call for human services.

All they need to provide as their zip code.

They can provide additional information if they'd like.

But really a one one-stop shop to be able to get access to all of the services that you need.

There's been an overwhelming there's going overwhelming increase that 149% was on top of a month to month.

49, I'm sorry.

43 1% increase from September to October.

So, you know, in addition to the pause and snap benefits, me know that federal presence in communities also impacted people's ability to go and get food pantries or perhaps go to work.

That's kind of putting putting those households in real position that prompt metro Chicago to start the response fund grant, you tell me a bit about that.

It did.

Yes.

So for some time we've been looking at just the incredible data that 2, 1, 1, offers.

What's incredible about it is that it updates daily.

So it's one of the very few sources of real-time data about emerging needs.

So we've been able to look at that data.

See that increase in calls.

Meet with Kate and her team and look at, you know, where the highest snap utilization is across the region and also talk to our 145 funded partners across the Chicago region.

And from that, we determined that we can make some some response grant.

So we have funded 24 organizations across the metro Area, $250,000 investment with the real focus on the hyper local pantries and organizations that are doing home delivery is they're different.

Neighborhoods are more impacted than others.

Is absolutely.

look across the map, particularly here in Chicago.

We know that there is disproportionately high number of people.

>> Who are food insecure and also who rely on the SNAP program on the Westside of Chicago on the South side of Chicago in the far south suburbs.

Hunger in this community and hungry in America is a reflection of poverty.

And so it's not surprising that we see those maps look the same, whether we're talking about food, insecurity, poverty or health disparities.

I have committee.

What do you think people get wrong about people are enrolled in SNAP benefits?

>> I think there's an assumption that people aren't doing everything within their power to provide for their families, too access all of the resources that they need.

But if we look at decades of disinvestment in communities in individuals, it really is so difficult to gain a foothold and so many of the people that access SNAP benefits are working.

Our have complex family situations that may be their care taking for people and there there's just a terrible narrative that that is very untrue about.

I think all all of the folks in our region that are are accessing services in order to have a stable, stable life for their family.

Following up on that, you know, what do you say to people who see the additional work requirements and think that this seems reasonable?

So, again, to be clear, we have always had these work requirements.

What changed is that.

>> States were allowed to have waivers because there are high unemployment rates because it was hard for people to get jobs.

Bill took away the ability for states to have those waivers.

That's what really changed.

We haven't done anything different.

Denying people access to food is not going to make them get a job.

As Kimberly said, most of the people who can work are working.

In fact, most of the people on SNAP are not even the population that people think of most of the people on snap children, older adults and people with disabilities.

And so I think there's a narrative that we really have to change huge and also like an impact on grocery stores.

>> That's right.

So how how does that work?

I think one of the the concerns that I have is the way snapped works.

You get dollars loaded up on an EBT card.

You spend those dollars qualified grocery stores and those grocery stores.

They use those dollars to hire people in community to buy food from food companies.

Those dollars go all the way back to the Illinois farmer.

And so when we begin to restrict access to snap, we're leaving those dollars out of our economy and that has huge ramifications.

Not just for places like Chicago, but I'm really worried about smaller communities in rural communities.

They're our grocery stores that will really struggle with this new especially grocery food