November 5, 2025- The Dallas Morning News- by Letters to the Editors
Enough already on SNAP
Re: “‘Working but still hungry’: SNAP recipients who are employed face precarious times,” online story.
Enough already. Those of us in the trenches trying to help families navigate these extremely uncertain post-pandemic times are ready to “cry uncle.” We’ve more than doubled our budget through private fundraising while serving five times as many families, meaning we have found ways to be more creative and cost effective.
We’ve expanded capacity and added interventions to help families troubleshoot their dire circumstances. We push families to work, to learn a
trade, to try harder. We served 2,100 families last year (about 7,500 individuals, most of whom were children).
When I started in 2016, we served 400 families annually. Now families face a cessation of SNAP benefits? That is a $500-$1,000/month hit to the budgets of extremely low-income and largely working families who are already homeless/recovering from homelessness and in our emergency shelter, our supportive housing program, etc.
Thousands of families in our broader community will face this reality, as the story noted, and we absolutely do not have room for them in shelter. We cannot sustain a dramatic inflow of even more families with children into the homeless response system. The inn is full and already overflowing. Enough already.
Ellen Magnis President and CEO, Family Gateway
Read full story here.