Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
Tens of millions of Americans rely on the public assistance programs — like Medicaid, SNAP, housing aid, and more — that Republican leaders are now threatening to gut.
I’m one of them.
My dream is to regain the financial independence I once enjoyed before life and systemic obstacles got in the way. I come from a family with a history of mental illness and domestic abuse, and I’ve suffered through mental health challenges myself.
I’ve always worked hard. After high school, I earned a college degree and found the calling of being a teacher. I earned and paid for my Master’s degree while teaching full time as a high school math teacher. I still struggled with challenges, but life was good. The system had worked. I had a home and was financially independent.
Then, I was the victim of a major, life changing domestic violence event, and my life started to unwind. I had to relocate to another state where I didn’t have a place to call home, my benefits were less, and my mental illness was exacerbated by the isolation and trauma.
Despite the challenges I faced, I was able to find some needed assistance for food and mental health care as I got on my feet.
Also known as “food stamps,” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was a godsend for helping me put food on the table. Throughout my life both Medicaid and Medicare have helped with mental health treatment, and the Supplemental Security Disability Income (SSDI) program helped keep me out of poverty.
These are precisely the circumstances for which temporary assistance for basic needs like food, housing, and health care exists. But affordable housing was unavailable in my new home state, and SNAP benefits were much lower — even as my food needs stayed the same.
So my debts increased, and I’ve had to rely on someone who participated in the domestic violence against me to help with rent. I have a little income from SSDI, and I volunteer to stay engaged in my calling to teach and help others while I fight to recover from losing my home and my ability to keep up financially.
It’s clear that this nation’s safety net has to be stronger so that people like me don’t fall through the cracks. But House Republicans are currently trying to cut food assistance and other benefits, not strengthen them.
I need more help putting food on the table. But they’re proposing cuts to drastically reduce federal funding for SNAP, expand already harsh working requirements, and change how our need for healthy food is calculated, which is likely to slash benefits. And they’re doing it all to finance $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest.
I just want to eat, get better, and afford safe housing so I can get back on my feet, back to financial independence, and back to doing all I can to help my community. Yet I and millions like me are nothing but pawns in a political game that aims to hurt us and help those who already have wealth.
When I was teaching, I taught my students about fairness and equality — about what it means to live in a society where we look out for each other, where no one is left to be ill, unhoused, and hungry. I think some politicians need to go back to school, because they seem to have forgotten lessons like these.
So it’s our job to school them. We must let them know that basic human needs are not fair game for getting money for tax cuts for billionaires. Instead, our priorities should be healthy and safe communities for all.
