Texas approved to let SNAP recipients get their groceries delivered amid coronavirus
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect Texas’ approval to join the pilot program and its anticipated start date.
Norma Crosby received a call on a recent Saturday afternoon from a blind Houston resident who was out of food and needed help.
The caller was one of the more than 1.4 million Texas households that receive funds each month to help pay for groceries as part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. But like the majority of SNAP recipients across the country, he was restricted from using his benefits, more commonly referred to as food stamps, toward getting groceries delivered directly to his doorstep.
That’s because the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the administration of SNAP benefits to low-income families, the elderly and the disabled, has long required that electronic benefit transfer cards — which work like debit cards and are known as the “Lone Star Card” in Texas — be used in-store at the time of purchase.
To avoid shopping in-person and risking exposure to the novel coronavirus, many Texans have turned to ordering groceries online and having them delivered to their doorsteps. But at the time, that wasn’t an option available to the Houston SNAP recipient who had called Crosby, the president of the National Federation of the Blind of Texas.
“He’s a diabetic, and he hadn’t eaten the day we talked,” Crosby said.
So her organization ordered some food to be sent over to him, and later that day, he was able to find a neighbor who was willing to go to the store and pick up his groceries for him.
“As it happens, this worked out for him, but it doesn’t work out for everyone,” Crosby said. “Not everyone has that support system.”
In April 2019, the USDA launched a pilot program to permit SNAP recipients to order groceries online for delivery in a handful of states. Now, Amazon, Walmart and some local chains accept SNAP payments online in Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, New York, Oregon and Washington — with more recently approved and on the way by May of this year.
And Texas submitted a request Friday to the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Services to join the program to allow SNAP recipients in Texas to have that same ability, Elliott Sprehe, a spokesman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission confirmed in an email Monday.
In a news release Tuesday, the USDA announced that it approved the state’s request and that Texas, along with Missouri and Kentucky, was being added to the pilot program.
The pilot program is expected to start statewide by May 18, with Walmart and Amazon the first retailers to join, according to a news release Thursday from HHSC.
During a press conference Tuesday from the Texas Capitol, Gov. Greg Abbott directed SNAP recipients to log into their accounts at YourTexasBenefits.com to learn more about which retailers will be participating and where.
The latest round of approvals brings the total number of states set to participate in the pilot to 16, which will allow “more than half of all households receiving SNAP” to have access to purchasing groceries online, according to the news release.
“It’s critical right now that SNAP recipients have that option just given the current environment and lines at grocery stores and the public health concerns,” said Celia Cole, the CEO of Feeding Texas, a statewide network of food banks that works to end hunger. “The online pilot is a great opportunity for Texas to make sure that low-income people can shop safely during this pandemic.”
The state’s request follows nearly 231,000 Texans applying for SNAP benefits in March — more than double the number of applications HHSC received in March 2019 — and the approval of 83% more requests for benefits in the first week of April than the agency approved during that time last year, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
And it comes weeks after 45 state lawmakers had sent a letter to Abbott on April 3, urging him to direct HHSC to take part in the pilot program. From the Tarrant County area, Reps. Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prairie, Nicole Collier, a Democrat from Fort Worth, and Ramon Romero, a Democrat from Fort Worth, signed on.
The letter pointed to challenges the pandemic has created, especially for SNAP recipients living in food deserts who have to rely on dollar stores to get by.
“Many constituents living in food deserts are also members of at-risk populations being directed to maintain strict social distancing; the use of public transportation to travel to the grocery stores outside of their communities could endanger their health,” the letter read.
But implementing a statewide online purchasing program takes time, said Rachel Cooper, a senior policy analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities, an Austin-based think tank.
“One of the things that we could be doing in the short term — and this is much more for local grocers to figure out — is a way to get handheld devices or do some kind of version of people being able to do curbside,” Cooper said, which would allow SNAP recipients to order their groceries online or through an app, and swipe their Lone Star Card to pay for them curbside — all without having to shop in-store.
And a growing number of grocery chains have already begin implementing new systems to allow for that.
Valentino Lucio, a spokesman for H-E-B, wrote in an email last week that the Texas chain is currently working on a pilot program in San Antonio to allow SNAP recipients to participate in curbside pickup. Kroger also announced last week that it’s working on rolling out a curbside option for SNAP recipients throughout its stores by the end of April.
Walmart, which is one of the retailers participating in the USDA’s pilot program, has been offering a curbside option for SNAP recipients since last June.
“It is a step in the right direction and we’re really proud of it,” Molly Blakeman, a spokeswoman for Walmart, said. “But we know that the online transaction is really important. It makes it even more convenient for customers.”
Texas has already made a number of requests to grant greater flexibility to SNAP recipients, including asking that benefits be allowed to be used at take-out and drive-thru restaurants. The USDA also recently approved a request to allow HHSC to provide emergency benefits, meaning that SNAP recipients in Texas will be able to receive the maximum allowable amount of benefits for the next two months.
In March, more than 3.3 million Texans were eligible for SNAP benefits and more than 206,000 were eligible in Tarrant County alone, according to Texas Health and Human Services Commission data.
But Cooper said there’s more steps the state could take to ensure as many Texans receive benefits who are eligible — especially as record unemployment drives a spike in need for food assistance.
There’s more federal assistance the state could take advantage of, Cooper said, including requesting to participate in the Pandemic EBT program created by the “CARES Act,” which would provide families the value of free or reduced-price school meals that their children would have been receiving when schools were open.
And on its own, the state could eliminate its asset test it requires to determine SNAP eligibility. To be approved for SNAP benefits, a household’s assets cannot exceed $5,000. There are some exceptions. For example, while a vehicle’s fair market value up to $15,000 is excluded, anything above that value is counted toward that limit, Cooper said.
“Right now, even as someone who’s newly unemployed, they may not have any income, they may qualify for SNAP in every other way, but their car’s worth more than that asset limit of $15,000, and they can’t get on the program,” Cooper said.
It’s a provision groups like CPPP have pushed lawmakers to change for years. But it remains to be seen if the pandemic will be the catalyst that makes that happen.
“We don’t want people to have to try and sell their cars in order to eat,” Cole said.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 5:30 AM.
