Dayton city commissioners are condemning billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid health insurance and SNAP food assistance as eligibility requirements also become stricter.
At the federal level, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act may cut up to $1 trillion in Medicaid over the next decade. SNAP (formerly called food stamps) will also be losing out on hundreds of billions of dollars in that time. NPR said 4 million people lost their SNAP benefits between July last year and April of this year. And the majority of the cuts have yet to go into effect.
The legislation will also require states to pay a larger share into the programs.
“These changes threaten to cause eligible residents to lose coverage or food assistance, not because they no longer qualify. But because of added red tape and bureaucracy, bureaucracy, excuse me, and administrative burdens,” Dayton Mayor Shenise Turner-Sloss said at a press conference Monday.
On August 19, the Dayton city commissioners approved a resolution to advocate for the protection of food access and healthcare and urge Ohio’s representatives on Capitol Hill to do the same.
More than a quarter of Dayton residents live below the federal poverty level. Data from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap report finds 87,000 people in Montgomery County are food insecure, including one in four children.
These pressures are landing on an already strained public health system, Turner-Sloss said.
“The resolution puts the city on record in opposition to the federal funding cuts, eligibility barriers, added administrative burdens, and financing changes that reduce access to essential safety services,” Turner-Sloss said.
Commissioner Matt Joseph introduced the resolution to Dayton city commission. He said he wishes they could do more.
“This is going to make poor people poorer. It's going to make hungry kids hungrier. Just the worst things you can imagine in health care and food assistance, that's what these cuts are going to bring,” Joseph said.
As far as the impacts, Joseph said they hope this resolution will raise awareness of the impending changes.
The resolution also states it’s encouraging social service agencies and public health institutions to support benefits navigation and access to services.
“The issue is that people are not opening their mail. So if you don't open your mail, you don't know what's going on, you're going to be cut off."
Representatives from the Black Women’s Health Initiative in Dayton were also in attendance.
They’re an example of just one of the community organizations the city wants to support through the resolution to engage locals on how to navigate a change in benefits.
Jacqueline Moore, lead organizer with Black Women’s Health Initiative in Dayton, said they’ve worked with the city commission since May to get this resolution drafted, although they’ve already been boots on the ground around this issue for months.
“The issue is that people are not opening their mail. So if you don't open your mail, you don't know what's going on, you're going to be cut off,” Moore said. “So we have been educating and advocating, going church to church, having lunch-and-learns with different churches to make sure people know what’s going on.”
As the November election comes around, Joseph said they encourage residents to take their opinions to the polls.
“If this is an issue that's important to them they can vote for people who would reinstate this kind of assistance,” he said.
