With the Federal government shut down and SNAP funds not going out, some states have stepped up to the plate.
One such state is Virginia. Virginia has a significant surplus and, earlier this year, gave out $200 rebate checks to taxpayers. As SNAP funds are not being collected or disbursed, Virginia, under Governor Glenn Youngkin, has created its own system – Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance (VENA).
This new initiative can be used to support Virginians through the crisis and potentially future ones if the mechanism is left in place.
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However, VENA will not work the same way as SNAP. SNAP benefits are disbursed on the first of every month. VENA, instead, will disburse a partial payment every Monday. The funds will be placed on EBT cards in the same way, but each family will receive a week’s worth of assistance.
The state plans on funding VENA until the government reopens or the state runs out of money. The cost to the state is about $37.5 million a week. Benefits will go out in three batches. Families that should have received SNAP on November 1 will get their first weekly payment on November 3, those who should have received them on November 4 will get them on November 5, and the third batch will get them on their usual distribution date of November 7.
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The state will also be disbursing funds to food banks this week to help families cope with those extra days. One downside for families is that receiving the money in smaller amounts may make it harder to make cheaper bulk purchases. Details of the program will be posted on the Virginia Department of Social Services website, but were not there at the time of writing.
VENA demonstrates that some states are stepping up to help their residents, but not every state has a budget surplus to leverage in this manner and it has also required creating their own system as they are not able to use the existing SNAP mechanism. It is also unclear what will happen with Virginia benefits if the shutdown ends.
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Theoretically, payment should be made under SNAP the day the shutdown ends, but whether families who have received VENA (or other state level assistance) will receive full payments, partial payments, or no payments (forcing VENA to pay for the full month) is unclear.
Despite this, VENA will prove helpful to needy Virginia families and their communities. It is, however, unlikely to affect the result of the gubernatorial election, in which Abigail Spanberger holds a substantial lead in polling over the current Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Earle-Sears and in which many Virginians have already voted.
