About 6.6% of Garfield County residents — 4,054 people — are set to lose this additional funding. Around 50% are children, 10% are adults over 65 years old and 10% have disabilities, said Namrata Shrestha, health access consultant for West Mountain Regional Health Alliance, during a Wednesday press interview addressing the SNAP funding freeze
Garfield County will be left without over $700,000 needed for monthly food benefits, a gap that the Department of Human Services cannot fill.
Longhurst-Pritt told the Garfield Board of County Commissioners on Oct. 20 that the department was looking for any internal funding it could use to offer assistance to hungry residents. However, Pritt told the Post Independent Monday that the department was unable to find any “wiggle room” in its budget.
“It takes about seven days for the benefits to actually get loaded onto the EBT card, so once the (federal) budget is approved, there’s going to be a slight delay between that time and the time that recipients actually see those benefits on their card,” Longhurst-Pritt said. “As of (Oct. 21) there’s going to be a delay, it’s just a question of how long of a delay based off of when the federal budget is approved.” Pritt later added that it’s currently unclear whether or not SNAP benefits will be backdated if funding is continued for the program later this year.
To read more about the SNAP benefits delay in Garfield County, please visit the Post Independent news.
