Buster Gardener stood in line for frybread tacos with his granddaughter in Crow Agency Tuesday at lunchtime. He said he receives benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP.
“A lot of people depend on it,” he said. “A lot of grandparents like me take care of their grandkids. At the end of the month, we’re basically out of food, and now it’s pretty empty.”
A court order Friday lifted the freeze on SNAP payments, and as of Tuesday, many people are still in the dark about if and when they’ll get benefits. Crow is part of an area of Montana where fresh food sources are few and far between and prices run higher than average. Some of the closest grocery stores are in Hardin or Billings, which also requires a car and gas money to get to.
Elder Lucille White Hip says she reached out to the public assistance office Monday to ask if she'd be getting benefits, a couple of days before she usually gets benefits at the beginning of the month.
“They told me that I wasn’t, so I don’t know what’s going on anymore with it,” she said.
Some local governments are releasing emergency funding to help tide communities over while they wait for more certainty. Crow Tribal Secretary Levi Black Eagle says the Tribe recently culled bison from its herd to help families in need, but funding is not an option.
“We’re not in a position to start supplementing people’s SNAP benefits,” he said Tuesday.
Some services are bracing for impact. Mila Big Hair is with Center Pole, a Crow-run food bank a few miles from Crow Agency. She says the food bank is expanding their hours for the time being.
“I think it’s just too early to tell at the moment what's really going on, because it feels like things are just shifting quickly,” she said.
The Montana Department of Health and Human Services shared new federal guidelines Tuesday that partial payments would be delivered sometime in November. Spokesperson Jon Ebelt said Wednesday the information is online and the state is mailing those notices to SNAP recipients now. They do not include more specific dates.
