Most seniors who are eligible for SNAP aren’t getting benefits

Twice a month, Erica De Jesus spends all day in a little windowless office on the ground floor of an apartment building in upper Manhattan, helping people apply for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

De Jesus is a benefits access specialist with a local nonprofit, the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, and the office belongs to State Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos. It’s a place where people from the neighborhood know they can come for help with all kinds of issues — immigration, housing, health care. That’s why it’s also a good place to come to reach people who might need help applying for food assistance, De Jesus said. “Access is the biggest issue. I would say you got to meet people where they are.”

One day, De Jesus helps Berquis Veras, 55, apply for SNAP for herself and her family — her husband and two adult sons. She brought all sorts of documents with her: utility bills, pay stubs, proof of rent payments, her family’s passports and Social Security cards. Every inch of De Jesus’s desk was covered in papers.

“She brought everything,” De Jesus said with a laugh. “She brought everything she might think she may need.”

De Jesus took photos of each document, one by one, and uploaded them to the SNAP application she’s created for Veras online. 

Once they finished this application, she also helped Veras do a separate one for her mom, who’s 87. 

“She’s someone who can’t travel, is losing a great deal of her memory,” De Jesus said. “So if her daughter wasn’t advocating for her, I would find it very difficult for her to get access to these benefits.”

That’s common for seniors — many who are eligible for government benefits have trouble getting them. Nationally, only about 30% of adults 65 and up who qualify for SNAP are on it, according to a recent report from the National Council on Aging and the Urban Institute. In some states, it’s less than 20%.

“We estimate that about 13 million older adults are eligible for SNAP in a given year, but only about 3.8 million actually participate in the program,” said Elaine Waxman at the Urban Institute. “So that leaves a really big gap.”

Applying for SNAP is a lot of work. Tracking down all the required documents and either uploading them online or traveling to an office to get help, then calling the benefits office for a phone interview, which often requires waiting on hold for hours.

“A lot of seniors have a lot of issues with technology,” said Greg Silverman, CEO and executive director of the West Side Campaign Against Hunger. “A lot of seniors have mobility issues, from just distance and the dollars to travel to health issues, and so first you have some people who can’t figure out how to get the benefits.”

Then there are those who do figure it out and go through the application process, only to learn they just qualify for the minimum benefit. 

“Doing all that for $23 a month, we’re talking about 75 cents a day,” Silverman said. “What are you really buying with that?”

Many people do qualify for more. The maximum benefit for a single household in most states is $292 a month, as of Oct. 1 — one dollar more than it was last year. But because Social Security counts as income, and the income threshold for SNAP is low, just over $2,500 a month for a single person in New York, De Jesus said it is common for seniors to qualify for the minimum, $23 a month in most states.

“I do encounter a lot of people who are just like, ‘I just don’t want to deal with it. I just, I don’t want to deal with it,'” she said.

She’s also encountered a lot of people, especially older people, who say, “‘I’ve never applied for public benefits in my life, this is the first time I’ve had to do this,'” De Jesus said. “And there’s a lot of shame attached to it.”

For many, though, the biggest barrier is figuring out they’re eligible and how to apply, especially if they don’t speak English or aren’t able to travel far to get in-person assistance.

That’s why De Jesus said it’s so important to get out in the community and offer that help in places older people already go — doctors’ offices, senior centers, and other community hubs, like this assembly member’s office, where she returns regularly.

“I have a lot of customers who come here because, ‘Oh, my sister came, my mom came, my cousin came,’ and, ‘Can you do this for so and so?'” De Jesus said. “A lot of the access comes from word of mouth.”

For Berquis Veras, having someone who can explain everything in Spanish and walk her through the application helps. So does the roughly $400 a month her family gets from SNAP. Especially these days, with food being so expensive, and especially now that her mom is in her late 80s and has lots of special dietary needs. 

It’s not enough money to get them through the month. All of her family’s income still goes to essentials – rent, utilities, and food. They aren’t able to save anything. But she said SNAP does still make a big difference.