Write an article about Trump\u2019s Medicaid, SNAP cuts leave Chicago food pantries, community hospitals bracing for hardship .Organize the content with appropriate headings and subheadings (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6), Retain any existing tags from <\/p>\n
Natasha McClendon worked about three days each week during the school year as a substitute teacher assistant for Chicago Public Schools. But she wasn\u2019t able to land a job for the summer.<\/p>\n
The 48-year-old Englewood mom worries her struggles to find work could cost her family the public health insurance and food assistance they need. That\u2019s because her current hours may not be enough to satisfy new, more onerous work requirements in President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tax and policy bill that won final approval by Congress Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do we do?\u201d McClendon asked. \u201cWill we actually be able to meet these requirements in order to continue [the] benefits?\u201d<\/p>\n
Natasha McClendon <\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/p>\n The new requirements for people like McClendon\u2019s family, who are enrolled in Medicaid health insurance and receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, are expected to ripple across the economy as they roll out over the next few years. Community groups in particular will likely see an uptick in need as people look for help trying to hold on to their benefits, said Lindsay Allen, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Northwestern University.<\/p>\n \u201cAs more people are losing benefits, demand is going to rise for things like food pantries and medical assistance funds and crisis housing services,\u201d Allen said. \u201cThose pantries and free clinics and even legal aid are going to be stretched very, very thinly.\u201d<\/p>\n Illinois Democrats and experts have warned that the measure\u2019s $1.2 trillion in cuts would cost more than 500,000 Illinoisans their health care coverage and put about 427,000 people at risk of losing food assistance.<\/p>\n Across the Chicago area, food pantries and advocacy groups are bracing for what lies ahead and scrambling to offer guidance for residents.<\/p>\n Safety net hospitals, which typically treat mostly low-income patients on Medicaid and people who don\u2019t have health insurance, could see greater demand. But without Medicaid funding, they could face dire circumstances.<\/p>\n McClendon\u2019s family is enrolled in the Medicaid public health insurance program, and she receives $906 a month from SNAP to feed herself, her husband, their 9- and 12-year-old daughters and an 18-year-old daughter headed to college in the fall. To stretch out the family\u2019s budget, she visits St. Sabina Church\u2019s food pantry on the South Side once a month.<\/p>\n She fears food pantries and other community resources will be squeezed by rising needs as new work requirements for both SNAP and Medicaid \u2014 as well as other cuts to those programs \u2014 take effect over the next few years.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople like me, who have to rely on the food pantry \u2014 are they going to have enough food to supply the people that are going to be coming to their pantries for food when they run out of benefits?\u201d McClendon asked.<\/p>\n The Greater Chicago Food Depository anticipates lines at food pantries will only get longer because of changes to SNAP and Medicaid, said Man-Yee Lee, the group\u2019s spokesperson. Its network of 850 food pantries in Cook County served 2.4 million households last fiscal year, more than in the previous year and even more than during the pandemic, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were never meant to solve hunger alone, and nor should we be expected to,\u201d Lee said. \u201cAnd it is exactly these safety net programs that Congress is proposing to cut that we need at this crucial time.\u201d<\/p>\n Nourishing Hope, which runs food pantries and nutritional programs in Chicago, says many of the people who visit its pantries are also enrolled in the federal SNAP food assistance program. <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Pat Nabong\/Sun-Times file<\/p>\n At Nourishing Hope, which operates food pantries and other nutritional programs, more than 4,000 new people who were also enrolled in SNAP last year sought assistance from its food pantries, said Mitzi Baum, interim chief executive officer.<\/p>\n There\u2019s already a three-to-four-week wait to receive support from a Nourishing Hope case worker, and that demand is expected to grow, as people will likely have to prove their eligibility for Medicaid more than once a year under the new bill, Baum said. But they don\u2019t have funds to hire more case workers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would definitely like to do that because we know the demand on social workers and organizations like ours is only going to increase when individuals need twice as much the support to prove their eligibility,\u201d Baum said.<\/p>\n At the food depository, Lee said they are working to expand the retailers, manufacturers and farmers they work with to secure rescued food. They have also been pushing for more food donations and stepping up fundraising efforts, she said.<\/p>\n But Baum said that won\u2019t be a long-term solution to filling the gap the federal government may leave.<\/p>\n On the Southwest Side, the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council has already seen a drop in the number of people it typically helps enroll for programs like SNAP. That\u2019s because people living in households with immigrants without legal status fear it could put their immigrant relatives in danger, said Patrick Brosnan, the community group\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n That means households are getting by however they can, even as many already struggle because they lost breadwinners during the pandemic, Brosnan said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what happened to McClendon\u2019s family. Her father, who had lived with her, died during the pandemic, making it harder to make ends meet.<\/p>\n \u201cSome days I cry because I\u2019m, like, at the point of [giving] up,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then I said, \u2018No, I have these babies to live for, so I can\u2019t give up.\u2019 I have to keep going. And I thought about my dad, because my dad was a go-getter.\u201d<\/p>\n Cuts to Medicaid \u201cwill mean death to safety net hospitals and our patients,\u201d said Tim Egan, president and chief executive officer of Roseland Community Hospital.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Access Living, a Chicago-based organization that provides services and helps people living with disabilities, has spent months trying to keep people informed about the various versions of Trump\u2019s tax and domestic policy bill, said Sebastian Nalls, a policy analyst with the group.<\/p>\n \u201cThis process is confusing, and it is intentionally designed to be confusing to remove as many people off Medicaid as possible,\u201d Nalls said.<\/p>\n For now, people on Medicaid should check their addresses with the program to ensure they receive mailed notices, he said. They should also check their \u201credetermination\u201d date, or when they are scheduled to have their eligibility reassessed, Nalls said.<\/p>\n And while they don\u2019t know exactly how soon a Medicaid work requirement would be implemented in Illinois for the first time, Nalls said those who work should start saving pay stubs just in case.<\/p>\n For those who lose Medicaid because of ineligibility or paperwork issues, there aren\u2019t many other options.<\/p>\n \u201cFolks are going to be relying heavily on safety net hospitals,\u201d Nalls said. \u201cThat\u2019s where it\u2019s going to come down to where people will forgo going to the doctor, getting treatment, etc., until they absolutely have to and they need to go to the emergency room.\u201d<\/p>\n But Tim Egan, president and chief executive office of Roseland Community Hospital, said cuts to Medicaid will equate to safety net hospitals facing a \u201cfiring squad.\u201d About 75% of patients at Roseland are covered by Medicaid and their funding heavily relies on the program, he said.<\/p>\n In anticipation of Medicaid cuts, the hospital\u2019s lab is already cutting back on certain tests to reduce costs, Egan said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is cold-blooded murder,\u201d he said. \u201cThis will mean death to safety net hospitals and our patients, plain and simple, death.\u201d<\/p>\n Brosnan, of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, said his group will be waiting for guidance from the state before deciding what to tell residents who come to them for help.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll have to pick up the pieces,\u201d Brosnan said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to have to re-create systems of care, and maybe in so doing, we\u2019ll be able to create even more robust systems, because that\u2019s what\u2019s necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n and integrate them seamlessly into the new content without adding new Write an article about Trump\u2019s Medicaid, SNAP cuts leave Chicago food pantries, community hospitals bracing for hardship .Organize the content with appropriate headings and subheadings (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6), Retain any existing tags from Natasha McClendon worked about three days each week during the school year as a substitute teacher assistant for Chicago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/bb29462\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/5998x3424+0+289\/resize\/1461x834!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F77%2F6e%2Fde8e164e451a9c107088b682bee0%2Fbigbillcommunity-070525-09.JPG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23811,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809\/revisions\/23811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Food pantries brace for long lines <\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n\u2018Death to safety net hospitals\u2019<\/h3>\n
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