(DELAWARE, Ohio) — The Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services said that as of Wednesday, more than half of Ohio families eligible for SNAP benefits have received partial payments, with the rest expected to see their benefits in a few days.
That comes as good news to a Delaware couple who both lost jobs and enrolled in SNAP just before the government shutdown.
“It’s terrifying,” said DeShauna Pugh. “Usually when you’re in a two-parent household, one person may lose their job, but when we both lost our job, we kind of just looked at each other like, Okay, what now?”
For her and her husband Jordan, the next question was how do we feed our four kids? That meant enrolling in SNAP, only to see the government shut down the next month.
The family resorted to using food banks to make ends meet, but most didn’t have the soy-based formula that their nine-month-old son, Houston, needed. DeShauna took to Facebook, and the community came through, with friends and strangers dropping off or delivering the formula she needed.
Wednesday, DeShauna said half of her usual benefits were loaded on onto her EBT card, but the ODJFS said families are getting less than 65 percent of what they usually get.
The department reported that more than 364,000 households have received partial benefits, and more than $66 million dollars has been disbursed.
DeShauna and her family wonder what’s next.
“As far as the rest of our benefits, I don’t know if we’re going to get them, how long it will take,” Pugh said. “So we definitely have to make this stretch.”
