Meeting Public Comments

Shirley Davis [You don’t care about anything but pac money]

I oppose House File 3. 42% of SNAP recipients are children, and with 80,190 children facing hunger in Iowa, now is not the time to make it harder for children to get the nutrition they need. I strongly oppose additional asset limits and additional verification and work requirements to qualify for food benefits, and I encourage you to instead support policies that improve access to healthy, fresh foods.

Allison Canning []

I oppose House File 3. 42% of SNAP recipients are children, and with 80,190 children facing hunger in Iowa, now is not the time to make it harder for children to get the nutrition they need. I strongly oppose additional asset limits and additional verification and work requirements to qualify for food benefits, and I encourage you to instead support policies that improve access to healthy, fresh foods.

Marilyn Brown []

Please see that the children of Iowa get the nutrition they need. If politicians really cared about children there wouldn't be a hungry child in Iowa!

Riley Brannian []

I strongly oppose House File 3. 42% of SNAP recipients are children, and with 80,190 children facing hunger in Iowa, now is not the time to make it harder for children to get the nutrition they need. I strongly oppose additional asset limits and additional verification and work requirements to qualify for food benefits, and I encourage you to instead support policies that improve access to healthy, fresh foods.

Amber Beitzel []

I STONGLY oppose HF 3. I strongly oppose additional asset limits and additional verification and work requirements to qualify for food benefits, and I encourage you to instead support policies that improve access to healthy, fresh foods.

Kayla Perkins []

I oppose HF 3. Benefits should not require a battle to be received. Children are our most vulnerable population, and are dependent on their families to thrive. How are these families supposed to help their children, let alone themselves, to get a better life when any assistance would require them to stay in poverty to continue to receive help? These are all beyond a childs control. HF 3 would only harm children and make it that much harder for kids to be fed and to have food on their tables. Instead of adding limitations, turn your focus to increasing access to highly nutritious foods, like the double up food bucks program. Put kids before money and you will see a brighter future happen one child at a time.

Donna Godar []

As a retired kindergarten teacher, parent of 4 and grandparent of 5, I oppose House File 3. 42% of SNAP recipients are children, and with 80,190 children facing hunger in Iowa, now is not the time to make it harder for children to get the nutrition they need. That is why so many communities in Iowa offer some type of weekend backpack program to support these families. I strongly oppose additional asset limits and additional verification and work requirements to qualify for food benefits, and I encourage you to instead support policies that improve access to healthy, fresh foods. As a teacher, I know the negative impact of hunger has on young children. They have a hard time concentrating when they are concerned about when their next meal will happen. Please support children and families instead of making it more difficult for them.

Susanne Anderson []

I strongly appose house file 3. Parents deserve to feed their children a balanced diet of their choosing. As a parent of a child with autism, I can tell you that it can be an obstacle to get your child to ear certain foods and one must be creative to get your child to eat. As a teacher, I can tell you that children need a variety of foods to grow healthy. Their taste buds are constantly changing and eating should be enjoyable. As a past parent on SNAP, I can tell you that sometimes, buying your child a sucker, soda, or unhealthy snack is the one thing they can look forward to when their parents cannot afford new clothes or toys. Parents should choose the food their child eats. Thank you for your time.

Kashana Gohl []

I am strongly opposed to increased asset limits, recertification checks and mandatory trainings proposed as part of HF3. I am a fulltime working mom with two children with dietary allergies, learning disabilities and sensory issues. My fulltime gross monthly income averages out to about $1800, so we already have a tendency to run out of SNAP before the end of each month. With rising costs of everything from food to gas, there is no room to save, and I feel like each year brings a new crisis that causes us to count on tax refunds to pay for things like vehicle repairs and catching up on other bills. Ive had to skip paying the power bill at times to ensure we have enough food, or I have to choose to be late on rent. Even though we struggle, the public conversation around people who receive assistance makes me ashamed to go to food pantries or even the gospel mission to eat because I know there are others that struggle, probably more than we do. As far as mandating participating in trainings, increasing the number of recertification checks, I work fulltime, my children go to school, we have mental health appointments to support their learning and behavioral challenges. There are no more hours in the day to devote to additional hurdles. Lawmakers need to stop assuming that families like mine who benefit from SNAP are in need of additional checkups, asset limits and restrictions. Instead, invest more in programs like Double Up Food Bucks. A part of HF 3 commits $1 million to this program so families like mine can access more fresh fruits and vegetables. If elected leaders could pass this without limitations, it would be a step in the right direction.Now is not the time to make it harder to access benefits. Focus on solutions that help, not find ways to make it harder on children and families.

Amy Bruner []

I oppose House File 3. 42% of SNAP recipients are children, and with 80,190 children facing hunger in Iowa, now is not the time to make it harder for children to get the nutrition they need. I strongly oppose additional asset limits and additional verification and work requirements to qualify for food benefits, and I encourage you to instead support policies that improve access to healthy, fresh foods.

Diane Duncan-Goldsmith []

I appose HR 3I was Director of Nutrition Services for the Iowa City Community School District when, for the 200809 school year, direct certification was implemented. This process automatically certified eligible children for free meals based on families receiving SNAP (food stamp) benefits; all that was needed was to download a file containing all eligible families in our district. Because of this, families no longer had to submit yearly meal applications and children in hundreds of families representing several thousand students became immediately eligible for free meal benefits. Republican bill HF3, an Act relating to public assistance program integrity, was introduced by Speaker Grassley and 38 House other members (Holt, Golding, Wheeler, Stone, Dunwell,Mommsen, Collins, Gustoff, Fisher, Moore, Jeneary, Carlson, Vondran, Stoltenberg, Wulf, Shipley, Bradley, Sherman, Deyoe, Graber, Wills, Rinker, P. Thompson, Johnson, Harris, Boden, Nordman, Sorensen, Gehlbach, Kaufmann, Osmundson, Thomson, M. Thompson, Wood, Hora, Windschitl, Bossman, and Gerhold). The bill includes additional levels of accountability including authorization and asset testing which they say is needed to limit program fraud. In the 2020 fiscal year, Iowa disqualified 322 out of 305,045 people on SNAP, and actually convicted just four people of fraud for a fraud rate of 0.1%; is this really a program where thousands of Iowans are cheating the system. The Senate version of this bill references needing a third party vendor to manage this new integrity verification system eight times. What will this bill cost to manage such "blatant" abuse of SNAP benefit?What evidencebased facts and data have been provided to support this claim, from what I can tell, there is no evidence of abuse. If families cannot navigate the new application process and lose SNAP benefits, how many children from across the state will not automatically qualify for free school meals, a state in which this year just over 42% of students are eligible for free or reducedprice meals? SNAP benefits are fully funded by the federal government; the state only covers half the administrative costs; costs which in 2020 were a little over $22 million all the while Republicans and Governor Reynolds continue to brag about the states current budget surplus of almost $2 billion.If the goal is to decrease the number of families receiving SNAP; how does this help address and alleviate hunger and food insecurity in Iowa? Does the tax payer funded stipend legislators receive while in session limit their food choices to the W.I.C. food list? If Republican legislators think families in Iowa are not food insecure here are some facts. According to FeedingAmerica.org in Iowa, 2292,500 people (1in 14) are facing hunger and of those 80,160 are children (1 in 9). Here are facts from the Johnson County CommUnity Food Bank: from January 1 through 3 p.m., January 27, 2023, roughly 144,000 pounds of food were provided to 3,741 households. The irony of this bill is the fact former Governor Branstad was just appointed President of the World Food Prize, acknowledging his integral role in creating the Iowa Hunger Summit which has been instrumental in combating food insecurity in Iowa and around the world. Apparently, Representative Grassley and the other supporters of this bill have forgotten Iowas long history of actually actively addressing hunger.It amazes me so many Republican House members believe HF 3 is a good bill for Iowa. This just seems to be another example of bill in search of a problem that does not exist.

Marissa Tillman []

70% of SNAP benefits go to working families with CHILDREN. Please dont take food and nutrition away from children who are already food insecure. Thank you.