I'd imagine this is more common than one would think, unfortunately. Has SF tried to determine how much "fresh food" is purchased through this program? What qualifies as "success" here?
Addiction is an extremely complex public health crisis. Letting people starve on the street is bad, giving people benefits will result in some abuse, and real change would come from more comprehensive treatment plans but we're not ready for mandatory detox programs yet, and even if we had them we wouldn't set these people up for success after.
The abuse of benefits is bad but these people are the tail of a system. It's tragic and frustrating but we can't look at the tail and and assume that they bear the sole responsibility for their predicament.
There's a farmers market near me (about an hour and a half east of San Francisco) that used to take EBT but compliance was too difficult, so now they don't. It's not one of those preppy organic-only farmers market, but actually sells whatever produce is currently in season and in surplus, so it's half the price of even discount grocery stores.
EBT could go a lot further there, but the regulations weren't really written to work with dozens of short-term vendors, instead of a corporate contact.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 26.1 ms ] threadIf we gave them cash, 99% would go to drugs, booze, and other non-essential items.
I seriouly doubt there would be better outcomes.
The abuse of benefits is bad but these people are the tail of a system. It's tragic and frustrating but we can't look at the tail and and assume that they bear the sole responsibility for their predicament.
EBT could go a lot further there, but the regulations weren't really written to work with dozens of short-term vendors, instead of a corporate contact.