The California Valley Miwok Tribe held its monthly U.S. Food Distribution on Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 10601 N. Escondido Pl., Stockton, California. For families and individuals interested in participating in the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (RDPIR), or would like to receive more information regarding the food distribution program, you may contact the CVMT Tribal Office at (209) 931-4567.
Food Insecurity – The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is using a new study that shows a nominal reduction in food insecurity. The USDA study found little change in ‘food insecurity’ dropping from 14.9 percent in 2011 to 14.5 percent in 2012. The study defined food security as ‘meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active healthy life for all household members. Food insecurity was more common in large cities and rural areas than in suburban areas and exurban areas around large cities.
With a growing uneasiness of a vote (on the food-assistance bill) that will soon take place, that could mean $40 billion in cuts to nutrition programs over 10 years, would be a 5.2 percent reduction from what the Congressional Budget Office estimates would be spent under current policy. Private organizations that provide free meals say it would send many more hungry people to their doors.
According to the Washington Post, “Almost 48 million people in 23 million households rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the largest of the nutrition programs.” The cuts in the food stamp bill are expected to be about double what House lawmakers considered earlier this year. House Republican leaders will have to depend on their own party members to pass the bill because Democratic leaders say their rank-and-file will oppose it. “There are too many that through no fault of their own depend on these programs to feed their families,” Representative Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) said in an interview. “It’s numbness, without any feeling of pain. They go and chop out these programs for people who are feeling a great deal of pain.”
