By Stateline.org’s Shalina Chatlani
NEW YORK According to Loceny Kamara, he was released from the U.S. Navy in 2023 after serving for a year because he had become alcoholic and experienced mental health problems, such as extreme anxiety and nightmares, while he was stationed there.
period living with relatives in the Bronx, Kamara, 23, attended treatment and was able to stay sober for a period, he said. However, Kamara was expelled from his house in December after losing his job as a security guard. He currently resides at a veterans homeless shelter in Long Island City, a Queens, New York, neighborhood, and depends on odd jobs and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, to make ends meet.
SNAP payments assist over 42 million people boost their shopping budgets each month. Work has always been a requirement for able-bodied SNAP beneficiaries who are between the ages of 18 and 54 and do not have children. However, those regulations have not applied to veterans, but that is about to change.
That exception is eliminated by the massive domestic policy legislation signed by President Donald Trump on July 4. Unless they are eligible for another exception, such as having a specific disability, veterans will need to demonstrate that they are working, volunteering, taking part in job training, or seeking for work for at least 80 hours per month starting in 2026 in order to maintain their food stamps for more than three months.
These eligibility restrictions, according to conservatives who helped draft the bill and Republicans in Congress, are required to prevent system abuse by those who could be employed. However, detractors claim that the new job regulations will leave thousands of veterans without food and that the reform ignores the obstacles that many veterans experience.
I’m furious. I mean, I’m unable to find employment. “No place to live,” Kamara remarked. He had just dressed up for a security guard interview, Kamara said, pointing to his collared shirt as he talked. He found out he didn’t get the job that morning.
“I haven’t had a job for eight months,” Kamara said to Stateline. Right present, finding a job is difficult for everyone.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research group, estimates that 1.2 million lower-income veterans nationwide, or almost 8% of the 16.2 million overall veterans, depend on food stamps for themselves and their families.
According to the group’s findings, veterans typically have lower employment rates because they are more likely to suffer from health issues that make it difficult for them to work, like traumatic brain injuries. Even though many of them have particular talents from their time in the military, they also typically have less formal schooling.
Since 1996, the majority of SNAP beneficiaries have been required to work. However, according to Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, the regulations have never been effectively implemented. Rector maintained that those who are physically capable of working but choose not to do so, such as homeless people and veterans, put an unneeded strain on the system.
In an interview, Rector stated that there isn’t a persistent food scarcity in this area because the majority of those in this group live in houses with other people who make money. People can visit any of our tens of thousands of free food banks. Therefore, it is just necessary to steer these individuals in the right way, and it should no longer be disregarded.
That viewpoint, according to 62-year-old Darryl Chavis, ignores the challenges that many veterans encounter. Chavis claimed to have been quite dejected when he departed the U.S. Army at the age of 21 after two years of service.
Chavis, a watercraft operator who was in charge of running and repairing tugboats, barges, and other landing craft, claimed, “Nobody even came to help me.”
According to Chavis, his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder has made it challenging for him to maintain employment. He recently ended a relationship and returned to New York from Virginia. Since January, he has been residing at the Long Island City housing shelter.
My goal is to stabilize myself in an apartment and get settled in. My qualifications will help me land a job. Therefore, it’s not as if I won’t look for work. I had to go to work. Chavis remarked, “I’m in transition, and the obstacles don’t make it easy.”
All able-bodied persons between the ages of 55 and 64 without dependents, as well as parents of children older than 14, are covered by the new SNAP employment restrictions. The program is no longer available to some categories, including refugees and asylum seekers.
About 300,000 New Yorkers may lose their SNAP benefits as a result of job restrictions, according to Barbara Guinn, commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. According to her, some 22,000 of them are homeless, veterans, or those who have aged out of foster care. As of March 2025, almost 3 million people in New York were dependent on SNAP.
The same is true for veterans in other states. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities projected that 115,000 veterans in California are eligible for SNAP assistance. There are 49,000 in Georgia and close to 100,000 in Florida and Texas.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which manages SNAP, estimates that between 2015 and 2019, 11% of veterans aged 18 to 64 lived in families where access to food was limited or unclear.
We are aware that the most effective strategy to combat hunger is through SNAP. According to Guinn, it directly benefits people. If someone needs help, they can acquire it in other ways, such as through food banks or other nonprofits, but we don’t anticipate those groups will be able to meet the needs.
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According to the Congressional Budget Office, an independent research arm of Congress, the new law, in addition to the work requirement changes, cuts government support for SNAP by approximately $186 billion through 2034, or about 20%. As those who do not comply are removed from the rolls, the federal government anticipates that the new job requirements will result in a $69 billion reduction in SNAP spending.
Historically, the federal government has provided funding for SNAP, with states bearing a portion of the program’s administration costs. Depending on how properly they distribute benefits to eligible individuals, states will be required to pay between 5% and 15% of SNAP costs beginning in fiscal year 2028 under the new law.
According to Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP deputy director at the Food Research & Action Center, a poverty and hunger advocacy organization, states knew they were making SNAP unaffordable and extremely burdensome to run and operate, so they have a strategic agenda to dismantle it and blame states for it.
Because there is no surplus, states will have to make some cuts. States cannot have an infinite amount of resources to make up for the harm.
According to Guinn, New York anticipates a new cost burden of at least $1.4 billion annually. The California Department of Social Services estimates that increased state expenses in California might reach $3.7 billion a year.
Many veterans with impairments will not be able to locate assistance elsewhere or complete the employment requirements, according to Kaitlynne Yancy, director of membership initiatives for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Furthermore, it’s unclear if states will be able to offer their own assistance to those who would no longer be exempt from the program’s employment requirements.
According to her, it is a frustrating sight, particularly for individuals who have been prepared to risk all and give up everything for this nation if called upon to do so.
Between 2010 to 2014, 35-year-old Yancy was a member of the U.S. Navy. As she dealt with life’s obstacles, she started using food stamps and Medicaid, the public health insurance program for those with lower means. These included becoming a single mother, returning to school to complete her bachelor’s degree, and learning that one of her children had leukemia. She claimed that she found it difficult to work consistently or go to school for 20 hours a week because of her frequent hospital visits.
According to Guinn, the new regulations will also pose serious administrative difficulties, making it difficult for even working SNAP participants to demonstrate their eligibility.
Guinn told Stateline that it’s possible that they have a job one month and then their employer reduces their hours the following month. Although there are ways for users to upload documents as needed to prove program compliance, we don’t currently have an extremely sophisticated automated method for doing this from an administrative perspective.
States Newsroom, 2025. Go to the website stateline.org. Tribune Content Agency, LLC is the distributor.
