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SNAP is vital for families like mine. CT has to protect it now.

On November 1, new federal rules for SNAP go into effect. These changes threaten to take food away from thousands of Connecticut residents: People who work, care for family, and already live on the edge.

I know what it looks like to be afraid of SNAP going away, because I’ve lived it.

When I was 17, I used to walk from Cherry Street in Waterbury to the Save-A-Lot in the Brass Mill Commons, carrying home as many grocery bags as I could. My mom was sick, and I was caring for my younger siblings. Those groceries, which we could only afford through SNAP, were how we survived.

Under new federal SNAP changes, my mom wouldn’t have qualified for help for 17-year-old me at all. The same system that saved us would have shut us out.

My mom worked in retail her entire life. She climbed the corporate ladder through hard work and long hours, the kind of worker every company depends on but rarely protects. When her health collapsed, everything she’d built fell apart overnight. It took years for her Social Security disability to be approved.

Without SNAP, my siblings and I would have gone hungry. SNAP kept food on the table while she healed, and HUSKY, our state’s Medicaid program, helped her recover. Those programs kept our family stable when we had no other options.

Now, as the new SNAP rules take effect, thousands of Connecticut families will face that same fear. Children over 14 no longer count toward caregiving exemptions. That means low-income adults caring for teens or sick relatives over 14, or for aging parents, will lose benefits unless they meet new work and reporting requirements that ignore the realities of caregiving. While SNAP will be available for caregivers with disabilities, my mom’s experience also shows that it can take years for those disabilities to be recognized by the government, and families still need food in the meantime.

These federal changes would have cut me off, a 17-year-old holding her family together. But these cruel and unnecessary changes are coming, and  Connecticut cannot wait to act.

We are talking about real families that are working, caregiving, and doing everything right. My mom worked every day until she physically couldn’t. And even then, she fought to hold onto her dignity.

Today, more than 350,000 people in Connecticut rely on SNAP, and even more families are struggling to put food on the table. Yet Connecticut is sitting on a massive surplus. We have the resources to protect more people from hunger right now.

That’s why the Governor and legislature must call a special session, broaden the definition of the state’s federal safeguard account to include programs like SNAP,  invest in that safeguard account, and create a taskforce to coordinate our state’s response to this looming crisis. Connecticut has to protect families from losing food and healthcare as these federal changes take effect.

This is about courage — the same courage families show every day when they keep going, even when the system makes it hard to survive. I’m sharing my story, because I believe our leaders can act with urgency and compassion.

Connecticut can do better than the federal government. We can exhaust every option to protect our people. We can choose compassion and action over complacency.

Programs like HUSKY and SNAP are lifelines. They gave my family a chance to survive and hope for a stable life. There are thousands of families like mine across this state, and every one deserves respect.
If we truly believe in respecting families, then now is the time to prove it. Our Governor and legislature must call a special session. Broaden and fund the safeguard account. Create the taskforce so we’re not playing catch-up. And protect working class families.

This story originally appeared in the opinion pages of Hearst Connecticut newspapers (print edition) on Friday, October 24, 2025.
 
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