Life feels “scary” right now for a Hardin County grandmother who is raising four minor grandchildren ages 10 and younger.
It could get even scarier soon.
The family is among the roughly 563,080 Kentuckians who may have a hard time feeding themselves in November as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will run out of funds if the government shutdown persists. Also, the state is decreasing small cash payments that go to the Hardin County grandmother and about 15,000 other extremely low-income families in November. Those payments could cease altogether in December if Congress still has not voted to fund the government.
The Kentucky Lantern spoke to two heads of kinship care families in Kentucky who are facing belt tightening as the federal and state governments restrict safety net services.
At their requests, the Lantern is not using their last names. Kimberly, 58, of Hardin County, fears that publicizing her family’s plight could result in losing her grandchildren to foster care. Samantha, 40, from Daviess County, is concerned about the safety of her kinship charges and that publicizing their story will make the children’s already difficult situation worse.
Kimberly has no idea what she’s going to do with already no wiggle room in her budget, she said.
“You budget out things to stretch, but then you run out, and then you have to use the money you put back to buy that, or somebody gets a hole in a tennis shoe, or outgrows clothes,” she told the Lantern. “You pray that you don’t get sick, or somebody doesn’t get sick, or the car doesn’t break down, because I don’t have that kind of money. If I had a flat tire today, I wouldn’t have the money to fix that tire.”
Kimberly earns $14.50 an hour at her full-time job, income that covers her $1,400 rent, utilities and car payment, she said. According to a notice from the cabinet she received and shared with the Lantern, her monthly benefit for all four grandchildren is $426 starting Nov. 1, down from $656 from the Kentucky Transitional Assistance Program (KTAP) program.
The government assistance Kimberly receives helps cover diapers, gas to take the children to the doctor, baby formula and food, among other basic necessities. The grandchildren currently living with her are ages 10, 8, two and eight months.
“Every penny counts,” she said. “With everything so high, every little bit helps.”
‘Some pretty hard juggling’
Increased demand and limited resources led the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to cut KTAP payments to low-income families by about 35%, beginning Nov. 1. The cut is expected to especially strain Kentucky’s kinship care families, 42% of whom receive KTAP support, according to Kentucky Youth Advocates.
KTAP, which comes from federal funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant, benefits eligible low-income families for a maximum of 60 months, which do not have to be consecutive, over the course of a lifetime.
Gov. Andy Beshear announced on Oct. 20 that, with the federal government shut down, Kentucky does not expect to receive TANF dollars for November. The state is going to foot the costs for November, but cannot guarantee anything beyond that.
For Kimberly, these cuts likely mean “some pretty hard juggling” and taking on more hours at work, she said.
“The fear in the back of my mind,” she said, is: “If I was to ever get sick, what’s going to happen to these kids?”
‘Just scraping by’
Sickness is an issue that family head Samantha of Owensboro has already dealt with in her kinship care journey. She took custody of her minor cousins — sisters, ages 5 and 7 at the time — while still in her 20s. She later fought and won custody while the sisters’ parents dealt with addiction and incarceration issues, determined to keep her little cousins out of the foster care system.
Samantha, now 40, was diagnosed with Stage 2 cervical cancer in 2018. She had to undergo a hysterectomy in Nashville and then had daily radiation treatments.
Her chemotherapy treatment, cisplatin, left her too sick to care for her children. She sent her biological daughter to Ohio to stay with family and asked the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to set her cousins up with temporary foster care during her treatment. It didn’t go well. The respective six and 14-month stints the girls spent in foster care left them feeling unsupported both mentally and physically, Samantha said. Both eventually came back home before she recovered.
Samantha still cares for the younger cousin, who is 16, and her biological daughter. Her older cousin is 19 and no longer at home.
Since her bout with cancer, Samantha developed lymphedema, which hinders her ability to move and, thus, to work. She babysits part time and survives mostly on her Social Security Disability Insurance. She also receives Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and KTAP, a benefit that she expects to drop to $244 in November.
Her KTAP helps cover groceries and other small bills, she said.
“It’s paycheck to paycheck, just scraping by,” she said.
Her plan now is to lean heavily on local food banks for pantry staples and to try and cook more rice and bean meals in the future.
“I’m living off the government, but that’s not a choice that I wanted to make,” Samantha said. “That wasn’t my choice. I didn’t ask to get cancer. I didn’t ask for my cousins to abandon their children. I didn’t ask for that. This is just what I was given, and I’m making the best out of what I was given.”
Samantha worries about further cuts to social services, like SNAP. She also lives in a Section 8 apartment. SNAP cuts at the federal level are expected to strain Kentucky’s population in need of food assistance.
“Once they have cut the food stamps,” Samantha said, “is my housing next?”
Still, she’s resilient. She thinks about families who have babies in need of formula and who are worse off than herself, she said.
“I have woke up on days and faced worse battles than this,” she said. “And I’ll figure out a way to keep going.”
‘Every penny counts.’
Since 1999, Kimberly has helped raise 14 of her grandchildren who couldn’t be raised by their parents because of addiction and neglect issues. Those children are among the roughly 55,000 Kentucky youth being raised with a relative, according to a report from Kentucky Youth Advocates.
Her grandchildren have Medicaid health care coverage and her family also gets SNAP food benefits. Even with her work and KTAP, Kimberly said without SNAP “we wouldn’t have hardly anything.”
Already, there’s “nothing left at the end of the month,” Kimberly said. She expressed feeling “blessed” to have her benefits, but is worried about other programs like SNAP and Medicaid getting scaled back as well.
She’s too young to retire right now, at 58, but isn’t sure she’ll be able to in the next 10-15 years, either.
Her grandchildren don’t know that belt-tightening is coming, she said. She’s focused on keeping a “stable environment” for them, physically and emotionally because “they’ve been through too much already.”
“I love my grandkids. I’d do anything in the world for them — and I have,” she said. She’ll do everything in her power to keep them out of the foster care system, she said. “We’re trying to keep these kids with a family member and not with a stranger.”
Research shows that is important — being with a relative, when possible, is better for children’s wellbeing than being placed with a stranger.
“This is not political for me,” Kimberly said. “If I’m not there, helping my grandkids, then what’s going to happen to them?”
This article is republished under a Creative Commons license from Kentucky Lantern, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and Twitter.
Sarah Ladd is a Louisville-based journalist and Kentuckian. She has covered everything from crime to higher education. In 2020, she started reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and has covered health ever since.
