Senator fetterman i call this subcommittee to order. Chairwoman stabenow. And Ranking Member boozman. Thank you so much for coming. I thank you for your leadership on this committee and i look forward to working with you to pass a farm bill. A farm bill that works for small farmers, Rural Communities and hungry americans. I would also like to thank my Ranking Member, senator braun, and i look forward to working closely with you. Snap is one of the most effective programs to fight hunger and poverty in the country. In my time in office as the mayor, Lieutenant Governor to now, i have heard from americans about their support for snap. Hunger is in the a republican or a democrat issue. Its all of our issue that we have to take on. We need to come together and stop playing political games with americans access to food. Americans like cory from the town of northeast in pennsylvania tells me that he was a victim of skim, somebody stole money from his snap e. B. T. Hes not the first pennsylva
You to be lulled into supporting, gutting this while we pay 614 billion in corporate welfare. I do have a question for you, ms. Reynolds, about the mind set of the individuals. Dont you think we have to change the mind set of the community too . An example i come up with. If you run into a client, for example, who found themselves in the county jail because they had a bar fight and when they come out, dont we have to get the Business Community to hire people who might have a public record, for example . We in fort worth have been very fortunate to work with the Business Community. We have developed a living wage tool kit at our organization. Everybody we Catholic Charities fort worth makes a living wage. Several of our local businesses have made a choice. Ok. I dont have 10 minutes like the chairman did. Its not changing the individual minds. The community has to embrace it too. Otherwise you have permanent unemployment. Im so happy that people get Educational Opportunity through your
Right . You are with your friends very often and they walk by a homeless person and the first thing they do is pilaf ones peel off ones and you are like hey, youre not solving the problem. And you know that. With your acute knowledge that you have, we should be putting together policies and strategies to take care of atlantas homeless problem. Something happened. There were breakdowns along the way. We know that Substance Abuse is real. We know when Substance Abuse starts. We know it starts, for most people, in high school. The real hardcore ones, right around 11. For the most part, right around high school. And we know the people who are most susceptible to it. We know about their family patterns. We know all of these things. Yet we are not pushing for programs, the supportive programs to do it. So then our programs are these little programs. Well,d of us saying, Substance Abuse starts in the teens, typically. So we did some programming in the high schools. Not just the dont do drugs,
Have a younger girl cousin, you better be able to pull it back in. Otherwise you are in a heap of trouble. [laughter] what we have to do as social workers is we have to rally around the families who want to support these kids, both want to want to take them back and the one to are going to receive them and encourage them. We should be leading the charge. We should be encouraging people and providing support to the sounds to are from different ethnic groups sued the site to take an africanamerican child and support them. For the support around them and dont make them feel bad about the decision they have made. You have made the right decision. Particular, many of them need intense Mental Health support. Intense. They have some of the most acute issues of anyone you will find. Right . You have seen like i had seen, these kids find themselves in those situations have the most acute issues and they are the most challenging. They will need support. I thank you sincerely. I really do. Before
And you need these programs. No. I didnt say i had to have these programs. What i said was these programs work to help people who are in struggling situations. If a person loses their job and they become unemployed thats not your situation. How about yours . Okay, my situation is that i have been what is your job . Right now i work with Young Children at a recreation center. My job is to make sure that they are doing their home work after school programs, making sure that the building is taken care of, that is my job. My husband works at a and whats your pay . My pay is 10. 88 an hour. Your husband i saw from your written testimony works at a Grocery Store and thats full time as well . Yes. My job is full time, but my job is also limited. Im a Seasonal Employee so i work for six months with my job. And is that by choice so you can spend more time with your kids in the other six months . Have you tried to get other employment . Ive tried to find a lot of employment but due to Health Iss