Director, D.C. Hunger Solutions An Initiative of the Food Research and Action Center Joint Hearing on Bill 18-0182: the Food Stamp Expansion Act of 2009 Committee on Human Services Committee on Government Operations and the Environment Council of the District of Columbia

D.C. Hunger Solutions and the 80 District-based organizations and individual signatories (Attachment A - Sign-On Letter in Support of the Food Stamp Action Act) strongly support the passage of Bill 18-0182: the Food Stamp Expansion Act of 2009. Adoption of this Bill will provide immediate relief to the nearly one out of eight households in the District that struggles with hunger and draw in millions of dollars of federal funding to help vulnerable families purchase food. Passage of this Bill is critical as thousands of low-income people in the District are seeing their already difficult circumstances worsen; and thousands of other moderate and middle-income people are losing jobs or hours of work and are falling into near-poverty or poverty or food insecurity. Unemployment has risen by 50 percent from 20,372 District residents to 30,757 in the last year, making it harder or impossible for increasing numbers of District families to pay for basic necessities such as food, rent, heat, child care, and health care. Since families must pay fixed costs such as rent (or face eviction) or child care (in order to work), many choose to cut food spending first - often at the expense of serious risk to family members' nutritional well-being and health. The District must pull out all the stops to help residents obtain nutritious food.