Heat or food: An impossible choice

People’s Resource Center has joined with 40 Illinois organizations concerned with hunger in our state to urge Sen. Richard Durbin to support an important amendment to the 2012 Farm Bill being debated in Congress. People’s Resource Center supports the Gillibrand amendment to restore $4.5 million in cuts to SNAP (food stamp) benefits which have been proposed by the Senate Agriculture Committee.

The proposed cuts would impact low-income families who currently benefit from state “Heat and Eat” programs that make both utility bills and food bills more affordable. The cuts would eliminate meals and cause real harm for families, particularly households with older adults and people living with disabilities. Every winter at People’s Resource Center, we see hundreds of DuPage families who are facing the impossible choice of paying for heat or for food.

The proposed cut to SNAP would worsen this hardship and cause more families to depend increasingly on food pantries like ours to make ends meet.

We ask our DuPage County neighbors to join us in asking Senator Durbin to support this important amendment. We must protect the food and nutrition safety net for the nearly 2 million food insecure residents of Illinois.

Kimberley C. Perez

Executive Director

People’s Resource Center

Wheaton