The Healey-Driscoll Administration’s Anti-Hunger Task Force recently released a comprehensive set of recommendations on how Massachusetts can combat rising food insecurity and protect Massachusetts residents against the Presidential administration’s long-term cuts to food assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and adopt solutions to hunger.   

These recommendations outline a roadmap to strengthen nutrition programs, support the emergency food system, and ensure families across Massachusetts can access healthy, local and affordable food.

Governor Healey created the task force after a bill was passed that makes severe changes to the SNAP program that could put an estimated 150,000 Massachusetts residents at risk of losing some or all of their SNAP benefits. Nearly one million Massachusetts residents rely on SNAP to afford food, including 31 percent who are children, 26 percent older adults, and 32 percent people with disabilities. Additionally, more than 5,500 farms and local grocery stores depend on SNAP revenues.

The federal bill also increases the 80 hour per month work requirement from adults aged 54 to 64, expanding the number of older adults subject to work requirements, unless they meet an exemption.

The Task Force met throughout the fall and winter and hosted six listening sessions across the state to hear directly from residents, local government, retailers, food pantries, farmers, schools, and other community members. This included two virtual sessions and in-person sessions in Dighton, Springfield, Charlton, and Haverhill.

The recommendations focus on five key areas:

• Supporting and strengthening SNAP clients and infrastructure
• Maximizing other nutrition programs
• Supporting the emergency food system
• Building rural resiliency and sustaining local food systems

Some recommendations specific to older adults include the following:

• Outreach strategies should be accessible to older adults and people with disabilities, including plain language material, large-print formats, and in-person or phone-based assistance.
• SNAP outreach partners: Identifying funding sources to mitigate federal loss of funds for SNAP outreach partners and seek opportunities to expand the number of SNAP outreach partners in impacted communities. Expansion efforts should include engaging population specific organizations such as Councils on Aging, SHINE, Options Counseling, and Aging Services Access Points, that can assist older adults with claiming exemptions to the work requirements/meeting the expanded requirements, health care entities to enroll MassHealth members, education institutions to assist students and their families and providers serving people experiencing homelessness.
• Senior nutrition program access: Strengthen and expand Older Americans Act nutrition programs, including congregate meals, home-delivered meals, and medically tailored meals to ensure older adults, particularly those with low incomes, disabilities, chronic health conditions, or mobility limitations, can access nutritious meals. Coordinate food access offered via CACFP in the adult day health program settings with emergency food funding to support senior housing and community dining sites as reliable meal access points by reducing gaps between programs, strengthening shared infrastructure, and ensuring older adults receive consistent, nutritious meals across settings. This includes stabilizing and expanding congregate meals, supporting home-delivered meals for homebound older adults, and advancing medically tailored meal models. Efforts should reduce operational barriers, strengthen local provider capacity, expand outreach to communities most impacted by SNAP eligibility changes, and align with MassHealth health-related social needs (HRSN) initiatives through screening, referral pathways, and coordination with health care and aging services.
• Food delivery/boxes: Explore funding mechanisms to establish or expand food delivery, prepared meals, and food box programs, including partnering with organizations, including but not limited to those that serve homebound or isolated older adults and immigrants concerned about accessing food distribution sites to safely provide access to food that meets people’s dietary needs. Prioritize inclusion of MA-grown and -produced products in food boxes.
• Build capacity: Identify and fund opportunities to address capacity and infrastructure challenges of local programs and close gaps in communities where access to food and ability to afford food is greater, including efforts to increase capacity in rural areas, marginalized communities, and services tailored to meet the unique needs of disproportionately impacted people, including, but not limited to, older adults, immigrants, people with disabilities, unhoused individuals, and working families.

See more information in the full report here.