Urge the New Mexico State Legislature to Increase the SNAP Supplement to 30

Photo: Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-NM

The short (30-day) session of the New Mexico State Legislature is generally about budget and money matters. And there is an important budget issue that could help alleviate hunger in New Mexico: an opportunity to increase the SNAP supplement that seniors and many people with disabilities receive to $30. 

Background: This state program, which uses an appropriation from the General Fund, was created in 2007 to supplement the minimum amount from SNAP ($16 per month) that many seniors and people with disabilities receive to $25. In March 2009, funding was appropriated to increase the $16 minimum to $30 per month. Due to budget constraints, the minimum amount was decreased to $25 on January 1, 2011.

Senate and House Committees are Important
There are proposals in the 2016 session to increase the amount back to $30. To bring the State SNAP supplement back up to $30, an appropriation of $400,000 is required. The Senate Finance Committee and the House Appropriations and Finance Committee play a key role in this decision. If your representative or senator is on one of the two committees, please take a moment to send him or her an e-mail urging them to appropriate $400,000 to SNAP state supplement program so that the minimum amount received could be $30. (There is a willingness to increase the supplement. Even Gov. Susana Martinezs budget proposal includes funding to raise the supplement to $28).

We can contact our own legislators about this issue, but the members are those two committees are key in this effort.  "It is especially important if folks can contact their own legislators, particularly if they are members of either of these committees," said Ruth Hoffman, director of the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-New Mexico, which provided information for this post. Follow this link to find out who represents you in the State House and Senate.

Senate Finance Committee (links have contct info): Sens. John Arthur Smith (chair), Carlos Cisneros (vice chair), Sue Wilson Beffort (Ranking Minority Member), William F. Burt, Pete Campos, Carroll H. Leavell, Howie C. Morales, George K. Muñoz, Steven P. Neville,  and Nancy Rodriguez.

House Appropriations and Finance Committee: Reps. Larry A. Larrañaga (chair), Paul C. Bandy (vice chair),  Jimmie C. Hall (deputy chair), Sharon Clahchischilliage, Doreen Y. Gallegos, Stephanie Garcia Richard, Conrad James, Patricia A. Lundstrom, Sarah Maestas Barnes, Dennis J. Roch, Nick L. Salazar, Tomás E. Salazar, Jeff Steinborn, Christine Trujillo, Luciano "Lucky" Varela, Monica Youngblood, and John L. Zimmerman. 

The two committees have already been meeting ahead of the full session, which begins on Tuesday, January 19.

Here are some talking points:

• Increase the State SNAP Supplement to $30
• Because of the way income is counted under the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), many seniors and people with disabilities are eligible to receive only $16 per month in federal SNAP assistance.
• Over 11,000 of New Mexicos seniors and people living with disabilities now receive this much-needed benefit.
• Funding to increase the minimum amount received to $28 was included in the Governor’s 2017 budget recommendation.

It may not seem like much but an additional $5 can buy:

• 2 loaves of whole wheat bread
• 2 dozen eggs
• About 3 lbs of chicken
• About 4 lbs of apples
• At least a gallon of milk

Hose Storage Solution The 30 gallon Metal Trash Can

As we noted in our garden lessons learned post the other week, were starting to accumulate quite a bit of garden hose infrastructure.  And with that infrastructure comes the need to store it over the winter.  A quick Google image search shows that there are lots of interesting home-made apparatuses to wrap a hose around, but most look to hold about 50-100 feet of hose.  Weve got two 6-footers, a 15-footer, six 50-footers, and easily another 100 feet of drip irrigation hoses.  We needed something nearly as compact as the tight-as-a-tiger wonder-coils the hose manufacturers create by some sort of sorcery.

Enter: the 30-gallon trash can.  With a base diameter of 18", a top diameter of a 20.625", and a height of 27", they can hold an awful lot of hose coiled up inside (even without the help of sorcerers).  How much? Time for some math!

We need some dimensions to get a ballpark figure.  In the United States, most hoses are 5/8 inch (0.625") in diameter, meaning that if they were stacked perfectly, 43 coils would fit in 27".  If the diameter of the can increases from 18" to 20.625" over those 27", each coil gets an extra 0.061" in diameter.  The circumference (which is the length of hose that fits in one coil) therefore increases from 4.71 feet at the bottom to 5.38 feet at the top.  In sum, that equals just over 217 feet of hose!

Good news: we should be able to fit all our hoses in just two trash cans.

More good news: the hole left in the center has plenty of room for holding hose accessories like sprayer nozzles, unused drip irrigation parts, motion-detector sprinklers, or a five-gallon bucket with even-more-tightly-coiled hose.

Even more good news: the garden-irrigation season and the meat chicken-growing season are mostly concurrent, meaning that when those metal trash cans are empty of hoses, they can be full of chicken feed.

The last two are also advantages over the arguably-better-looking plastic box hose reels of similar capacity.  Plus, the cans are less-expensive and are American-made!

Hose storage solution: success!  Not quite as cleanly coiled as our theory predicted in the first picture, but chalk this one up in the win column.

How do you store your hoses for the winter?

Interfaith Procession and Candlelight Prayer for UN Climate Meeting Scheduled for Monday November 30 in Albuquerque

The Interfaith community in Albuquerque is coming together on Monday, Nov. 30, for a procession and candlelight vigil ahead of the upcoming UN Climate Talks in Paris. The vigil begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Federal Building, Gold and 6th SW, and ends at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, 619 Copper Ave. NW  Here is a map (Note: The exact route will be announced later. The map just shows the starting and ending locations)

Even as the world is reeling from the violence in Paris, World Leaders from more than 150 nations prepare for the UN Climate Change meeting in Paris, November 30-December 11. An unprecedented number of leaders of religious traditions, including Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama and Muslim and Jewish world leaders are calling all people to act for climate justice. They will offer a moral voice to public officials as they meet to agree to an international agreement.
 

You are invited to participate in a special prayer for the meeting and to bless those from Albuquerque who will be traveling to Paris for this important gathering.

Order of evening:
*Procession calling to mind the many climate refugees
*Candle light prayer in Immaculate Conception with music, sacred dance, prayers by major religious tradition representatives, blessing of those going to Paris and blessing of those representing organizations that will be in Paris, call to action.

Co-sponsors: New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, New Mexico Conference of Churches, New Mexico Oxfam Action Corps, Bread for the World-New Mexico, Catholic Charities of Central New Mexico, Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe, and others.

For more information contact Sister Joan Brown (joan@nm-ipl.org).