CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the logistics of how Virginia will disperse state surplus dollars to pay for weekly delivery of emergency food benefits as the federal government shutdown reached its 28th day Tuesday.
Gov. Youngkin said, in a release, the Commonwealth is creating a parallel food assistance program called Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance, or VENA, which he said, “is like building an airplane while it’s taking off, it has never been done before.”
It will essentially perform the function of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, a federal program that won’t be funded if the government shutdown is still ongoing on Nov. 1.
The Governor said there are no changes to the way retailers will charge SNAP recipients through the EBT cards.
Because Virginia cannot just fund the federal SNAP program directly, the Commonwealth has set up a system where Virginians will have funds deposited on their SNAP EBT cards.
The Governor said that, while SNAP made monthly payments, Virginia will distribute benefits on a weekly basis from the state surplus.
He said this totals roughly $37.5-million every week, and the first distribution to Virginia SNAP recipients will be Nov. 3.
The Governor said he knows the first third of SNAP recipients would get their distribution Saturday, November 1, but in the state system it cannot be distributed until Monday, November 3.
The second third will receive their benefits Wednesday the 5th instead of Tuesday the 4th, and the third group will receive their benefits the same the feds would have disbursed them on Friday the 7th.
Governor Youngkin acknowledges the “hardship” those who were expecting benefits on the 1st will experience not receiving them until two days later.
For that reason, he’s included in last week’s emergency declaration that an incremental $1-million be distributed into the food bank network for Virginia by the weekend to make sure they have everything on their shelves these families need.
“To be clear, this is creating a brand new system, and this brand new system then will fund weekly benefits every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” Youngkin said.
“And those weekly benefits will continue, and we will continue to demand that Senate Democrats open the government.”
