Many active-duty service members can’t get SNAP benefits because the government counts a soldier’s housing allowance as income, pushing them above the federal eligibility line.

Immigration advocates say these families have grown increasingly fearful of sharing their information with a government agency and would rather face food insecurity than risk enrolling in SNAP.  

It’s a challenge for people with severe mental illnesses to hold down a job or get the medical help they need. And that extends to when they try to alleviate hunger by getting on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

There’s a Republican-authored proposal in the next farm bill that would require millions more people to work or volunteer in order to receive federal food assistance.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the biggest federal program aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty that millions of Americans find themselves in — sometimes for a few months, sometimes for several years.