Sometimes you lose even when you win. That’s what it feels like trying to make ends meet in today’s economy — and our ever-shrinking safety net isn’t helping.

After years on a waiting list for subsidized housing, I finally made it to the front of the line. It should have been a moment of relief. Instead, because I received housing assistance, my Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) benefit was cut by 42 percent.

One step forward, two steps back.

For millions of Americans, the programs that help us survive hard times are themselves in crisis. That means people like me — and our families — are in crisis, too.

Our housing system is broken. Waiting lists stretch on for years. The paperwork is endless and often impossible to navigate.

Once, I received a letter asking me to confirm I still wanted to remain on the waiting list — but it arrived after the deadline to respond. Another time, I was told I’d lose my place because I hadn’t updated my information, even though I had. I ended up having to restart the application process, even though the mistake was theirs.

The administrative hoops we are forced to jump through keep getting higher. Fixing bureaucratic errors means hours on the phone, repeated follow-ups, and taking unpaid time off work to visit government offices. Time is money, and many of us have neither to spare.

SNAP has been a lifeline for me and more than 40 million Americans. Yet the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act — passed a year ago — imposes harsher paperwork requirements, reduces eligibility, and shifts enormous costs to states, making food assistance harder to access.

Already, 10 percent of recipients have lost access nationally, with the figure rising much higher in some states. That number will climb as more restrictions go into effect. Those cuts won’t just hurt people who receive benefits. SNAP is one of the country’s most effective economic multipliers, supporting local grocery stores, farmers and businesses.

The OBBBA also takes a devastating toll on Medicaid. As a result, I’ve lost coverage for medications, treatment for a serious medical condition, and the machine I rely on to treat my sleep apnea.

At the same time, 4 million people have lost Affordable Care Act Marketplace coverage because Congress allowed enhanced premium subsidies to expire. As with SNAP, some of the most severe cuts are still ahead, including Medicaid cuts conveniently scheduled for after this year’s elections.

Food. Housing. Healthcare. These are not luxuries. They are basic human needs.

Yet these programs have long been underfunded, even as housing costs, grocery prices and medical expenses continue to climb. Instead of strengthening the safety net during an affordability crisis, Congress and the administration have chosen to weaken it even further.

Hunger, illness and homelessness don’t belong to any political party. The programs that help address them have become political targets, with cuts used to help finance tax breaks for billionaires and corporations and increased military spending.

These choices are anti-family and anti-community. They send a troubling message about whose lives this country values and whose struggles it is willing to ignore.

We cannot stay silent. We need to speak up for the kind of country we want to live in — a country where working families, seniors, people with disabilities, and anyone facing hard times can count on a basic measure of security.

Today, the sacrifices are falling almost entirely on those who can least afford them: people working for low wages, living with illness or disability, and raising families in an increasingly unaffordable economy.

We deserve better. We deserve leaders who will build a country that works for everyone — not just those at the top. In the wealthiest nation on Earth, that shouldn't be too much to ask.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Kelley Osborne is a RESULTS volunteer advocate for housing, healthcare and food security in Orangeburg, S.C. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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