Residents in 12 West Virginia counties affected by last month's severe flooding can apply for disaster assistance to purchase food through Sunday, according to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.
The DHHR has been allocated federal funding for its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to provide Disaster SNAP benefits to citizens who can demonstrate that they lost food during the flood, according to Nancy Exline, commissioner of the Bureau for Children and Families. Applicants may have lost their homes in the flood, experienced damage to their homes, been displaced or lost electricity for a prolonged period, she said.
"This allows those not currently receiving benefits through our SNAP program to come to their local office and apply for a SNAP benefit," Exline said. "We will be looking at their net income, their expenses during the flood, whether they lost income and evaluating that."
Residents of Kanawha, Clay, Fayette, Greenbrier, Jackson, Lincoln, Monroe, Nicholas, Pocahontas, Roane, Summers and Webster counties qualify for the program, and applicants do not need to qualify for regular SNAP benefits to receive D-SNAP. Those who qualify for assistance will receive an EBT card the day they apply, Exline said, and will have the full amount they qualify for loaded onto the card the following morning.
"When you walk out of [an office], you're going to know whether you're eligible and you're going to have a card, if so," she said. "These benefits are only going to be available to apply for [through Sunday], and our local offices will have extended hours in those 12 counties."
Those who qualify for assistance will receive benefits based on their income, Exline said - a person who earns $1,640 a month in take-home pay will receive $194, and a family of four with an income of $2,694 a month will receive up to $649 in benefits.
Local DHHR offices in the 12 counties will be open today, Thursday and Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The Clendenin Health Center in Kanawha County and the Rainelle Medical Center in Greenbrier County will also be accepting applicants for the program, Exline said.
"We want every West Virginian in these 12 counties who had losses and who were affected to stop by. It doesn't just have to be that you live in one of these 12 counties - if you live in another county and you work in Kanawha, you can come here and apply for these benefits. It's important for people to come in during this time period, because we want to help as many people as we can."
Exline added that eight of the 12 counties received excess funding for existing SNAP beneficiaries, and those beneficiaries received funds that brought them up to the maximum allowable amount for a recipient. SNAP beneficiaries in the other four counties - Fayette, Summers, Lincoln and Roane - did not receive an auto-benefit, but can visit a DHHR field office to receive a supplemental SNAP benefit, she said.
Jeff Dean, the family assistance coordinator for the DHHR in Kanawha County, said his office provided similar benefits to residents in 2012 after the derecho, but added that the level of damage in parts of Kanawha County is unlike anything he's seen before.
"I've been out at the Clendenin site since the Monday after the flood, and where we've been stationed at the Clendenin clinic, they still don't have power in that part of Clendenin," he said. "The devastation out there is just unreal, and we're going to do anything we can to help."
Dean said those who visit the Clendenin health clinic or Kanawha DHHR field office can still receive donated supplies there even if they don't qualify for D-SNAP. More than a month has passed since the flood ravaged the state, but Dean said continued efforts like the D-SNAP program are important for people who are still struggling and will continue to struggle in the months to come.
"If you lived out there, and you saw the devastation of homes that are still uninhabitable, it is still fresh in those people's minds, because they're living it every day," he said.
For more information on the D-SNAP program or for directions to a local field office, call 877-716-1212.
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.