Request To Speak for the Week of 2/13

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Greetings Advocates!

This week we are bringing you three active bills from the Arizona House of Representatives. These bills are related to our policy priorities of hunger and housing. We encourage you to explore these bills for yourself and voice your opinions on them through your RTS account!

Hunger

This week, HB 2502 and 2503 both passed the Health and Human Services committee. These bills add additional work requirements in order to receive SNAP benefits in Arizona. If passed, these bills are likely to cause much more harm than good, making it more difficult for people in need to access help securing food. We at LAMA oppose these bills, and we encourage you to read the texts for yourselves!

H.B. 2502— This bill tightens work requirements for individuals applying to receive SNAP assistance. It would require the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) to require able-bodied adults who are under 60 years of age and receiving supplemental nutrition assistance to participate in a mandatory employment and training program unless the person meets the exempt criteria. This bill greatly tightens the exempt criteria: currently, the age limit for the work requirement in Arizona is 52, and allows homeless and pregnant individuals, along with folks living on reservations, veterans, and former foster care youth under the age of 24 to bypass the work requirements to access SNAP. This is important because all of those demographics are more likely to face hunger and are often unable to work the required amount of hours, or find jobs that fulfill the requirements. H.B. 2502 require most of these folks to meet the work requirements, despite their need, unless they fall into a much more narrow set of circumstance. Also of note: many disabled and handicapped people struggle to receive legal disability status, often waiting in limbo for months or years, or due to other barriers in the application process. These folks are often unable to meet SNAP requirements, but are still legally considered able bodied adults. This bill would make it harder for them to access assistance in the state of Arizona.

H.B. 2503— This bill is in tandem with HB 2502; it would prohibit the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) from seeking, applying, accepting or renewing any waiver of work requirement for able-bodied adults without dependents unless it is required by federal law or authorized by state law. This means that many people in need of an exemption from the work requirement will not even have their cases heard, unless they fall into the legally designated categories outlined in HB 2052. This bills means that many people struggling to recieve legal designations, due to systemic barriers or beaurocractic timelines, will not be able to recieve the assistance they need.

These bills unfairly target the most vulnerable Arizonans and take away much of the already meager support available to our neighbors living in crisis. If these bills pass, hungry Arizonans will have fewer options to put food on their tables.

Housing

Today’s housing bill comes to us from Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest’s advocacy team! LAMA and LSS-SW are in favor of this bill.

Many renters face evicition due to cost of living and housing inflation, and many more face the difficult choice between securing food and paying rent. Eviction equity is something we hear a lot of passion about within our community and we want to raise this bill to your attention.

H.B. 2510— This bill aims to make evictions more equitable in our state. It requires that with any eviction notice, landlords must include the website address for azcourthelp.org so that individuals can gain assistance when navigating the eviction process. This means that fewer of our neighbors will be thrown into crisis or face homelessness when dealing with housing insecurity.

If you have any questions on these bills, make sure to read the bill texts, available on your RTS accounts! If you still want to know more about how this bill might affect vulnerable Arizonans, reach out to our Hunger Advocacy Fellow Autumn at hungerfellow@lamaz.org.

For a tutorial on navigating your RTS account check out our last post in this series!