Jessie Osuna-Mondragon stands behind a booth at the 17th annual Latino Home Fair at David Douglas High School on a Saturday in June. Dozens of families mingle throughout the school cafeteria, each of them seeking resources for their path to owning a home. Some of them have traveled all the way from Salem.
Quickly, a crowd of families forms in front of Osuna-Mondragon’s booth. She starts talking with the next woman in line.
“Do you know if you qualify for food benefits?” Osuna-Mondragon asks. The woman shakes her head. Osuna-Mondragon begins talking about the criteria for eligibility. After a few minutes the woman leaves the booth, smiling with a brochure in her hand.
“She didn’t know she qualifies,” Osuna-Mondragon says. “We’re going to sign her up for food benefits first thing next week.”
As a community outreach intern for the Department of County Human Services’ Community Services Division, Osuna-Mondragon does outreach for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). She conducts site visits to spread the word about the program and get eligible people signed up. This is her eighth community event of the month. She’s here because many of the participants qualify for the program--they just don’t know it yet.
“I’m always thinking of new ways to spread the word about SNAP,” Osuna-Mondragon says. “It’s my job. But I also do this work outside of my job because I want to serve my community.”
SNAP is a federal nutrition program that partners with state agencies and community organizations to give food assistance to eligible participants. County residents who qualify receive an Oregon Trail Card. It’s similar to a debit card and can be used at farmer’s markets and grocery stores to purchase food. Each month, the balance gets renewed--the average Oregonian’s monthly benefit is 127 dollars.
The county’s Community Services Division is one of the program’s partners. For a few years now, the multilingual, multicultural SNAP outreach team has been trying to increase awareness about the program. Their aim is to sign up as many county residents as possible. That’s because there’s no limit to how many people can enroll.
And the program is paying dividends. In fact, every dollar spent in SNAP benefits translates to a 1.80 dollar return in local economic activity.
There’s just one problem. About 22 percent of those eligible for the program don’t enroll. Many of those individuals are people of color. They don’t sign up because they face a host of obstacles, ranging from language barriers and transportation to stigma and misinformation.
When the Community Services Division’s SNAP team began their outreach efforts in 2012, their goal was simple: keep up with the number of families looking to enroll. But as time went on, demand increased. Eventually, they received grant funds to expand their outreach to more individuals. They also changed their strategy to reach out to communities with the greatest need.
In 2014, the Department of County Human Services released the Poverty in Multnomah County report. The outreach staff used that report to better direct their efforts towards some of the county’s most vulnerable populations. They began to target so-called "food deserts" --places where transportation, lack of healthy food, and poverty combine to create a storm of health problems for residents.
Janet Hawkins is the community action coordinator for the Department of County Human Services’ Community Services Division. She says that the Poverty Report’s release helped her focus on which populations her team needed to target.
“The Poverty Report was incredibly beneficial,” Hawkins says. “We started seeing patterns. For some people, getting to a healthy food resource might take two or three bus trips.”
To reach these people, the SNAP team developed a strategic plan. Instead of waiting for people to enroll, the SNAP team proactively seeks them out in the community. When the team meets with them, they listen to their stories. And if the SNAP team can connect them with other services that they qualify for, they will--in fact, they carry information for dozens of other services, ranging from school lunch programs to the Oregon Health Plan.
And so far, their efforts are paying off.
Lin Lin is a student at Portland Community College. In 2013, she successfully applied for political asylum after enduring persecution in her hometown in Northeastern China. But when she arrived in the United States, she encountered a host of different obstacles. Quickly, her savings began to dwindle. Student loan debt, rent, and a low income made it hard to put food on the table.
In 2014, Lin learned about SNAP after coming across a Department of County Human Services flyer on the PCC campus. That’s when she decided to get in contact with Isaura Ascensio, Community Services Division’s community engagement coordinator. Ascensio helped Lin fill out an application--within weeks, Lin was receiving food benefits.
“I was suffering,” Lin says. “(Ascensio) helped me a lot by walking me through the process. I would always seek the cheapest options at the grocery store. Now, I’m very happy because I have access to healthy food.”
Lin’s story isn’t unique, either. According to Ascensio, there are thousands of county residents that continue to experience hunger--she says the work is never over.
“I love this work,” Ascensio says. “Sometimes, just getting someone signed up on SNAP can change their entire life. As public employees, it’s our duty to serve the community in the best way possible."
To find out if you qualify for SNAP, or to apply, visit this webpage.
