A newly-formed alliance in McLean County is calling on elected officials to fully fund benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP] and reinstate subsidies under the Affordable Care Act [ACA].
The McLean County Alliance for Community Services is composed of advocates for low-income families fighting for food and health care for all. They held a rally and food drive Monday in front of Republican congressman Darin LaHood’s office in Uptown Normal.
One of those attending, Joras Heise of Bloomington, said one of his priorities for change is the delays in SNAP funding during the government shutdown. He said federal programs exist for the common good.
“There’s rich and poor here among us. There are teachers, a lot of teachers, union people, people here in the wheelchairs and all sorts of people who are not white and not rich and just ordinary people,” he said. “I feel very strongly about it, that it’s the mutual people loving one another, caring for one another. We pay taxes to care for each other. That’s what we pay taxes for in my opinion.”
Heise said he wishes elected officials better understood constituents are human beings and the rights the alliance is fighting for are human rights, adding he is driven by his faith to serve others.
“I maintain that public services is service of God’s children. That’s what we’re doing, we’re serving each other and that’s the joy, that’s heaven,” Heise said. “Jesus preached Heaven is here on Earth and that’s because we love one another …that’s what I feel very strongly about.”
Janice Nugent of Bloomington also came to support the SNAP program. Her sign read, “Let them eat beans, let them die.”
“I know my sign’s ugly, but it’s kind of how I think they feel about us,” she said. “The politicians in Washington, that’s how they feel about us, let us die. My sign is in reference to back in the time of the French revolution, where they said, ‘Let them eat cake.’ Well, I say let them eat beans … because Americans do eat a lot of beans.”
Nugent she thinks the cuts to government programs equate to fascism.
“I don’t think we care about the least of us. I think they’re trying to hurt the poor in this country, and I don’t believe there’s any check coming to help us with health insurance,” she said. “We can’t go back; we have to go forward and have some kind of future.”
She also is also concerned about disabled individuals getting the coverage they need under SNAP cuts.
Linda Kinsella of Towanda came to support extension of the health insurance subsidies under the ACA. It was one of the leading issues in the recent government shutdown.
She said she depends on the subsidies because she isn't old enough to qualify for Medicare.
“The prices are horrific,” she said. “Well, Trump probably gets free medical care because he’s the president, so he doesn’t have to worry about it. But you know what, the rest of us are being thrown under the bus here.”
Republicans promised to schedule a vote on the subsidies when holdout Democrats agreed last week to a spending bill to re-open to government.
Fran Tobin is a coordinator of the statewide coalition known as Alliance for Community Services.
“We’re a nonpartisan group that wants to have a society that meets everybody’s needs and when elected officials add to the harm instead of adding to the good, they need to hear from folks,” he said. “The idea behind the alliance is folks being able to speak their own experiences, speak to their own lived reality.”
Tobin, moving forward, the new McLean County groups has two goals.
“First, there will be a little more food in our food bank system ... that’s one immediate thing we can all do to help,” said Tobin. “Second, this is part of raising awareness about what’s really happening. What you heard today are people talking about their own lived experiences about what really happens.”
Tobin said personal experiences serve as “reality checks” for others to see their community compared with what elected officials tell them about it.
