BTM66 Transcription

Welcome to Episode 66 of Behind The Mission, a show that sparks conversations with PsychArmor trusted partners and educational experts. 

My name is Duane France, and each week I'll be having conversations with podcast guests that will equip you with tools and resources to effectively engage with and support military service members, Veterans and their families. Find the show on all the podcast players by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast.

Thanks again for joining us on Behind The Mission. Our work and mission are supported by generous partnerships and sponsors, who also believe that education changes lives. This episode is brought to you by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem, specializing in military cultural content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. You can find more PsychArmor at www.psycharmor.org. 

On today's episode, I'm having a conversation with Josh Protas, Vice President Of Public Policy of MAZON, a Jewish response to hunger. A national organization, fighting to end hunger among people of all faiths and backgrounds in the United States and Israel. Nn his role, since 2012, Josh heads the Washington, D.C. office for MAZON where he coordinates and implements MAZON’s advocacy agenda, including efforts to protect and strengthen the federal nutrition safety net. With particular emphasis on the food security needs for seniors, Veterans, and military families. You find out more about Josh by checking out his bio in our show notes.  Let's get into my conversation with him and come back afterwards to talk about some of the key points.

DUANE: So Josh, I'm glad to have you on the show to talk about food insecurity in the military and Veteran population. But before we get into that, it'd be great to hear more about the work MAZON is doing and how you got involved in hunger relief in general and food insecurity in the military in particular. 

JOSH: Great. Thanks so much Duane and so glad to be here. MAZON is a Hebrew word that means sustenance or nourishment and the organization MAZON: Jewish Response To Gunger was formed in 1984. During a time when there was significant hunger, both in this country and around the world. MAZON really started with the question.

The person who founded MAZON Leibel” Fein, was talking with a Rabbi Theodore R. Mann, outside a bat mitzvah celebration and saw the catering trucks rolling in, for a very lavish spread that was being planned and Leibel was outraged that here, this family was spending so much money on a family celebration where it just blocks away many people were going hungry. Rabbi turned to Leibel and said, so what are you going to do about it? And it was that sort of call to action to what are you going to do about it? That was the seed of MAZON. We bring the American Jewish community voice to anti-hunger policy and advocacy issues. We make partnership grants to food banks, food pantries, multi-service agencies, not to support the direct service work that they do. We recognize that's important, but rather to build the capacity for them to be advocates, to protect and strengthen and innovate the core federal nutrition programs that are the most significant part of our country's response to food insecurity. So we often say that we'll never food bank our way to an end of hunger. And we really try to fill in that space. 

We recognize emergency food assistance is important, but the public policy is vitally important and constitutes over 90% of the food assistance in this country. So one of the things that MAZON has done, and I've been with MAZON now a little over nine years, and I've formed our office here in Washington.

We're based in Los Angeles. But advocacy and policy have always been important to what we do. And when I joined MAZON, there started to be a growing recognition about food insecurity issues for military families and Veterans, and it wasn't getting that much attention. Lawmakers were not really concerned about it. The anti hunger community wasn't doing anything about it. And we recognize that this was a real injustice that needed correction. And so we have been pushing very hard, leading the national efforts, both to call attention to the issues of food insecurity for military families and for Veteran households. But also helping to craft policy solutions and lead the advocacy efforts for that. This is part of our special populations work. So we also do some focused work around food insecurity issues for other populations whose needs often get overlooked. Including single mothers, LGBTQ, older adults, those who live in Puerto Rico and in the Indian country. And as you might imagine, there's a lot of intersectionality. Significant military participation in Veteran populations, in Indian country, in Puerto Rico.

DUANE: No, that's absolutely what I was thinking. Obviously, there's not a Vietnam Veteran that's younger than 70 these days. So our older Veteran population of which there are still many, but as people age and if they had not had the financial security through their life so there is that insecurity.

It's interesting that you mentioned that they're either in policymakers and lawmakers or in the hunger support community that there really wasn't an awareness or an acknowledgement of the military and Veteran food insecurity. I'm curious as to why you think that might be.

JOSH: I think part of it is because I don't people believe that those who serve in our armed forces could actually be struggling with hunger. There's such a disconnect with, I think the way our country likes to think about how we treat our armed forces. You hear so many platitudes about supporting our troops, but oftentimes it's empty.

And when you dig down below the surface, you understand that we're actually not doing right by all those who serve our country. And yhat's embarrassing to acknowledge. And I think that's part of why this hasn't gotten as much attention. It raises some uncomfortable questions. Questions like are we paying our service members enough? Are there inequities in the system? and the answers for those questions can be difficult because if that we're not paying, especially junior enlisted service members enough. Then the solution to that is raising the pay. And while there are annual increases to military compensation, a more focused increase say for junior enlisted members would be extremely expensive and difficult in the congressional environment and political environment we're in. So it's partly, I think reluctantly to ask some questions where it leads you to uncomfortable places.

DUANE: And I think there's the assumption that they get a steady paycheck. In the military, you know, it's, you're essentially on salary, you get paid on the first and the 15th, but a steady paycheck doesn’t mean a large paycheck, right? There's that misunderstanding. I think that's one of the things, especially people in the hunger reduction community, they're dealing with people in true lack. There are no resources or very few resources, where they see the military said they've got resources. So they exist in some gap of just enough resources not to be in this lower category, but not enough resources to be secure.

JOSH: It's interesting also because so many people who struggle with food insecurity and are lifted up by programs like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance pProgram are what we would call the working poor. The vast majority of people who can work, do work among SNAP recipients. But there's pernicious myth that programs like SNAP, formerly known as food stamps are a handout that their welfare, that they keep people from working, and nothing could be further from the truth. And so when we're talking about military families, I think it's difficult for people to acknowledge that we have working poor military families.

That's uncomfortable to acknowledge and part of this is because a lot of negative characterization around programs like SNAP. So when MAZON was founded in 1985, that was during the Reagan years when there were a lot of cutbacks to social safety net programs. And the myth of the welfare queen was propagated. And those harmful myths and perceptions around these programs that are often very racially coded, continue to add to the stigma and the negative associations and in particular for the military and Veteran populations that leads to a reluctance to even seek help or to apply for programs that are available. So it's very damaging in that sense, just the societal perceptions around these programs.

DUANE: And this is one aspect of this sort of total wellness, right? Because of food insecurity tied into employment. The working poor, if you think about where in California, for example, say San Diego, large military town, but a high cost of living. Washington, DC, huge military town, high cost of living. And so a lower enlisted service member in a high cost of living area. The childcare is expensive. And so they're on a single income because the spouse can't work. And so if you have 1, 2, 3 kids, then they automatically fall below the line of the federal poverty level. That can be challenging. And that's obviously not something that service members think of when they go in the military, but those outside the service don't consider those factors.

JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. We know that there are several primary contributing factors to the food insecurity issues for military families. So you named childcare, there's a lack of affordable childcare and accessible. And that is related also to spousal unemployment. That has been a chronic issue with unemployment rates for military spouses, six to seven times that of the general population that only spiked during the coronavirus pandemic.

And even for military spouses who want to work, it's sometimes difficult for them to work in their in the profession of their training or to get adequate compensation for the work that they're doing. So underemployment is a big issue. And one of the things we don't really talk about in this is starting to change thankfully, or what are the impacts of not doing anything about this issue.

So MAZON likes to talk about the military food insecurity issue. Both is a mission readiness issue, but also related to retention and recruitment, and also related to racial equity issues within the military, as well as mental health outcomes. And we know that there's great concern about the spikes insuicide rates among service members and military spouses, as well as for Veterans. And there's been recent research done that absolutely shows the correlation between food insecurity, economic hardship, and downward mental health outcomes. They can unfortunately lead to suicide. So if we're not addressing the food insecurity issue upstream, and there's some pretty easy solutions  to help to address that, the costs later on are so much more significant. 

DUANE: Yeah, absolutely. And food insecurity and just financial stability in general is this huge aspect of the social determinants of health. A colleague of mine, who's a marriage and family therapist says, it's very hard to think about your inner child, some of this trauma and stuff like that, that you need to deal with when you don't know what you're eating tonight. This is some of that, we're talking about the MAZON hierarchy if we have the basic things taken care of now. MAZON recently released a report on food insecurity among military families called Hungry In The Military. Some of the findings, some of the things you're talking about are pretty striking.

JOSH: One of the findings wasn't new for us, but I think started to get more attention was the acknowledgement that there are food pantries that are serving on or near every single military base in the United States. And that's shocking. There's nothing wrong with going to a food pantry at a time of emergency need, but there is no reason that those who serve in our armed forces should have to do that on a routine basis in desperation, because they're prevented from qualifying, especially for the SNAP program because of an anomaly in federal statute. 

And so this was one of the things that we detailed in the report about how the basic allowance for housing, which is a benefit that is given to service members who live off base or in privatized military housing, which is the majority of military housing. Now, that BAH age is not treated as income for federal income tax purposes.And most federal programs do not treat that BAH age as income. But for the SNAP program, the BAH is considered as income. And so when you take that into account and you add that on top of even a very low base pay, even for an E1 or E2, it oftentimes puts that service member's household outside of eligibility for snap, when they really need that help. It's been a most unfortunate situation because we've had military families that are ashamed, embarrassed, and turn in desperation to these food pantries on or near bases and are mortified to be standing in line where other spouses, other service members see them. And that's not the way we should handle this problem.

We know that the snap program can make a meaningful difference. So we should remove that barrier and that still is something that needs to be done. Fortunately, different path to address this issue, received a partial fix last year. MAZON worked very closely with the National Military Family Association and Military Officers Association of America in helping to craft the military family basic needs allowance. And a version of that proposal was passed in the fiscal year 22, National Defense Authorization Act. This basic needs allowance would give a plus up in base pay to service member households that are at, or below 130% of the federal poverty level, which is the kind of floor of eligibility for the SNAP program that 130%. And for this basic needs allowance, it would count the basic allowance for housing as income. Although what passed Congress there's going to be some limits to it, so it may not extend nationwide. And so we'll be looking at how it gets implemented and looking to make some adjustments, but it's a helpful step for.

DUANE: And I think that's a significant part of what you're doing. Obviously what MAZON is doing. But also just in the food insecurity reduction committee. Like you said, it's not just going to be about food pantries. It's not going to be about soup kitchens. It's not just about getting the food right now. It's about changing the environment so that people don't have to go to those emergency foods sites.

JOSHYeah, absolutely. I mean, the Emergency Food Network is not a sustainable model because the donations that get received pay for food help on a given month. But then there'll be back the next month. And the next month after that. There's nothing systemic about that. And we really need a more systemic approach and solution.

And fortunately we have programs like SNAP that really serve that need. So we should be in the mindset to put food pantries out of business to put food banks out of business. Over the years over the past few decades, the Food Bank Network has grown tremendously. And part of that is because there's been an abdication of the responsibility of the federal government.

So when we see Congress and in subsequent administrations proposing cuts to programs like SNAP, charity tries to fill a gap, but there's just not the capacity to do that. As I said before, more than 90% of all food assistance in this country comes through federal programs. So it's less than 10% comes from the charitable sector.

That's all of the food banks, food pantries, houses of worship. They shouldn't be doing that. The federal government really bears the responsibility and fulfills that collective responsibility to take care of those who are struggling, those who are vulnerable to meet their basic needs. That's a core function of government.

So part of our advocacy is continuing to make that case. And I think when we talk about military families and Veteran families that struggle with food insecurity, it helps people to recognize how important these programs are, and also helps to shift the narrative a little bit and dispel some of the stereotypes and myths that pervade these programs. 

DUANE: Well, I could also see how this could be another aspect of how Veterans go on. As you've mentioned, people feel like they have an obligation lawmakers, but the citizens feel like they have an obligation. If the hunger reduction community can implement some effective programs in this desirable, population let's say, but also a very contained and easy identified population. Then you can take some of those efforts that worked for the military and Veteran population and apply it to communities more broadly.

JOSH: Absolutely. And it goes the other way too. There are some strategies that have been effective for helping other parts of the population to connect to programs like SNAP that could be used, especially in the Veteran population. So one of the things that has come to light recently, that's very concerning is a significant snap participation gap for Veterans. The online course that MAZON did together with PsychArmor Institute on veteran food insecurity is really aimed at helping to close that gap.

So the recent research showed that Veterans who are eligible for benefits from snap and snap is a mandatory entitlement program, meaning that anybody who's eligible for the program can receive those benefits. You're not taking them away from someone else. Among the Veteran population only about one in three are participating in the program, which means that almost two thirds of Veterans who might be struggling with hunger or leaving those benefits on the table.

And we know that there's a lot of stigma and shame and embarrassment and misunderstandings about the program and efforts over the years to do targeted SNAP outreach, particularly among the senior population where there also has been a chronic under participation in SNAP. Have a lot of potential in the Veteran population.

 I should note the VA system is doing much more now about Veteran food insecurity. When MAZON first started out on this, there was very little agency-wide conversations about hunger and food insecurity. We pushed very hard to get the VA system to start doing screening. Because if you're not identifying who is food insecure, then you can't really respond to the issue.

They weren't even asking the questions. Fortunately, they now are. But where there's an opportunity to help close the participation gap is to do some focused, snap eligibility screening enrollment, ideally onsite. You know, we think there's a lot of opportunity also for peer-to-peer outreach. So the Veterans would be more responsive to hearing about a program like snap from another Veteran to help alleviate some of that stigma surrounding it. 

DUANE: No, that puts me in the mind of very similar to how Veterans may see disability claims and the VA. So not everybody who is eligible for a disability claim will we'll apply that because of the myth of limited resources. Like they believe that there is a finite pot of whatever this is. But no matter how many Veterans reach out for SNAP, there's always going to be SNAP there. It's more like a buffet rather than just a finite amount that the resources won't run out.

JOSH: That's right. And one of the beauties of the snap program is that it's designed to be flexible, to meet increased needs. So we saw during the pandemic, the food insecurity started to go up and there was concern that it was going to spike astronomically. Fortunately, programs like snap, were really there and some new programs that were stood up like the pandemic EBT program that helped to replace the loss of school meals, because of the school closures. But SNAP responds when there's an economic downturn, when there are natural disasters, at times when there's an increased need, the benefits are there to help people get back on their feet. There's a lot of wisdom in programs like SNAP that have been around for a very long time. We just need to make sure that all who are eligible for those programs are participating. 

DUANE: I absolutely agree. I think again, having spoken about this before we started recording, having lived experience in this case, but also just understanding the greater needs are definitely important. So Joshua, I really appreciate you're doing and what MAZON is doing. If people wanted to find out more, maybe get involved, how could they do that? 

JOSH: Sure so they can, go to MAZON website www.mazon.org. We have some pages on our websites specific to military food insecurity and also for Veteran food insecurity, a list of resources. A lot of information you can find the Hungry In The Military report there. I also mentioned the PsychArmor online training course about Veteran food insecurity. So for listeners who work with Veterans or in the social service world or our care providers in some kind of way, it's a great 15 minute primer on what food insecurity means for the Veteran population and how to direct Veterans that folks may work  to resources like staff. 

DUANE: Yes, absolutely. And I'll make sure that all of those links are in the show notes. Thanks for coming on the show today.

JOSH: Thank you. Bye. 

 Once again, we would like to thank this week's sponsor, PsychArmor. PsychArmor is the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. And you can find more about www.psycharmor.org.

When those who serve think back on the military service, there are a number of things that we likely recall. The places we were stationed good or bad. The people we served with good or bad. The experiences we had the hard skills and the soft skills we learned. The really great times. And the times it suck the whole lot. But I don't often hear Veterans talking about the economic hardships that they had to deal with. And even more rarely about the times where it was hard to make ends meet. Anyone who has served, knows that you don't join the military to get rich, but let's look at a scenario real quick. 

In 2002, I was a staff Sergeant E 6 in the United States Army with 10 years of service. My wife and I had a four-year-old and a one-year-old. My base pay was $2,117 a month. That's $25,404 a year. We lived on posts or housing was taken care of and the privatization of military housing hadn't taken off yet. So we didn't have to worry about that. 

Being married, I also got $250 a month in what is called basic allowance for subsistence, essentially money for food, but money intended for use by me not to feed my family. So let's call my annual pay $28,000 at that rate. And because our kids were so young, we qualified for the federal program called Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children or WIC. 

A program that specifically states that it aims to safeguard the health of low income women, infants and children up to age five. And I was in E6. As we mentioned in our conversation, the cost of childcare like then as it is now is so expensive that if my wife were able to work. She would be working to pay for childcare and we would be right back in the same boat. So as you can see food insecurity, which is necessary for the basic sustaining of life, is mixed up with a whole lot of different things. Economic stability, housing stability, employment. Add on top of that, the stress of military life, substance use, unhealthy life choices. Full transparency, I was a smoker back then a good pack and a half a day or something like that. 

So a carton of cigarettes was about 50 bucks and I would burn through that in a week. I'm not saying that my kids went hungry so that I could have my smokes, but there are a number of factors that go into the lives of service members that lead to poorer health outcomes. Consider how many pawn shops and payday loan places are just outside the gates of military installation. Or as Josh said, how many food pantries are supporting those who are currently serving. So hopefully this conversation gives you something to think about when it comes to hunger and food insecurity for those in the military affiliated population. 

The other point that I'd like to make is how many Veterans believe that whatever resources are out there, someone else deserves. This is something I hear from Veterans a lot. There were others were soft to me. I don't want to take up your time. There are other Veterans who need your time more than I do. I have a friend and colleague who is also a therapist for Veterans and her response often was, I'm the one that gets to decide when someone's wasting my time. And that's not what you're doing right now. 

It's almost as if Veterans think that any resource that's available to them, mental health counseling, disability benefits, education benefits, housing, employment, or food support in this case is limited in both scope and scale. It's like, we think that these resources are like the food in our fridge. There's a limited amount and when it's gone, then it's gone. Better that I should go hungry, the sacrificial Veteran says, then one of my brothers and sisters miss out on what they need. Instead, these resources are literally like an all you can eat buffet. As Josh mentioned the snap program is set up to expand in times of increased need. It's not a finite resource in which each person using the resource means that someone else can't. Like the buffet analogy, the resources don't run out. They're always there. When you walk up and fill your plate, there's some there, when you go back, there's still some there. Even if you're standing in front of the buffet telling people, no, that's okay, go ahead. I'll let you go first. And your battle buddy goes up and fills their plate. The resources are still there. It's in the general nature of those who served to think of others. When we were in the military, our shield covered our brother and sister, so to speak their shield covered us. We served for those who couldn't wouldn't, or didn't want to. Sacrifice is literally part of the job description, but needless sacrifice wasn't. Many Veterans consider the possibility that someone else may need a resource more than they do as a reason for them to endure more needless hardship. It's like we're starving in the middle of an endless feast. Just because we believe in the myth of limited resources. 

So if you work with Veterans, talk to them about this. If one of the reasons they're avoiding accessing a needed resource, like support with food assistance is because they don't want to take away for someone else, assured them that the resource is always there. And there's no need to add more stress on top of what they're already experiencing. 

So I'm glad to have been able to host Josh on the show this week. If you appreciated as much as I did, we'd like to hear about it. You can leave a review on the podcast player that you're listening to this on. If it allows you to do that, or you can drop us an email info@psycharmor.org. You can also reach out to us over social media. All those are going to be linked in the show notes, of course. But reach out to us and let us know what you think about the show and what suggestions you may have about future guests. 

For this week PsychArmor resource of the week, we'd like to share the course that MAZON partnered with PsychArmor to produce Food Insecurity: Bringing Solutions To The Table. 

The course is intended to help you understand how food insecurity happens and offer solutions to this problem. By the end of this course, you should be able to understand what food security means, recognize how Veterans and their families can become food insecure.  And determine ways that you can help Veterans in your community become food secure. The course is introduced by Senator Tammy Duckworth and you can find a link to the course in our show notes.