Mayor Muriel Bowser will give SNAP benefits additional funding, avoiding a showdown with the D.C. Council and a possible lawsuit.
About 140,000 people in the District receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits, often called food stamps. Last March, families saw their benefits decrease after federal pandemic relief funding ran out.
To fill that gap, the D.C. Council passed legislation that requires the mayor to use about $38 million to increase those benefits for nine months if the District had a budget surplus. The District did end the last fiscal year with a surplus, but Bowser had not agreed to do so until Wednesday night.
News4’s Mark Segraves first broke this news on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Director Laura Zeilinger of the D.C. Department of Human Services confirmed the temporary increase, saying in part: “While fiscal and administrative pressures still exist, this evening I advised the Mayor that DHS will make this program work while we attempt to solve ongoing challenges.”
The decision comes after the organization Legal Aid DC informed the Bowser administration that it intended to file a lawsuit on Thursday if it failed to fund SNAP in compliance with D.C. law.
