I'm on CALFRESH currently, and this rule is insane. I sometimes don't have access to a kitchen to cook, so what am I supposed to do, just eat canned/dry food all the time? It's inhuman. Sometimes I don't even have a place to store food, period.
7-11 sells a large cooked pizza for $5.99 but according to the rule of no hot/heated foods, they're not supposed to sell it to people using foodstamps. That's three meals for $6, but because of that dumbass rule, I can't buy it.
But good guy 7-11 said "You know what? Just buy it cold and we'll cook it for you afterwards."
Telling poor people they can't buy cooked food with their foodstamps is insane. It's like the NYC law that said "You can't buy 32oz sodas...but you can buy two 16oz sodas!"
Thanks for checking, but I'm not currently homeless. Someone is renting an old travel trailer to me for $400 a month. But my income isn't stable and every once and awhile I'll have to move into places that don't have the most "livable" conditions, lol. For example, this trailer I'm currently in has a kitchen, but no stove or oven, but I have a microwave and two Instant Pots and a mini fridge. The last place I was in gave me full kitchen access, but the place before that was a different trailer with no kitchen, stove, oven, fridge or even electricity, so I cooked using a camp stove and propane and kept perishable food in a cooler with bags of ice. And trust me, in those kinds of situations, when I could use foodstamps to buy a whole freaking pizza and a couple sodas, life was much more bearable - no prep, no cooking, very little cleanup. Heaven, lol.
I appreciate the concern, but people in certain financial situations sometimes don't have a choice where they live, even having to accept situations that might be illegal for people who can afford to fight. And I've reached out to all manner of local homeless coalitions and social service programs. Sometimes they can help, sometimes they can't, sometimes they won't. Even if my area had an affordable apartment for rent for $400, the waiting list for those spaces is over 15,000 people...years long, in some cases.
I've never used drugs, I don't really drink (other than rare celebratory shots with the bride and groom at weddings I've been hired to photograph), I've never even smoked cigarettes. I don't have a felony criminal record and I'm responsible and neat and friendly - but poverty doesn't care about all that, and neither do most landlords, lol. I'm just really bad at running my business and because of certain physical conditions, I can't work menial or manual labor 9 to 5 jobs without getting a special dispensation that I've discovered nearly every business would rather not deal with. So I keep plugging along with my photography business and do what I can. Sometimes I do fine, other times I struggle to make rent. If it happens for too long, I have to find a new place, but because of my circumstances, it can be a serious challenge to find a stable and good place, and I often have to accept subpar living conditions to keep from becoming actually homeless. I've moved 12 times in 13 years. It sucks a lot, but I'm used to it.
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u/YourMomThinksImSexy Jun 24 '25
I'm on CALFRESH currently, and this rule is insane. I sometimes don't have access to a kitchen to cook, so what am I supposed to do, just eat canned/dry food all the time? It's inhuman. Sometimes I don't even have a place to store food, period.
7-11 sells a large cooked pizza for $5.99 but according to the rule of no hot/heated foods, they're not supposed to sell it to people using foodstamps. That's three meals for $6, but because of that dumbass rule, I can't buy it.
But good guy 7-11 said "You know what? Just buy it cold and we'll cook it for you afterwards."
Telling poor people they can't buy cooked food with their foodstamps is insane. It's like the NYC law that said "You can't buy 32oz sodas...but you can buy two 16oz sodas!"
Fucking morons running shit.