In today’s world, convenience matters.
If you are looking for a home loan, you can go to what feels like a hundred different websites, answer three to five questions, and quickly get an estimate of what you may qualify for. In some cases, you may even receive a pre-approval for a 30-year mortgage within minutes. You can compare interest rates, review options, and decide what makes sense for your family before ever stepping into an office.
Now compare that to applying for SNAP.
For many people, the process of seeking help to buy groceries is far more complicated than exploring a mortgage. That should concern all of us.
SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is one of the most effective tools we have to reduce hunger. It helps children, seniors, working families, people with disabilities, and others who are struggling to make ends meet. Yet the process of applying can feel confusing, time-consuming, and intimidating—especially for someone already facing financial stress.
A family trying to put food on the table may have to gather documents, complete a lengthy application, answer detailed eligibility questions, navigate an online system, respond to follow-up requests, and often wait for an interview or additional review. For someone with reliable internet, flexible work hours, transportation, and confidence navigating government systems, that may be manageable. But for many of our neighbors, those barriers are real.
Imagine being a single mother working two jobs, a senior with limited computer access, or a person living in a rural area with unreliable broadband. Imagine being told you qualify for help, but only if you can successfully navigate a process that feels built for people with more time, more resources, and fewer daily pressures.
That is backwards.
We should not make it harder to apply for food assistance than it is to explore financing for a house.
No one is suggesting that public benefits should be handed out without accountability. SNAP is a public program, and eligibility rules matter. But there is a difference between protecting program integrity and creating unnecessary obstacles. A system can be secure and still be user-friendly. It can verify eligibility and still respect people’s time, dignity, and reality.
At Feeding Louisiana, we see every day that hunger is not always about unemployment or irresponsibility. Many of the people who need SNAP are working. They are raising children, caring for aging parents, recovering from illness, or doing everything they can in an economy where food, rent, utilities, and transportation all cost more than they used to. For them, SNAP is not a handout. It is a bridge.
And bridges only work if people can reach them.
If technology allows the private sector to streamline access to major financial products, surely we can use that same spirit of innovation to make food assistance easier to understand and access. People should be able to learn quickly whether they may qualify. Applications should be easier to complete. Mobile access should be strong. Required steps should be clear. Help should be available when people get stuck. The process should meet people where they are.
That matters because every barrier in the application process is a barrier to food.
When eligible people do not apply—or start but never finish—the result is not just paperwork left incomplete. The result is empty refrigerators, parents skipping meals, seniors stretching food too far, and children going without the nutrition they need to learn and grow.
Louisiana families deserve better.
If we are serious about fighting hunger, we must be just as serious about removing unnecessary barriers to SNAP. Access matters. Simplicity matters. Dignity matters. And in a state where too many of our neighbors still struggle to afford food, improving access to SNAP should be seen as a practical, common-sense priority.
Helping people apply for food assistance should not feel harder than shopping for a loan.
It is time to build a system that works for people—not against them.
Feeding Louisiana works with the state’s five regional food banks to fight hunger, improve access to food, and advocate for solutions that help Louisiana families thrive. Because no one should go hungry simply because the path to help is too hard to navigate.
Pat R. Van Burkleo, Executive Director