Hi
Welcome to Library Bytes. I'm Emily with
the Meridian Library District.
You know a lot of people in our
community and
across the country are struggling right
now with how to feed their families.
There's a lot of different ways that
you can go about this but
one of them is by applying for
government assistance
or SNAP benefits. So follow along with me
and I'll show you how to start.
So this here you can see is the website
for ida link
which is the Idaho online portal for
healthcare, food assistance and other
social programs in Idaho. You can see
that the website is
at the very top here idalink.idaho.gov
and if we scroll down a little bit you
can see that there's a variety of
programs that you can
apply for assistance through. But today
we're going to be talking about
food assistance so we can
learn more by clicking here. This is
going to be SNAP benefits -
supplemental nutrition
assistance program,  otherwise known as
food stamps. So this is government
assistance, basically you get
a debit card and you're able to use that
as money for groceries. So
it takes you over to the
Idaho Department of
Health and Welfare and you can see that
if you scroll down
you can apply for food assistance
and learn about the eligibility
requirements.
They also have a pre-screening tool
which is really nice
to see if you're even eligible I know
it's a lot of work to
fill out an application only to be
rejected. So certainly
do use the pre-screening tool if
you're interested in seeing if you
qualify for for these benefits.
There's more information about 
what it looks like,
how much you'll be getting, when you'll
be getting that and the other kinds
of
information about using that SNAP
benefit.
All the links are here certainly
and you can apply for food assistance,
so if we go it takes us over to this
page here and you can
apply for services.
It gives you step-by-step what
you'll need to do
to apply.  I will note
that it doesn't look like there is a way
to submit your application online
for SNAP benefits so you can go into
your
local office. It does say apply online
but it's for health coverage assistance
not for SNAP benefits. You can
apply by phone
and you can also print an application
and send it in the mail, which might be
the easiest thing to do.
It takes you over to the commonly used
forms
and then an application for assistance
is what you'll need to fill out.
So that's the actual form that they're
looking for.
Certainly if you need assistance with
printing or anything like that
come into the library and we're happy to
help you print that out.
So there you have it, that's how you
apply for SNAP benefits in Idaho
via idalink.idaho.gov.
Well there you have it, that's ida link
and you know if you've got just five
minutes today,
go ahead and take a look at the ida link
webpage and use that
pre-screening tool to see if you would
qualify for SNAP benefits.
You can always come back later when
you've got more time and fill out that
application but
it's a great place to start with that
pre-screening tool. Okay well
I'll see you next time on Library Bytes
take care.
