Sounds like child services should take those children then? If they can't apply for the lunches, then surely they aren't getting food at home, nor the proper medical care.
This is a HUGE, dangerous leap.
> If they can't apply for the lunches, then surely they aren't getting food at home, nor the proper medical care.
Plenty of parents (and plenty of people generally) just aren't aware of social services but are quite aware that they're supposed to feed and care for their children. Plenty more forget to fill out paperwork and return phone calls. Many states' governments actively make applying for welfare and support difficult or inconvenient - plenty of parents can't take the time to return paperwork in person, make phone calls during the workday, etc. Needing support - either welfare or just kindness and assistance - is not a moral failure and not a sign of a bad parent.
Beyond that, CPS wouldn't necessarily provide a great life for the child. There is a lot of difference between an imperfect parent and a danger to a child. Oh, and of course, CPS is a lot more expensive to run than a few meals. Giving out free meals at school is a lot easier if we want kids to be fed.
As an anecdote, I was laid off from my job once, and someone asked me if I applied for unemployment within my state. I didn't know it existed, nor that I was eligible until months later when a barista told me during small talk. The whole time I managed to remember to feed myself (and my family). I sure hope no internet commenter would look at that and decide to take my children away!
If you're telling me they are "starving" then it isn't.
Begging for food from grocery store clerks as her parents bought beer and toilet paper inside, drugs outside. She grew up thinking they were derelict because of the drugs. As they got older and had to quit the drugs or die, she found they were just unfit people.
Lots of people in the world are unfit to care for the children, but the children often persevere and society absorbs the damaged alongside the deaths.
This colors my views of the world, as much as anything I experienced.
I have a problem with government stepping in to remove children from their parents but parents should definitely be blamed for their own child starving. I think all empathy should go to the child who is starving and significantly less to the parent who caused it (even if they are starving too, they are an adult and they have significantly more choices then a starving child)
When you're reasoning outside of your own domain it's easy to get stuck in a "yeah, but why male models?" loop unless you listen to feedback.
A lot of people have their own detailed reasons for why things are happening that don't make sense when you zoom out and ask basic questions. E.g the children are already starving, all the nuance you are describing is based on the assumption that the children aren't already starving.
My parents weren't bad. My mom was just impoverished. Our society does not pay people what they deserve. Our society pays people as little as possible. That leads to good, well meaning, and talented people who are nevertheless poor.
Yes weekends and summer is a still problem in terms of food, I am not sure how it could be solved, but it is definitely not solved by not giving food the rest of the year too.
I've helped a bunch of homeless folks apply to assistance programs (not for school lunches, but for a lot of other aid) and almost universally, applying for aid is extremely difficult. I've walked at least 30 people through the process of applying for housing aid and I'm pretty sure exactly none of them have actually received aid. The only program's I've seen people actually successfully apply for were medicaid and SNAP. It is the norm for it to take over a month to receive medicaid, and it's the norm for it to take over 6 months to receive SNAP. Meanwhile people are dying of medical conditions and starving.
Now add in all the reasons people are in this position in the first place--these people are struggling. It's hard to apply for these programs, and it's harder when everything else in your life is going poorly as well.
And after all that, you might discover that you don't qualify even though you clearly have need. In the OP the author notes that many families with lunch debt were right above the income line for receiving aid.
Some political forces are concerned that people will take advantage of these programs who shouldn't, and others simply don't want these programs to work so that they can have an excuse to cut them, and as a result there are numerous hurdles set up before you can obtain any sort of aid.
There are problems and inefficiencies in the NSLP. Making free lunches available to every child would solve some of them. That's unlikely to happen any time soon though. The current administration has repeatedly threatened and chipped away at the program while also making it harder to provide safe and healthy food to the children who are currently enrolled.
At the rate things are going I wouldn't have so much faith that the program will continue or, if it is to continue, that it wont continue to be made worse and leave an increasing number of children going hungry.
> Yes, I'm familiar with medicaid and some other stuff.
...and you're notably not disagreeing with anything I said about them.
> Your complaint about SNAP ignores foodbanks.
Food banks can safely be ignored. The nearest food bank to where I am currently located is a 20 minute drive, with no public transit that goes there, so you're SOL without a car, and it's run by a church which is extremely conservative (i.e. gay and trans people need to put up with hearing how they're going to hell if they'll be served at all). They're also open 1 day a week.
Food banks are great--but they should not be necessary.
> Medicaid may take months to recieve but it can cover costs incurred since applying retroactively once it is approved.
Do you even know what a poor person is, or do you simply lack all empathy?
Poor people don't get to "incur costs". They simply can't pay for care and then therefore don't receive it. So getting reimbursed for care they didn't receive because they couldn't pay for it, isn't really all that helpful.
Applying for medicaid and SNAP is quite a bit more difficult, especially for a homeless person. But school lunches is really as simple as it could be, excepting just making it free for everyone.