Giving Compass' Take:

• Harvest Public Media reports on the difficulties in receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. Many families get lost in the bureaucracy.

• Policy-makers can do more to streamline the process, but NGOs should also look at the organizations mentioned in this piece that help low-income people through the application process.

• Here's why the food industry itself has a SNAP problem.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the biggest federal program aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty that millions of Americans find themselves in — sometimes for a few months, sometimes for several years.

Food-assistance benefits help families struggling financially to keep food on the table. SNAP allows Cheryl to break down a family pack of meat so it’ll last. But SNAP sometimes causes Jennifer to break down in the grocery store because she can’t afford to buy healthy food.

The routes that lead to SNAP are different for every person, but they’re all beholden to strict income requirements and, at times, a maze of bureaucracy for an allotment that doesn’t always last the whole month ...

Several types of organizations, especially food banks, food pantries and emergency assistance offices, help identify people who could be on SNAP and help them through the application process.

“If somebody is coming to the food pantry, a lot of times they’re the ones who have the program worker, the intake person asking whether they are on SNAP or any other benefits that are currently available that might assist them,” according to Joanna Sebelien, the chief resource officer at Harvesters, a food bank that serves 26 counties between Missouri and Kansas.

“So if somebody is coming, it takes a great deal of courage to admit that you might not be able to feed your family,” Sebelien added. Her organization has a SNAP outreach hotline, and it has helped more than 11,000 people apply for SNAP benefits in the last five years.

Read the full article about the frustrations in obtaining federal food aid by Erica Hunzinger at Harvest Public Media.