Giving Compass' Take:

• Harvest Public Media discusses how important the SNAP program is for those with severe mental illnesses, but how difficult it is to receive benefits due to red tape.

• As states wrestle with budget difficulties, many services that would help the mentally ill are shutting down. How can nonprofits fill the gaps to make sure those in need don't go hungry? It starts with compassion.

• This social program helps recurrent homelessness for those with mental illness.

It’s a challenge for people with severe mental illnesses to hold down a job or get the medical help they need. And that extends to when they try to alleviate hunger by getting on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“(The mentally ill) have some of the highest food insecurity rates in this country,” said Craig Gunderson, a University of Illinois professor who researchers hunger and food programs like SNAP. “And this holds even after controlling for income, controlling for employment status, controlling for a whole bunch of other factors is still those with disabilities including mental health issues have substantially higher rates of food insecurity.”

He wants to figure out whether mental health problems, such as depression or chronic anxiety, are causing people to go hungry, or if it’s the other way around.

“So one of the areas that we’re working on is trying to figure out, you know, which way the causality goes and how it differs,” he said.

If the mentally ill are lucky, they have a friend in someone like Dylan Prendergast,  a senior benefits and entitlements specialist at Heartland Alliance Health in Chicago. Basically, he helps those with severe mental illness navigate SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

Read the full article about SNAP and the mentally ill by Madelyn Beck at Harvest Public Media.