Homeless persons or homeless persons with a spouse and children may be eligible for SNAP benefits and can be a separate household from others with who they live. Benefits must not be denied because a person is homeless. See Chapter 523.
A homeless person is someone who has no home where he or she sleeps every night (called a “fixed nighttime residence”) or someone whose primary nighttime residence is any of the following: 7 CFR § 271.2
A welfare hotel, congregate shelter, or other supervised temporary living shelter
A halfway house or other temporary shelter for people intended to be institutionalized
A temporary accommodation in another person’s residence for 90 days or less
A place such as a hallway, bus station, lobby, car, abandoned building, or other place not meant for use as a regular sleeping accommodation
A person does not need a mailing address or a fixed residence to be eligible for SNAP benefits. A person only needs an address where the CAO can mail benefits and correspondence.
The address may be any of the following:
The mailing address of a friend or relative
A post office box
A social service agency office
Any address where the client can get mail without threat of it being lost or stolen
The CAO (as a last resort)
The CAO may need to help elderly or disabled households, homeless households, or households with no fixed mailing address find an authorized representative (AR) and obtain an EBT card by arranging for the mailing of card to them. See Chapter 505.
A homeless household is one composed only of homeless persons.
The rules in Section 510.1 for household composition apply to homeless persons as follows:
A homeless person may be a one-person household.
A group of homeless persons (for example, a battered woman and her children) may be a household.
A homeless person who lives temporarily with others for 90 days or less may be a separate household if the homeless person buys and makes meals separately and is not a mandatory household member.
A homeless household must meet the same income, resource, and eligibility requirements as any other household.
A meal provider for the homeless is any public or private nonprofit organization that feeds homeless persons , and may be any of the following:
soup kitchens,
halfway houses, supervised shelters, and similar organizations that temporarily house people intended to be institutionalized, See Section 511.4, or
a restaurant that has a contract to offer meals at a low or reduced prices to the homeless.
NOTE: Homeless persons residing with others but not in shelters have a 90-day provision. (See Section 511.2 and Section 511.22.)
The Division of Federal Programs and Program Management has the responsibility to pre-approve the meal providers for the homeless. 7 CFR § 272.9
All requests for an approval of meal providers for the homeless must contain the agency name, contact person, address and telephone number. Upon receipt of a request, the CAO management staff must forward the information to:
Division of Federal Programs and Program Management
Bureau Of Policy - SNAP Unit/Homeless Meal Providers
P. O. Box 2675
Room 224, Willow Oak Building
Harrisburg, PA 17105 - 2675
(717) 772-7906
(717) 772-6451 Fax
Residents of public or private nonprofit shelters for homeless persons are eligible to participate in SNAP. Residents may not use their SNAP benefits to buy groceries for others to eat at a shelter or soup kitchen. 7 CFR § 273.1
If a homeless facility requests for residents to apply for SNAP, but is not an approved facility for accepting SNAP, the residents may apply for SNAP on the same basis as any other household.
If a homeless facility asks residents to apply for SNAP benefits and also asks that homeless persons be allowed to use SNAP benefits to buy meals from its agency, the facility must be approved as a Homeless Meal Provider. 7 CFR § 272.9
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) requires state agency approval before it will authorize the provider to accept SNAP benefits from homeless persons to buy prepared meals. See Section 511.4. 7 CFR § 278.1
A Homeless Meal Provider cannot be an AR. Residents of an approved homeless facility have the right to use their SNAP benefits at any approved vendor. They are not restricted to using their SNAP benefits only at the homeless facility. 7 CFR § 273.2(n)(4)(d)
Homeless persons may also buy meals from restaurants authorized to accept SNAP. 7 CFR § 274.10(a)(4)(iii)
Reissued March 1, 2012, replacing July 23, 2004