Local food pantry not happy with Scott Walker picking on food-share recipients

Eleven Rep. governors, including Walker,
want clarity in drug testing those getting help

Scott Walker is part of a group of 11 Republicans governors looking for clarification on whether they can legally drug test food-share recipients. 

The state started doing it a few months ago, something that bothered Erin Walters, executive director of the WAFER Food Pantry in La Crosse.

“You just threw all of these people into one category,” she said. “They’re all drug abusers. They’re all abusing the system. 

“You might have 1 in a 1,000 that are abusing the system. The other 999 are going to suffer because of 1.”

Walters says that poverty and hunger don’t discriminate, and all kinds of people walk through their doors in search of assistance. The idea also doesn’t seem to be worth the cost in seven other states.

“To see the people that come in here day after day, needing help, maybe not knowing where their next meal’s going to come from,” Walters said. “For public assistance program, isn’t that why they were created? So we don’t have people that are living in such dire situations. It really isn’t our place to judge.”

About 800,000 in Wisconsin receive food assistance. The state recently kicked 15,000 off of the food-assistance program for not spending enough time getting job training or looking for work.