Event Recap Mon Dec 22nd: Fight For SNAP Protest @DSS Central Office
DareToStruggleCT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, December 24th, 2025
Contact: Mike, Dare to Struggle – CT
On Monday, December 22, 2025, Dare to Struggle and Homeless Liberation Initiative held a protest against recent cuts to SNAP outside the Department of Social Services (DSS) Central Office in Hartford (55 Farmington Ave). While protestors chanted and shared their stories, security guards lined up inside the building at the entrance.
Between now and March 31st, an estimated 36,000 people in Connecticut will likely lose SNAP benefits due to new federal legislation. Unrealistic work requirements are being imposed on new groups who often cannot work. This includes homeless people, veterans, seniors, and parents with children over 14. The federal legislation also entirely cuts off access to SNAP for immigrants with documentation including refugees, asylum-seekers, and victims of human trafficking or domestic violence. They’ll remain permanently ineligible even after obtaining green cards.
These cuts to SNAP are the latest continuation of the government’s war on poor people. The situation continues to become increasingly dire for poor people and these attacks go unchallenged beyond empty words by nonprofits and politicians alike. We must come together by taking bold collective action to not only protect SNAP and other social services, but to demand their expansion so that people's needs are actually met.
About a dozen people gathered for this protest, including people directly impacted by the SNAP cuts, Dare to Struggle members, Homeless Liberation Initiative members, and other supporters.
Jessy described some of the struggles he's endured while relying on SNAP benefits, including the work of redetermination to prove eligibility for benefits. "They have you go from one office to another, giving you a whole runaround," he said. "Sometimes you show up and if you don't have the right ID or forms they send you back, and that's assuming you have an ID or proof of address to begin with."
Kimmy explained that the protest wasn't held just to stop the cuts, but also to demand SNAP's expansion. "Even the programs before these cuts were inadequate," she told Fox61. "What we're doing is really trying to return to the roots of how programs like Food Stamps were won in the beginning, with people taking bold collective action together.”
Mike clarified that while the cuts come from the federal government, there are local-level solutions that politicians and the rich can accomplish. He pointed to Governor Ned Lamont, who made $54 million from investments alone in 2022, and Ann Lamont, whose net worth is $650 million. He suggested, "If Ned Lamont wanted to actually fix this [...] he'd probably give some of this, a few hundred mil, to funding some sort of SNAP program."
We made the following demands of the DSS executives:
- Take a stand with us and challenge these inhumane federal orders for work requirements
- Make recertification a tool to accurately assess people's needs, not a way to kick people off SNAP!
- Pressure the state to fund a state SNAP program like they had done in 2018!
Our general demands were:
- An end to work requirements for people who cannot work!
- Increased funding to SNAP and other welfare programs so that all people cal have dignified lives!
- An end to the social war on poor people!
See FOX 61's coverage of the protest here.
Dare to Struggle is a multinational organization open to anyone who wants to resist and stop injustice no matter who holds political office. We don’t lobby politicians. We don’t use insular activist lingo. We don’t chase social media fame. We don’t seek careers or corporate sponsorship through activism. We’re committed to standing with the people subjected to the horrors of the American nightmare. We go to the neighborhoods facing police brutality, ICE raids, poverty, and evictions, talk to people about the problems they face, and organize people in collective struggle. We know that radical change only happens when people step outside of routine protest or expecting politicians to do it for us and take bold, collective action.
Homeless Liberation Initiative is a mass organization initiated by Dare to Struggle, led by formerly and currently homeless people, fighting against the ways the homeless are attacked in New Britain.
