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SNAP CERTIFICATION MANUAL – SECTIONS 100 TO 900 100 General Provisions 121 Communal Dining Facilities

the household may use SNAP benefits to purchase foods that have not been heated above room temperature and are to be eaten away from the store. EXAMPLE: SNAP benefits could be used to purchase sliced cold cuts at the delicatessen but could not be used to purchase a barbecued chicken cooked by the delicatessen and kept under warming lamps. Residents of drug and alcoholic treatment centers, group living arrangements, and shelters for battered women/children who are certified to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program may use their SNAP benefits to purchase meals prepared especially for them. Limitations are: 1) the facility must be authorized by FNS or the appropriate state agency; and 2) the meals must be prepared by the facility during the course of the facility’s normal program - i.e. a person in a drug treatment program must be residing at the facility and undergoing the treatment program. EXCEPTION: Residents of group living arrangements and/or shelters for battered women need not be involved in a formal treatment program. See SNAP1800-1842. Homeless households may use their SNAP benefits, on a voluntary basis, to purchase meals from authorized meal providers. See SNAP 1850-1852. 121 Communal Dining Facilities SNAP MANUAL 12/01/98 Certain households may use their SNAP benefits to purchase prepared meals at a communal dining facility or to purchase meals delivered to them at home by a nonprofit meal delivery service. A communal dining facility means: 1. A public or nonprofit private establishment, approved by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), that prepares and serves meals to households composed of elderly persons and their spouses, or households composed of SSI recipients and their spouses, or both; 2. A public or private nonprofit establishment (eating or otherwise) that feeds households composed of elderly persons and their spouses, or SSI recipients and their spouses or both; 3. Federally subsidized housing for the elderly where meals are prepared and served to the residents; or 4. Private establishments that contract with the Arkansas Department of Human Services to offer meals at concessional prices to households composed of elderly persons and