Clean Slate, Food Insecurity, and Public Health on the Alliance to End Hunger Podcast

As we recognize National Public Health Week (April 7–13, 2025), it's essential to highlight the deep connection between food security and Clean Slate policies. Access to nutritious food is a fundamental public health issue, but for millions of people in America with past arrest and conviction records, this basic necessity is hard to reach. Clean Slate can help ensure that having a record isn’t a life sentence to poverty or hunger.

We sat down with Alliance to End Hunger for their latest podcast episode, which dives into how Clean Slate policies can help break the cycle of poverty and food insecurity. This episode unpacks how records create barriers to employment, housing, and economic stability — key social determinants of health that directly impact food security — and what The Clean Slate Initiative (CSI) is doing to address this issue.

Some Key Takeaways:

• Many individuals with records face employment discrimination, making it difficult to afford healthy food.
• Housing instability — often exacerbated by a record — limits access to food resources, including grocery stores and food assistance programs.
• Without stable income, people who have records are more likely to rely on emergency food aid and experience chronic food insecurity.

Last Fall, CSI released a survey that polled individuals with arrest or conviction records in states that have Clean Slate laws. Among the people who have had a record automatically sealed, 42% reported improvements in employment and personal finances, 35% experienced improved family relationships, and 34% reported positive mental health and self-esteem changes. Those kinds of improvements can have an indelible impact on people and families experiencing food insecurity.

Additionally, CSI is a proud supporter of the RESTORE Act, which can help people break the cycle of poverty by ensuring access to public benefits, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), that provide life-sustaining needs to help families — many of which are impacted by past arrest and conviction records. When we support those basic needs, and combine that support with a Clean Slate, we can help families focus on building and thriving, not just surviving.

Helping people secure jobs and stable housing reduces reliance on emergency food assistance and enables families to build long-term economic stability. Sealing a record can be the difference between getting a well-paying job and struggling to make ends meet, which includes putting food on the table.

Tune in to the full podcast episode to learn more about the intersection of Clean Slate, food security, and public health.