Naomi Finkelstein is a regular at El Centro de la Raza’s Beacon Hill food bank and cheerfully greeted staffers when she arrived Friday, despite being worried about her own situation, made tougher by delays in federal aid.
The 63-year-old normally receives $33 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits on the seventh of every month, but on Friday morning, despite news that the federal government had approved funding for November, she had yet to see her benefits come through.
I’m not holding my breath,” she said.
It has been a frenzied week for those who rely on federal benefits to feed themselves and their families — and for the food banks and pantries that provide groceries and meals to thousands of Washingtonians each month. Food banks reported a range of impacts during the first week SNAP benefits were not renewed since the program was formally established over 60 years ago.
While many food banks have seen modest increases in shoppers so far, some, like Eloise’s Cooking Pot in Tacoma, recorded more significant spikes. Gov. Bob Ferguson’s office has promised emergency state funding is on the way, and some cities — including Seattle — are pledging to reimburse food banks as long as the federal program stalls. But for the most part, that additional assistance is still being distributed.
Meanwhile, a tangle of legal and political contradictions on the federal level adds confusion for food banks and SNAP recipients. Last month, the government said it would not pay benefits because of the ongoing government shutdown, leading states to file two separate lawsuits. Following rulings by two judges, the administration then said it would partially fund the program. Early Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP, announced it would restore full funding, following another court order. The administration promptly appealed.
On Friday night, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to fully fund SNAP payments.
Earlier Friday — ahead of the Supreme Court news — Ferguson’s office said the USDA’s announcement meant benefits should flow to Washington households. But Ferguson’s office acknowledged the Trump administration appeal could leave the future of SNAP benefits unclear.
Even if aid is fully restored, food providers in Washington say they’re bracing for what they fear will be a disastrous month. Any gap at all in benefits will likely lead to a rise in demand among the nearly 930,000 Washington residents who rely on SNAP, which could strain food banks’ reserves and mean long-term shortages among wholesale food distributors.
“We feel the weight on us,” said Jodi Peña, food program manager for nonprofit Hopelink’s no-cost market in Kirkland. “At the same time, we cannot let shoppers know that. We want the vibe to be good in the market, even if things are crumbling outside.”
Parnell Johnson, 57, receives some SNAP money, in addition to Social Security disability benefits, but typically relies on food banks and other community resources to get by since groceries have become so expensive. He did end up receiving his full SNAP benefits Friday morning — about $23 a month — but stopped by El Centro de la Raza’s food bank looking for some meat, which he can’t afford at the grocery store.
“Americans shouldn’t be going through something like this,” said Johnson, who lives in Renton. “It’s depressing to talk about.”
Growing food insecurity
Even before last month’s government shutdown, many food banks in the state were already seeing a rise in demand as inflation has driven up the price of groceries and other monthly expenses.
The Polack Food Bank on Capitol Hill, run by Jewish Family Service of Seattle, has recorded a 35% increase in visits since the start of the year, said CEO Rebekah Shrestha.
“This is a crisis moment,” Shrestha said. At the same time, “food access has been an issue before and will be an issue after … this current administration.”
At Ballard Food Bank, need has tripled since the beginning of the pandemic, said Executive Director Jen Muzia. Now, the food bank serves about 10,500 households a month.
This week, Muzia said she saw more new faces, but the food bank hasn’t noticed a significant uptick from last week.
The same was true for the Polack Food Bank, Northwest Harvest and a number of other Seattle-area food providers, organization leaders said. Shrestha guessed that could have partially been due to the rainy weather, but also because not everyone’s SNAP benefits are renewed on the first of the month.
“It’s going to really ramp up as the month goes on,” Shrestha said.
The lines outside Eloise’s Cooking Pot, the food bank in Tacoma, told a different story this week.
Eloise’s is operated by the Making a Difference Foundation, as are a home-delivery program and drive-through food distribution at the Tacoma Dome; all three services saw about a 40% increase over the last seven days, said Ahndrea Blue, the organization’s founder and CEO.
“It’s hard. We’re hurting,” Blue said. “We know it’s not sustainable.”
Already the organization — which feeds about 82,000 people a month throughout Pierce and King counties — has exhausted most of its food supply and is considering scaling back services next week if the pressure keeps up, Blue said. The foundation had about 200 pallets of food in its reserves, she said, which this week’s demand nearly depleted.
She’s not sure if her organization will receive any of the emergency aid the state said it would distribute to food banks.
“I’m trying not to cry,” she said.
Long-term logjam
As uncertainty continues around federal food aid, food banks are weighing difficult decisions about what to order.
Zachary Hoernlein, warehouse manager at Hopelink’s Kirkland site, typically buys produce weekly, but puts in larger, bulk orders for canned food and shelf-stable items once a quarter. That means the increased demand now affects available food “not just in the next few weeks, but into next year,” he said.
Wholesalers are having trouble keeping up, Hoernlein said, with some telling him a few things that normally take three to four weeks to arrive, like peanut butter, will now take a couple months.
“There’s a logjam in the entire supply chain,” Hoernlein said. “The need is growing fast, and we don’t know where it ends.”
He’s worried he’ll have to forgo ordering certain higher-cost foods, like beets, to instead buy a larger volume of cheaper items, like canned corn or green beans.
“The selection is narrowing to meet demand,” he said.
Gloria Hatcher-Mays, executive director of Rainier Valley Food Bank, is also trying to be strategic about her bulk orders. She heard this week from the city of Seattle that their food bank will be one of the roughly 30 food banks to get reimbursed for costs while federal funding remains up in the air. She wants to make sure they spend it on things that will last, like rice and other nonperishable foods they can store.
“We’re trying to shift, Hatcher-Mays said.
A needed boost
Although the state’s food banks are facing the stress of feeding more and more people in the coming weeks with limited government funding, many have found solace in another trend: As need has swelled, so has community support.
At Northwest Harvest, volunteer applications are up about 210% across the state, said Jacob Sperati, the organization’s senior manager of community markets. Last weekend, they received more than 125 food-drive requests.
On Thursday morning, Boy Scout troop leaders and parents Chris Myers and Olivia Ye pulled up to Hopelink with 632 pounds of groceries from a food drive the group held this week. Myers has been organizing food drives with the Bellevue-based troop since 1996, and said people have been even more receptive during the government shutdown.
“We want to do things that help the community,” Myers said after helping Hopelink volunteers unload crates of dried pasta, soup cans, flour, Cheerios and other items and cart them into the warehouse.
Like many other organizations, Hopelink is mainly seeking donations of rice, canned meat and peanut butter, in addition to monetary gifts, said Peña, the Kirkland food program manager.
Shelf-stable items are easiest to store long term, though Shrestha, of Jewish Family Service, noted protein — meat, fish, fresh produce and eggs — is also hugely important to help people stretch a tight food budget.
“The community support is going to keep us going,” said Amanda Lopez-Castañon, food program director of Hopelink’s five markets. “So many people are stepping up to join this work, and that feels powerful.”
Despite how emotionally challenging this week has been, Lopez-Castañon and her team said they’re committed to their No. 1 goal of keeping the food bank shopping experience welcoming, dignified and judgment-free.
“We don’t do it alone,” Lopez-Castañon said. “And we aren’t going anywhere.”
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