Chris Jones and Mary Ann Edwards have been volunteering at the Llano Food Pantry in central Texas for several years. It's a tight-knit group, where food recipients gather early to chat outside, and community members contribute their own produce.
"The ladies all come in and go, 'guess what I did with those plums I got last time?' We share recipes, we talk and it's like a big family," Edwards said.
Four years ago, the pantry was receiving 15-20 people each week. Now, they say, the number is about a hundred clients every week.
"Right now — and we've been doing this for a while — we limit canned goods," said Jones. "We didn't have to do that in the beginning because we didn't have that many people coming through."
They said the past year has been tough for families, with rising food costs.
"I think the telltale is that every time we're opening, we are getting new clients — maybe one, maybe two, maybe three," said Edwards. "Just a steady increase. They come in, they're embarrassed — 'I never thought I would be in this position.' You know, a lot of people are in the same position you're in, and that's why we're here."
Their clientele is mainly young families, people with disabilities and the elderly. They said they don't see a lot of people who also receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
"That's not saying that when that goes away, we're not going to get a bunch of new people coming in," mused Edwards.
SNAP is a mandatory entitlement program that provides food aid to about 1 in 8 U.S. residents. It is the country's largest nutrition assistance program. Congressionally-approved appropriations provide the roughly $8 billion a month needed to fund the program. With the U.S. Senate repeatedly failing to get enough votes to fund the government and end the shutdown, nearly 42 million people are in danger of losing those benefits come Nov. 1.
Jones said they'll have to take it one week at a time.
"If we need to, we'll do a fundraiser," she said.
'Catastrophic need for food'
The Llano pantry is part of the Central Texas Food Bank, which has been ramping up distributions in the midst of the government shutdown, including for active duty military personnel and civilian federal employees like TSA agents.
"We've been saying that although the government has shut down, the Central Texas Food Bank is open and that means we will do everything we can to step up and meet the demand for increased need of our services," said CEO Sari Vatske.
But Vatske cautioned that food banks alone cannot make up for what would be lost for residents if SNAP were to disappear.
"The average household that we see receives about $350 per month, which roughly translates to about $44 million worth of SNAP benefits that will be gone from families," she told NPR. "There is no way that we alone can make up for a $44 million food budget shortfall."
She said shutdowns aren't like other food crises.
"When you see natural disasters, they tend to be isolated, whether it's an ice storm or a flood. But the thing with the government shutdown is that it's manmade and we are all experiencing it," Vatske said. "So in a situation during a natural disaster where we could rely on our sister food banks for support, with this government shutdown, we are all experiencing the same need. So we implore the government to reopen and we are asking the community to step up now more than ever."
Vatske said seeing the increasing demand and knowing benefits might be taken away adds to the toll food bank volunteers and staffers face.
"The thing that motivates food bankers is knowing that we are a beacon of light in an otherwise dark place," she said. "We're really at a point that the helpers need help."
Jason Riggs, the director of advocacy and public policy at Roadrunner Food Bank of New Mexico, began working at the food bank during the Great Recession.
"The absolute worst part of working at a food bank is when you gotta tell people, 'that's all we got today. We're out.' And you know you can't send them anywhere because they're going to be out, too," he said. "Now, don't get me wrong, it's far worse for the people waiting in that line. But, I worry about my co-workers."
If SNAP benefits are gone for November, Riggs said it will be a "public health crisis." He compared it to the recession 17 years ago and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This is a huge increase in need, but that's where comparisons end," he told NPR. "Those two previous national crises, when that happened, there was a robust SNAP program, with all its flaws, doing what it is designed to do. And that's the difference with what's happening right now — there will not be SNAP. There will just be the same kind of catastrophic need for food."
New Mexico has about 21 percent of its population participate in SNAP, the highest rate in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's statistics from earlier this year.
"It's very difficult. It's not like we were holding back before," Riggs said. "Then this crisis comes in and it's very daunting. SNAP can provide nine times the amount of meals as the entire nationwide food bank network. There's no business in the country, no corporation that could grow nine times its size or capacity in one year, let alone by Nov. 1."
With the impasse on Capitol Hill growing seemingly deeper the longer the shutdown continues, individual states are investigating what they can offer to help bridge the food assistance gap.
Political fallout
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, has introduced a bill that would provide appropriations for the Department of Agriculture to provide SNAP benefits during any lapse because of the shutdown. That bill currently has ten GOP co-sponsors and one Democratic co-sponsor, Peter Welch of Vermont. There's no commitment from leadership to bring it up for a vote, yet.
Even if the government acts before Nov. 1, it will likely take at least a few days to get SNAP benefits distributed to states, and then onto debit-like cards that recipients use to purchase food.
In the meantime, more than two dozen Democratic attorneys general and three Democratic governors are suing the Trump administration over the suspension of food benefits.
As the shutdown drags on, both parties seem convinced they will receive less of the public blame.
But Rich Thau, president of Engagious, a firm specializing in public policy message testing, said what he's hearing from the public is "a pox on both your houses."
As part of his swing voter project, Thau talks monthly with voters in key swing states who swung from former President Joe Biden to President Trump. In a recent focus group in Pennsylvania, Thau said nine of the 13 participants blamed both parties equally for the shutdown.
"When I turn the news on, I hear, 'the Republicans are blaming the Democrats. The Democrats are blaming the Republicans,'" said Brenda S., 60, a participant from Philadelphia, PA whose last name was not provided in the focus group setting, as is common practice for these surveys. "It's both of their faults. They don't care about us."
The SNAP cliff represents one of the biggest impacts of the shutdown, which has been marked by the White House attempting to stave off some of the traditional shutdown pain points, like paychecks for servicemembers.
If SNAP benefits are delayed for the month of November, Thau said he does not know which party is more able to build a compelling narrative about why lawmakers couldn't reach a deal and fund the government.
"Who's going to sound more persuasive to someone when it comes to who's to blame for this?" he told NPR. "If you're a member of Congress, you don't want your constituents starving because you can't reopen the government. But by the same token, if you think that this is a winnable fight and you're in no rush to reopen the government because somehow you think your side is winning — and if both sides feel that way — the inertia will continue."
He added: "I imagine each side has some strategy that causes them to think the other side is going to blink first. But they're playing with fire."
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