It’s been almost a month since the federal government shut down.
Nonprofits that serve lower-income families in Southern Indiana say they’re worried about the shutdown exacerbating food insecurity in the area.
Government workers are starting to miss pay, and the United States Department of Agriculture says Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, or SNAP, won’t be issued Nov. 1.
Alexus Richardson is a spokesperson for Dare to Care, a food bank that supplies pantries in 13 counties in Southern Indiana and Kentucky with food from the USDA and other sources.
She said people are already stretched — with inflation and rising grocery prices.
“Anything else layered on top of that is pushing people to the brink, and that's what we don’t want,” she said.
Richardson said they’ve already heard from local pantries that they're seeing longer lines, more government employees and more people who are afraid of losing SNAP benefits.
“What we've already seen is a little bit of that panic and fear that people have that the money is going to dry up, and so they are going to food pantries right now in fear of, 'What if there is nothing?’” she said.
Information from the U.S. Census Bureau shows around 9% of Indiana households receive SNAP benefits. In Clark and Floyd counties, the rates are 7.4% and 7.3% respectively. More than half of the households on SNAP there have children under 18.
Richardson said it will be a big hit to families if they lose these benefits, even temporarily. And it’s not a hole Dare to Care or food pantries are set up to fill. She said for every food pantry meal a family gets, nine come from SNAP benefits.
“We're not here to replace federal nutrition programs that have been around for decades,” she said. “We're here to help fill in the gaps.”
She said it’s possible the shutdown will strain what they’re able to give out.
“It just really puts people in a tough position, and…they're going to just have to make really tough decisions that no one should have to make,” she said. “We think that food is a basic human right that everyone in our country deserves access to.”
Richardson said area emergency food providers had already seen a 48% increase in visitors over the past two years, the largest since the Great Recession.
Dare to Care recently surveyed partner pantries in Indiana and Kentucky to learn more about what they’re seeing during the shutdown.
A representative for the Salvation Army in New Albany responded that they have had “substantial increases” in food pantry and financial assistance requests, “so many that it is outside our means and we are having to apply for grants, host more food drives, and get creative with how we are going to help our neighbors.”
Kara Brown, executive director at the Center for Lay Ministries in Jeffersonville, said the food pantry there was already seeing higher-than-usual numbers this year, including more new families.
She’s not aware yet of an increase specifically due to the shutdown, but said, “We definitely are seeing more new clients.”
Brown said, as of Friday, they had almost 1,500 household visits for food this month and 163 first-time clients. They’ve served an average of 82 people a day this month, compared with 66 clients a day last October. August and September numbers were also higher than last year
She said she’s concerned about more people needing assistance.
“We're going to hope that our community will rise up and meet that need,” she said.
Rhonda Grangier, the volunteer coordinator for the Center for Lay Ministries, said they’ve fielded a lot of calls over the past month from people asking about the pantry. Many of them said they were first-timers. Some people seeking assistance Monday said they work for the federal government.
At the same time, the community is also stepping up, with more calls over the past week asking how to help, Grangier said.
“We've had a lot of people call and say, ‘I want to donate. What do you need?’” she said.
She said she wished she could better predict what may happen with the food benefits, but for now they’re focused on being flexible and serving clients.
LPM News contacted the USDA late last week to ask whether the shutdown could delay shipments to food banks in the area, whether SNAP benefits would go out to Indiana residents in November and whether that could change if the government reopened.
“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments,” a spokesperson for the USDA said in a statement responding to LPM’s questions.
A message on the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration website says the state can't issue November SNAP benefits until funding is restored.
Floyd County receives 225,000 pounds of food on average in a year from Dare to Care, and Clark County receives about 430,000 pounds, spokesperson Richardson told LPM in July.
She doesn’t expect the shutdown to affect USDA food shipments for The Emergency Food Assistance Program to the area this year, because the organization already had supply orders in through December. However, Dare to Care won’t be able to order more supplies from USDA until the government reopens, she said.
What will be available for January is uncertain, depending on how long the shutdown lasts.
Richardson said it’s too early to know how a prolonged shutdown could further impact the federal food supply.
“I think that there's a real possibility that we will have less food to go out, or [try] to stretch the same amount of food, but to more people,” she said.
Information on food pantry locations and other resources is available at daretocare.org or by calling (502) 966-3821.
Coverage of Southern Indiana is funded, in part, by Samtec Inc., the Hazel & Walter T. Bales Foundation, and the Caesars Foundation of Floyd County.
