Copyright Arkansas Times
The federal government will partially fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food aid through November amid an intractable government shutdown, but it’s not clear when SNAP benefits will actually reach the hundreds of thousands of Arkansans who rely on the program. In the meantime, Arkansas food pantries are feeling the pinch of increased demand. Gov. Sarah Sanders has pledged $500,000 in state funds to support food banks across the state, but the money won’t come close to making up the disruption to SNAP benefits. Other states, including neighboring Louisiana, have announced much more robust plans to fill the funding gap. Over 220,000 Arkansans receive SNAP benefits. Funding for the program lapsed on Saturday, but a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to come up with a plan to pay out SNAP benefits from an emergency fund. The administration filed a status report with the court on Monday that said it would use the SNAP program’s $4.65 billion emergency fund, which will cover a little more than half the usual cost of running the program in a month. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, said it wouldn’t use funds from a separate pot of money that funds school nutrition programs to make up the shortfall. SNAP expenditures typically cost the federal government around $8 billion a month to provide food assistance to some 42 million low-income people on an electronic card similar to a debit card. The feds provide around $521 million a year to Arkansas SNAP recipients, according to health policy group KFF. The average monthly benefit for recipients is about $191, according to the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Arkansas Times reached out to the state Department of Human Services to ask how the partial SNAP funding would be distributed to Arkansas recipients, but a spokesperson said they had yet to receive guidance from the federal government. Funds for SNAP “have not yet been provided for November,” the spokesman said. At River City Ministry, a faith-baith organization that primarily serves the homeless in North Little Rock, staff who run the food pantry and soup kitchen have seen a dramatic increase in demand over the last two weeks as the SNAP benefit cutoff loomed. Letha Todd, River City’s development director, said they have been planning with the Arkansas Food Bank, the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, and other partners to provide help during the shortfall. “We decided to take a multi-pronged approach to help those being affected by the SNAP freeze, so we are going to increase staffing to help those who are new to us. We’ve also set up a system online where people can sign up for a food box so we can better handle the rush of people,” Todd said. “And we plan to have a drive-thru.” Anyone is welcome to eat breakfast and lunch at River City’s soup kitchen, and those who meet low-income requirements can take home USDA food boxes on Tuesday and Thursday. The boxes are provided through a USDA program called TEFAP, The Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is funded separately from SNAP. River City also provides “ministry food boxes” for people who cannot prove they are low-income, which are funded through private donations. Todd and her co-worker LaKendra Mackey, a social worker who runs the food box program, said many of their clients use SNAP to pay for groceries every month. Even when funding is restored, there will still likely be an administrative delay with people receiving their benefits. If the shutdown doesn’t end soon and the USDA must rely only on its contingency fund, benefits could be halved for the month of November, which could leave more and more families in a pinch. Though SNAP funding has been partially restored for November, Todd said most people who use SNAP receive their benefits between the 4th and the 12th day of each month. The beginning of each month is usually a busy time for River City because it’s usually just before people receive their benefits. The true test of demand will come later this month, she said, if their client numbers grow even higher. Sanders will be distributing meals on Tuesday morning at the Helping Hand of Little Rock, a food pantry in the Central High neighborhood. She has not announced whether she will seek to use more state funding to backstop the budgets of Arkansas’ most food insecure people. As the Arkansas Times noted last week, the state has billions of dollars in reserves it’s accumulated over years of running budget surpluses. The city of Little Rock is also trying to aid SNAP recipients by raising private donations to provide them with gift cards to Edwards Food Giant, which the grocery chain is providing at a discount. A spokesperson for the city did not answer questions Monday on how much they have raised so far. Sylvia Blain, the CEO of the Hunger Relief Alliance, and other food security advocates have urged lawmakers to end the government shutdown and restore SNAP benefits. Even with increased private donations, Blain said SNAP funds nine times the number of meals that are given out through Arkansas’s food bank network. Charity cannot reasonably make up the entire difference, she said. In an interview with the Arkansas Times, Kate Jenkins, the marketing and communications director at the Arkansas Food Bank, emphasized that while donations have poured in since SNAP benefits have been cut, food banks are still unable to make up the full funding gap. Jenkins said the cost of running food banks is high. Even though the organization has raised well over $20,000 since Oct. 31, she said, they still can’t provide meals to the needy as efficiently as SNAP can.
