How SNAP reductions are impacting local food banks

Geoff Bennett:

And for more on all this, we're joined now by Elizabeth Keever. She's the chief resource officer at Harvesters. That's a regional food bank in Kansas City, Missouri.

Thanks for being with us.

Elizabeth Keever, Chief Resource Officer, Harvesters:

Thank you for having me.

Geoff Bennett:

I wonder. Even before the shutdown, with higher inflation and a tighter job market, what kind of need were you already seeing?

Elizabeth Keever:

You know, that's something that a lot of people didn't realize even before this shutdown is that, in this region that we serve and, frankly, in a lot of places across the country, food insecurity and hunger was higher than it's been in a decade.

Year over year, last year, we saw a 10 percent rise. We went from having one in eight folks in our region facing hunger to now one in seven. It's just been really challenging for so many of those folks, like you said, rising inflation, affordability crisis when it comes to affordable housing, rising cost of food. It's just right now folks are really feeling the pain even before the shutdown started.

Geoff Bennett:

There can be a misconception about who relies on food banks, who relies on food stamps, or SNAP. Who are you really serving?

Elizabeth Keever:

It's absolutely true.

There has been a misconception about SNAP recipients for decades and decades, frankly, since the beginning of the program. But it's really important for people to know that two-thirds of folks who utilize the SNAP program are children and folks who are elderly and the disabled. And then the other vast majority have at least one full-time working member in their household.

It's just a really inaccurate depiction of those who are using SNAP to say that those people are individuals who aren't working. They're people who have just a challenge between what they make every single day and how much it costs to live and to raise a family.

Geoff Bennett:

When the Trump administration says it will provide partial SNAP funding in response to this court order, what's the real-life impact of that?

Elizabeth Keever:

Well, it is a step in the right direction. We are incredibly grateful that there is going to be signs that funds will be released.

But it does create some confusion because we have never in the history of the program released partial payments. So, when will folks receive that timeline? We're not really sure. So, right now, we don't know what to tell people when they can really start to expect those dollars to be seen on their EBT card. It takes time for them to process how much that payment is going to be to the states and then, for the states, how to distribute that partial payment.

So it's really challenging right now to communicate what people should be able to expect when they will get their SNAP benefits.

Geoff Bennett:

So, in Missouri, the average household that relies on SNAP gets $332 a month. If that's reduced in half, what kind of choices is a family left to make?

Elizabeth Keever:

There are going to be really challenging choices that people are already currently making.

And, right now, we are having people who are telling us that they're making life-altering choices. I was speaking with a woman recently who was telling me that she was thinking about dropping out of school to become a dental hygienist because, if she doesn't receive her SNAP benefits, she doesn't know how it's going to be for her to feed her family.

And, right now, with only receiving partial payments, it's not the ease that so many people were looking for when it comes to what the judge ruled on Friday. And especially now, with the holidays upon us, with Thanksgiving upon us, we're already expecting demand to rise at our agencies.

So only receiving partial payments for November, SNAP benefits, and October benefits have already been used up, so it's going to be really difficult for families to be able to budget what they had lost if they are only receiving half.

Geoff Bennett:

Does your organization have what it needs to meet the demand?

Elizabeth Keever:

At the end of the day, food banks like Harvesters cannot make up the gap that's left behind SNAP. Food banks across the country are truly the supplement to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

For every one meal that we provide, SNAP provides nine. And in Jackson county, Missouri, alone, the amount that is expected in SNAP benefits exceed our total annual fund-raising that we receive as an organization. So it is a massive gap that food banks cannot fully fill, but, right now, what — I can tell you this.

Our organization is doing everything we can to bring in as much inventory and put it out to our partner agencies. And we're going to do whatever we can to try to reduce the pain that so many are feeling as a result of this government shutdown.

Geoff Bennett:

Elizabeth Keever with Harvesters. That's a regional food bank in Kansas City, Missouri. Thanks again for joining us.

Elizabeth Keever:

Thank you.