Cutting through the back-and-forth legal battles over SNAP funding during the government shutdown, New York State has released full November benefits to all SNAP recipients with no plans to change course, as of now. While critically helpful, Long Island’s food banks say they believe the crisis of increased need will continue for weeks.
“We have absolutely seen panic in the community on both the recipient side as well as the community donor side,” said Susan Berman, who oversees the JCC’s food and needs bank. “People wanting to help and not knowing how, and people who are SNAP recipients or really food insecureare v ery concerned about what’s going to happen with the continued government shutdown and SNAP benefits being in flux right now.”
“There’s been so much back and forth; it’s really confusing and causes a lot of fear for a lot of SNAP recipients,” said Ciara O’Brien, the government relations and advocacy manager for the Long Island Cares food bank. “This morning, the [New York] Office of Temporary Disability Assistance told us that they are loading all SNAP benefits onto cards. They are paying those payments in full…And there is no effort to to take back those benefits at this current moment.”
There was temporary concern over whether New York would reverse course on dispersing November benefits after the Trump administration told states they needed to “undo” SNAP disbursement or face consequences on Nov. 8. This occurred days after a federal judge ruled on Nov. 6 that the federal government was required to fully fund all SNAP benefits by Nov. 7, and states, including New York, Pennsylvania and Kansas, began dispersing full benefits to recipients.
States, including New York, have chosen to ignore Trump’s Nov. 8 order. There have been two primary suits over the past two weeks where judges have repeatedly written decisions stating that the Trump administration was required to pay SNAP benefits,inwhich the federal government has appealed, creating a general atmosphere of uncertainty around the anti-hunger program.
The three million New Yorkers on SNAP, including about 180,000 Long Islanders, can likely expect to receive their full November SNAP benefits by Thursday, Nov. 13, as the state chose to disperse benefits over the weekend, O’Brien said.
“They’re really working on a rapid response to be able to get those payments in full to SNAP participants,” O’Brien said. “With the amount of confusion and fear that all of the conflicting headlines have created, we have definitely found a lot of reassurance in the state handling this and issuing those benefits in full…It was reassuring to hear that there’s no effort to claw back those benefits at all.”
However, full November SNAP disbursement in New York would mark only the beginning of the end of the crisis created by the roughly two-week disruption to the program and the over 40-day government shutdown, according to O’Brien, Berman and Island Harvest CEO Randi Shubin Dresner.
“We predict that with the shutdown, with the kind of stress that has placed on families, these numbers will continue to rise, especially during the holidays, where there’s more financial pressures,” O’Brien said.
Part of that is because it’s not only SNAP recipients who have found themselves in sudden need, but also federal workers who have missed multiple paychecks. Food banks also worry that the shutdown could result in delays to shipments and purchases they make from the federal government.
Shubin Dresner said that Island Harvest runs a program where it distributes approximately 30-pound boxes of food to over 6,000 seniors weekly. As that food is purchased from the federal government, the shutdown may threaten its immediate future.
“Because of the shutdown, we know there’s probably only another week to two weeks’ worth of food for that program,” Shubin Dresner said. “And things take time to turn back around. When you cancel a program, it takes time to backfill it. We anticipate that even if things were to change today, we’re not sure that everything will be back in order immediately.”
“We’ll do what we can, but we do have orders that are backed up,” she continued. “We put orders in last week, and we’re told that delivery may not be for two to three weeks on certain items. That’s not going to change at this point regardless if the government opens up, and so we’ll have to just get through the next couple of weeks and do whatever we can do to support our neighbors.”
She said demand has remained high at Island Harvest and the food pantries it distributes to.
“On Friday alone, before 1 o’clock in the afternoon, we had already gotten 50 phone calls from people who had lost their SNAP benefits and were desperate and didn’t know what to do,” Shubin Dresner said. “It’s that way every day, over the weekend. We’re also getting a tremendous amount of emails from people who are desperate.”
Concern across SNAP recipients, federal workers and those struggling with food insecurity remains high, but the food and household needs banks on Long Island, like the JCC’s, remain committed to supporting the community, Berman said.
“Food insecurity and hunger don’t pause during a shutdown,” Berman said. “What’s happening right now in our community [food and] needs bank is what community looks like. People are really showing up for one another when it matters most. That is what community looks like.”
For those looking to help, Berman said monetary donations and gift cards to food banks are most effective.
To find your local food bank, visit https://www.licares.org/find-food/.
