‘I’m gonna starve’: Lines at Bay Area food pantries double as SNAP payments freeze, remain uncertain
In the parking lot at the San Jose Flea Market on Monday morning where Hunger at Home feeds the needy, the line of cars waiting for boxes of food increased 40% to nearly 250 — a need they haven’t seen since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The line stretched so long that it doubled back, and volunteers needed an extra hour to load every car. They also needed to dip into the freezer to hand out food meant for next week’s distribution.
“So many people are food challenged in our community,” said Michael Miller, treasurer for Hunger at Home, which sets up their operations in the parking lot every Monday morning. “Now, without the food stamps, people are desperate. We’re just trying to give a little hope here.”
Demand for free food is soaring at Bay Area food pantries as recipients of the embattled federal food stamps program are seeing their accounts frozen and worry they won’t be able to feed their families.
Charity programs that distribute food, meanwhile, are scrambling for more donations to restock their shelves.
Ever since Congress shut down the federal government over a spending bill stalemate, payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) used mostly at grocery stores have been in jeopardy. Tens of millions of recipients received notice last Thursday that their accounts weren’t being replenished in November.
On Monday, after a federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration must fund the food program, President Trump said he would use SNAP’s nearly $5 billion emergency fund for the month of November, but because there’s still a $4 billion shortfall to fully fund the program, benefits might be cut in half. How long it will take to release those funds remains uncertain.
“I’m gonna starve,” said Nick Gamez, lining up at West Valley Community Services food pantry in Cupertino Monday. “I got this food bank, thank God, but I can barely get around. I ended up losing my job and being homeless. I lost where I lived for 30 years because I couldn’t pay the rent. So now I live in my son’s car.”
The Alameda County Community Food Bank, which distributes food to more than 350 food pantries in schools, senior centers, child care facilities and other agencies across the county, is seeing an “extraordinary increase” in demand for food, said spokesman Michael Altfest.
“The lines are growing,” Altfest said. “We’ve been hearing from a lot of agencies that are running out of food very quickly.”
Calls to the Alameda County food bank’s emergency helpline for people urgently seeking food have been doubling every week for several weeks, the surge driven mainly by people dependent on the SNAP program and anticipating the disruption, Altfest said.
The escalating demand for food resembles the early days of COVID, Altfest said, when shutdowns threw large numbers of people out of work.
But now, there’s a major difference.
“During COVID, hunger and poverty went down, and that was because of interventions by the federal government,” Altfest said. “This time it’s the federal government that’s causing what’s happening.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Bay Area residents are expected to be pushed out of the SNAP program in the coming weeks as county and state officials determine who no longer qualifies under President Donald Trump’s spending bill, which restricted eligibility.
The Alameda County food bank has also been providing weekly food deliveries for 200 to 300 employees of the Transportation Security Administration who work at Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport, and more than 1,500 workers from another federal agency, who haven’t been paid because of the federal government shutdown, Altfest added.
Food pantries under the umbrella of the Food Bank of Contra Costa & Solano “are seeing more people standing in line,” said the non-profit’s advocacy and policy manager, Hailey Solares, while the phone has been “ringing off the hook” with people seeking food, spokesman Jeremy Crittenden added.
The current government shutdown is about to tie a record for duration. And because the last government shutdown didn’t disrupt SNAP benefits in California, Crittenden said, “we’re in uncharted territory.”
At the West Valley Community Services food pantry in Cupertino, Belkis Mir stood in line Monday with her 4-month-old, Subha, the youngest of her three children.
“With the kids, I’m worried, because how can we survive with no food?” she asked. Already, SNAP wasn’t paying enough to cover the family’s food bill, so the West Valley pantry was a big help. She has been receiving benefits since her husband lost his job as a retail store manager four months ago — around the same time their infant was born.
“People are losing jobs,” she said. “I know a lot of other friends that have been laid off. It’s really hard.”
West Valley Community Service has seen demand roughly double since the government shut down in early October and word spread that SNAP benefits could be cut. Last Thursday, when SNAP notices went out warning that funding would stop in November, the number of people in line jumped from the normal 25 to 63, said Executive Director Sujatha Venkatraman .
“Our fear is that new people who have not used our services because they had SNAP and they were figuring it out with their income, would need us now,” Venkatraman said. “So we are preparing for that, and we definitely need to make sure more food comes in. So we’re asking for more food donation, more financial donations to run our market operation.”
At the San Jose Flea Market parking lot, Patricia Ribeiro volunteers every Monday morning with her daughter, who is raising four children without their father’s help and are grateful to also receive a box of food each week. Her daughter, Gina, is using the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program for food, but worries even that could be cut.
“I don’t want to cry, but the kids were left with no money, no nothing,” Patricia said. “Throughout all the years, we’ve never had to come to a place to ask anybody for help. If it wasn’t for Hunger at Home, I don’t know what I would do.”