Shutdown brings early release of February SNAP food help. Will the money last to March?

Early Friday morning, the gravel parking lot at Thankful Heart Food Pantry near Pikeville was already filling up.

People who rely on the pantry — mostly residents of Pike, Floyd and Letcher counties — bring laundry baskets and will wait more than an hour for their turn. Without the food they receive here, some said it’d be hard to make it through the week.

“If I didn’t have the food bank, I wouldn’t eat,” said Jennifer Fullmer, who waited for about two hours before she filled her basket.

Like many others here, Fullmer also receives money through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called “food stamps” or SNAP.

SNAP is one of the many government functions affected by the partial government shutdown. Most SNAP recipients in Kentucky received their benefits for February on Jan. 20, rather than Feb. 1. They won’t get any further benefits in February, according to a press release from Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

The federal office that oversees SNAP benefits and other nutrition assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, has cut its staffing levels by 95 percent during the shutdown, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. That office’s federal shutdown contingency plan does not confirm that it would distribute SNAP benefits in March if the partial government shutdown continues.

Trissia Scott, the coordinator of Thankful Heart, said she’s worried many SNAP recipients will not budget their money properly after receiving their February benefits early.

That could leave many families struggling in mid- to late-February. If SNAP benefits are not released in March, she said that would have a big impact on recipients’ ability to get enough food.

She encouraged people receiving SNAP benefits to manage their money wisely during the long stretch between Jan. 20 and Feb. 1.

“If they get their food stamps in January and they use them wisely, they should be okay,” Scott said.

Still, Scott said some recipients “aren’t used to having that much at one time. They’re gonna spend and spend and spend, and then at the end of February they’re gonna have nothing at all.”

Second Chance Misssion in Floyd County also predicted the early SNAP release could cause problems for some recipients.

On its Facebook page, the Mission asked people to donate to their local food pantry in anticipation of hard times in February.

“This will highly impact all food pantries in our area,” the Mission wrote on its Facebook page. “The need is already great, but this will strain us to a whole other level.”

According to the USDA, SNAP provided about $1.11 billion in food benefits to an average of 789,000 people a month in Kentucky in 2015.

In Kentucky’s 5th Congressional District, which includes most of Eastern Kentucky, about 28 percent of households received SNAP benefits in 2016. Of the households receiving SNAP, 71 percent were below the poverty line, and their median annual income was below $12,000.

Every SNAP dollar generates about $1.80 in total economic activity, according to the USDA, and Scott said many local groceries and other Eastern Kentucky businesses count on SNAP dollars. If SNAP benefits aren’t released in March, the local economy will suffer, she said.

“The supermarkets, they’re going to lose revenue,” Scott said. “It’s going to be a lot of impact.”

Hundreds of people come through Thankful Heart every week, reaching as many as 500 a week during the winter because rising power and gas bills leave many families struggling to make ends meet, Scott said.

Kurt Reiber, chairman of the Kentucky Association of Food Banks, said he has been working to educate families on budgeting for the early release of SNAP benefits.

“We’re asking them and then encouraging them to make sure they utilize those benefits throughout the entire month of February,” Reiber said. “We’re also reaching out to families that are not being impacted by the government shutdown to see if they can make a donation.”

Reiber is also President and CEO of Freestore Foodbank, which serves 20 counties in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio through a network of food pantries, soup kitchens and other outreach programs.

Michael Halligan, CEO of God’s Pantry Food Bank, which serves 50 counties in Central and Eastern Kentucky, said his network of food pantries is prepared to meet the needs of families who may run out of SNAP benefits in February.

“They need to make sure they’re budgeting well,” Halligan said. “But we are certainly prepared for additional needs … to get them through the end of the month.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2019 at 11:08 AM.