Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them

Hindustan Times

18 hours ago

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Sarah Aragón glanced at the growing line of people snaking down Central Avenue, waiting for their allotment of everything from melons to pinto beans to frozen catfish. She wondered how she'll keep feeding them all.
This year, the federal government has canceled food deliveries and cut hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to food banks. For Aragón, the head of programming for Roadrunner Food Bank, New Mexico's largest charitable food operation, that has meant losing more than seven million pounds of food she had been counting on.
President Trump's megabill, passed earlier this month, includes cuts to food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Food banks across the country were already straining under rising demand. Now, they worry many more Americans will go hungry. Some food banks and pantries are pushing for more state, local and private funding. Others are considering cutting back services and the amount of food they can distribute.
'It's getting to the point where we can't fill every single need in terms of food,' Aragón said. 'I don't know how much more creative we can be to make things stretch.'
Food banks have seen requests for assistance from households—including those with children—jump sharply over the past few years, driven by the end of pandemic aid programs and the impact of inflation on grocery prices.
According to a recent survey from Feeding America, a national network of food banks, over half of 162 food banks reported demand rising this past April compared with April 2024.
Sarah Aragón is the head of programming for the Roadrunner Food Bank in New Mexico.
Earlier this year, the Agriculture Department canceled millions of pounds of shipments to food banks that were part of its emergency food-assistance program for low-income people.
A spokesperson for the department said it had only terminated an additional fund set up by the Biden administration that resulted in inflated spending on the program. Deliveries for the main emergency food effort continue uninterrupted, the department said.
A separate pandemic-era program, slated to disburse roughly $500 million this year to food banks to buy produce, dairy items and meats from local farmers, was also cut by the Agriculture Department. The department said it had released hundreds of millions of dollars to food banks that had been previously promised as part of the program.
Yet food banks say they are already feeling the impacts of federal cuts.
'This is the most challenging situation I've seen in 17 years here,' said Paule Pachter, president and chief executive of Long Island Cares, a food bank that serves New York's Long Island. 'We've been through Superstorm Sandy, Covid, but this is a self-imposed crisis.'
Pachter's organization faces mounting demand, opening two additional pantries over the past few years to add to its four others. In 2019, it recorded just over 59,000 visits from people needing food. In 2024, that number was more than 193,000.
A waiting line last month at a Roadrunner Food Bank distribution in Albuquerque, N.M.
The Roadrunner Food Bank is pushing state lawmakers to allocate more funding to offset cuts.
Earlier this year, a delivery of a quarter million pounds of food from the emergency food program was canceled, Pachter said.
Pachter and other food bank leaders say the SNAP reductions included in the new budget bill will strain resources by pushing more people whose benefits have either been cut or reduced toward pantries to get food.
Republicans say changes to the SNAP program will ensure people receiving the benefits are working, as required.
The budget bill expands work requirements for SNAP, raising the upper age limit for able-bodied adults from 54 to 64, meaning those people will typically have to work for 80 hours a month to qualify for food benefits. Caregivers of children ages 14 and older previously didn't have to work to get SNAP assistance. The new legislation removes that exemption in most cases.
These changes are set to go into effect immediately, while other changes that shift some of the cost of paying for SNAP from the federal government to the states will be implemented in the coming years.
A congressional analysis of an earlier House version of the bill found that roughly 3.2 million people would lose SNAP benefits in an average month over the next decade.
Some food banks have seen a rise in people accessing their services who also get SNAP assistance. A pandemic-era program that provided households with the maximum amount of food benefits ended in 2023.
According to data from the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, the number of people who use its pantries and were also enrolled in SNAP jumped by 64% between the end of 2022 and the end of 2024.
Zach Zook, chief strategy officer for the Pennsylvania organization, said the rise showed that even before the cuts, SNAP benefits often weren't enough. Families enrolled in the program use food banks to fill the gap.
Madaline Yazell, 75, at left, says Roadrunner in Albuquerque enables her to supplement the groceries she buys with her Social Security money.
Since April, the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank has also had 23 loads of emergency food-assistance program goods canceled. The food bank receives $173,000 a month from the Agriculture Department's local food program to buy local pork, chicken and dairy items, among other products from farmers. The last payment will be in July, before its funds from the program run out, Zook said.
The food bank has seen demand soar over the past several years. The number of times it served children nearly doubled between fiscal years 2019 and 2024.
Some front-line pantries, the groups that actually distribute the food provided by food banks, are considering reductions in services to conserve resources.
The Love Thy Neighbor community pantry in King George County, Va., recently drafted a contingency plan to prepare for the cuts. Among the options being considered: limiting the number of times people can visit pantries from weekly to biweekly, and reducing the 50 to 55 pounds of food each household receives per visit.
'There are different dials that we can spin to try and keep serving people in a reduced way,' said Ryan Ragsdale, treasurer and secretary of the pantry.
In New Mexico, roughly one in five residents are enrolled in SNAP—among the highest participation rates in the country. Roadrunner is ramping up food drives and pushing state lawmakers to allocate more funding to offset cuts.
Brian Hall, a burly former Army infantryman, is a regular at one of Roadrunner's weekly distribution sites. Hall, 60 years old, said a back injury has left him unable to work at all since 2018. He had been interested in working as a counselor for other veterans, but a recent series of strokes derailed that plan.
Brian Hall, a veteran in Albuquerque, says he never thought he would seek help from a food-bank program.
Hall said he gets $1,400 in disability payments from his back injury and $140 a month in SNAP benefits. He still relies on Roadrunner each week to help get enough to eat, calling it a lifeline.
'I moved to Albuquerque to help my parents because they're older and I wanted to give them a hand. But now I'm the one getting the help,' he said. 'Never in a million years, did I think I'd be in this situation.'
Aragón said that this year, Roadrunner's distributions run out of food more often than they have in the past.
'When we have to tell people that we have no more left, the look on their faces when they walk away is like 'What am I going to do now?'' she said. 'I don't have an answer.'
Write to Dan Frosch at [e-mail]
Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them
Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them
Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them
Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them