Dozens of people began lining up outside Oakland HOPE food pantry in Pontiac a half hour before it opened on Saturday, Nov. 1. Some said they usually wouldn’t be spending their Saturday morning here if they knew they’d be getting their federal food stamps this month.
But they don’t.
Food assistance benefits for 1.4 million Michiganders are in limbo as the federal government enters month two of its shutdown, amid court rulings on the government’s obligation to fund the program during a shutdown.
Abby Zalenko, 57, of West Bloomfield, said she usually gets cash for food put onto a benefits card on the 4th of the month. Zalenko said she’s extremely frustrated with the ongoing federal government’s shutdown and has no hope she’ll get her benefits this month.
“It’s not about parties, it’s disgusting that Congress is getting paid while the rest of us have to scrape by,” she said. “I never thought America would be this. It’s sad that my kids have to see this and be a part of this.”
As a single mother working as a bookkeeper, the $500 she usually gets “was our groceries for the month” — enough to feed her household, which includes her 18-year-old daughter and 20-year-old son. As a bookkeeper, Zalenko said she doesn’t make enough to pay all the bills on her own and lost the support of her mother two years ago when she passed away. This is her second time at the Oakland HOPE food pantry.
Zalenko’s experience echoed throughout the line: mothers, fathers and families who said the SNAP benefits were the only way to keep food on the table.
Kolleen Miller, 43, is a single mother from Auburn Hills who supports herself and her 14-year-old daughter. Miller said she doesn’t receive child support, and making around $24,000 annually working full time with adults who have disabilities is not enough to afford food and still make her $1,350 a month rent.
“I’ve been working since I was 14, I’ve never not been working, I just don’t have enough to do all that on my own,” she said.
Miller is holding out hope that the cash will come through on the 11th, when her benefits card is usually filled each month, though she said the potential benefits lapse makes her worry not only for herself, but for those she works with who have disabilities and cannot work, or are caring for someone with a disability.
“They’re also trying to figure out what to do and they’re living with someone who doesn’t understand. They’re hungry but don’t have their usual snack at 2 p.m.,” Miller said. “Especially with autism, they’re on a set schedule. That can cause behavioral problems, making it harder on the family.”
Miller’s plan is to reduce what they’re buying, reduce how much they’re eating at home, and also buy less healthy items which have a heftier price tag — ramen packets instead of ingredients for a salad, for example, she said. Miller plans to jump around to different food banks throughout the week, since what you get at a food pantry usually “doesn’t put meals on the table for more than two days,” she said.
Migdalia Giraud, 34, said she’d just been approved for food stamps a couple days ago. She works retail at Bath and Body Works and said she and her husband had been making enough to buy food with just their income, but applied because she’s recently pregnant and newly focused on nourishing her baby. Giraud said she worries more for those who cannot afford any food without the assistance and now will be forced to go without.
“It’s heartbreaking, you know?”
The current state of SNAP
The federal government directed the state to pause the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, this month, citing a lack of funds to distribute food assistance.
Developments surrounding the pause in SNAP benefits have been fast moving. The day before funds were slated to halt across the country for nearly 42 million Americans, two federal judges ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to pay for food assistance benefits despite its refusal to do so. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the Trump administration would attempt to appeal the orders but the president said on social media that he has instructed his lawyers to ask the court to clarify how to fund SNAP. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel celebrated the decision in response to the lawsuit brought by Michigan and other states but cautioned that it would take days for food assistance funds to actually land in the pockets of low-income Michiganders who rely on them.
Ahead of Nov. 1, Michigan lawmakers announced plans to blunt the impact of any looming SNAP pause. In Detroit, Mayor Mike Duggan approved $1.75 million in funding to local food pantries if benefits were cut off. Officials were expected to announce an emergency food distribution network of more than 100 sites in Detroit this week. On Oct. 30, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that the state will provide $4.5 million to the Food Bank Council of Michigan.
Although SNAP benefits aren’t loaded onto Bridge cards for some recipients until the 3rd of the month and are staggered throughout for others, families across the state are already feeling the pressure and food pantries are preparing to meet an influx of need at a time when demand is already high.
Requests for food assistance made through the Michigan 211 system — a service connecting Michiganders to food, transportation, utilities, housing and other programs — have surged in recent days. Across the state, from Oct. 23 to Oct. 29, Michigan 211 received 2,380 requests for food help, up 166% (or 894 requests) compared with the week before.
“This need is coming on the heels of an entire past year where requests for assistance across the state are at pandemic levels again,” said Bobby Dorigo Jones, director of ALICE and public policy for the Michigan Association of United Ways. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed and is a measure of households living above the poverty line but who don’t earn enough to afford the basics.
Michigan 211 received 634,625 requests for social services overall, during the 2022 fiscal year, from Oct. 1, 2021 through Sept. 30, 2022. Nearly 6%, or 37,989, were “unmet,” meaning services either didn’t exist or people weren’t eligible, likely because their income was too high. This year, the statewide 211 system tracked 72,353 of these unmet needs, about 12% of 625,852 total requests. Dorigo Jones said this rise is likely because of the end of pandemic-era protections and families well above the poverty line also “feeling the pinch.”
“This is happening at a time when more and more people in Michigan are struggling with the rising costs of daily life,” Dorigo Jones said.
Are you experiencing effects from the government shutdown? Email votervoices@freepress.com to tell the Free Press about it.
Three pantries, three counties
Oakland HOPE, a grocery-store style pantry, has been “stretched beyond capacity” but that’s nothing new, said founder and executive director Norma Okonski. Ahead of Nov. 1, she anticipated “a day like any other.”
“It’s unfortunate that it takes a shutdown and the potential loss of SNAP benefits for people to finally wake up and ask, now what? We have been in this ‘now what’ situation, severely underfunded, dealing with double the numbers in our pantry for over a year,” Okonski said.
Oakland HOPE in Pontiac offers free groceries — including dairy products, fresh produce and frozen meats — for thousands of families, seniors and veterans every month. In 2024, the pantry served nearly 190,000 people, up from roughly 170,000 the year before, Okonski said.
“We’re feeding more communities now in Oakland County,” she said. “When your numbers go up and your line gets longer and your pantry costs are up 33%, that is the perfect storm.”
Oakland HOPE, a grassroots organization, has been “bare-bones” for a long time and needs funding, Okonski said.
“We should not shoulder this burden alone,” she said.
Fish & Loaves, a Taylor-based food pantry, posted on its website that the organization is facing an “unprecedented” number of calls, messages and visits stemming from the looming SNAP cutoff and federal shutdown. The nonprofit sees heightened need during the last few months of the year anyway — with seniors preparing for the colder months and the holidays rolling in — but that’s something pantries prepare for, according to Stephanie McNees, CEO and executive director.
“In combination now with the government shutdown, the SNAP benefits being cut and frozen for November, it has been overwhelming. Just this week alone, we’re seeing a 300% increase in our emergency food requests,” McNees said.
During a recent Saturday Fresh Market, Fish & Loaves saw 933 cars. Typically, the pantry sees between 800 to 850 visitors during the popular drive-through program which distributes produce and dairy to those in need. Ahead of this weekend’s market, when the SNAP benefits were expected to lapse, the nonprofit was preparing for at least 1,000 cars.
Food pantries are trying to “buckle down” and get people the help they need, but it has been hard. Fish & Loaves has put out a call for volunteers and donations.
“We just don’t have the infrastructure or the funding or the resources to keep up with the real demand that is out there, that SNAP helps provide,” McNees said. Over in Sterling Heights, ahead of a monthly Saturday drive-through pantry at the New Apostolic Church, organizers had packed food for 20 additional families in anticipation of the SNAP pause.
“It seems like every pantry, once a month, we’re turning people away because we have a preset amount that we pack,” said Nancy Chapman, one of the coordinators of the church’s We Care Food Pantry.
The pantry, which runs on donations, typically serves about 120 families with nonperishables, frozen protein and, depending on availability, fresh produce — totaling about 70 pounds of food per family. Over the next couple months, organizers plan to up that to 140 prepackaged meals.
“Nobody in this country should ever go hungry because there are so many opportunities to gather food, with or without a SNAP card,” Chapman said. If pantry organizers have to order more food, they will.
‘Unprecedented cruelty’
The days leading up to Nov. 1 saw a flurry of activity in Lansing, with Michigan lawmakers scrambling to try to blunt the impact of a SNAP pause.
Democrats in the Michigan House unveiled a plan Oct. 28 to appropriate $600 million in state funding toward food assistance for SNAP recipients. Their plan also proposed directing $12.5 million in state funds to the Food Bank Council of America and food pantry programs, respectively.
Bill sponsor state Rep. Tonya Myers Phillips, D-Detroit, said that the state funding for SNAP would maintain benefits through the end of the year, and called it a temporary solution. State dollars cannot replace federal funding for SNAP, she said during an Oct. 31 news conference at Capuchin Services Center, a food pantry in Detroit.
“This is unprecedented cruelty, so we shouldn’t be here,” Myers Phillips said of the federal funding lapse. But, she said Michigan lawmakers have “moral responsibility” to act.
After House Democrats put forward their plan, the Michigan Senate followed up Oct. 30 with a vote on a separate supplemental spending measure to provide funding for food assistance in the event federal funding doesn’t come through to the state.
The bill passed by the chamber would appropriate state funds for food assistance, including $50 million to blunt the impact of the SNAP pause for recipients, $10 million to distribute surplus produce and another $10 million for grants to food banks. It would also appropriate $1 million for the Double Up Food Bucks program that helps SNAP recipients buy more produce.
Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, called the bill “performative” and “fake” during a news conference, saying that under the Michigan Legislature’s procedures, the chamber he leads couldn’t take it up until after the pause in SNAP benefits is slated to take effect. He also dismissed the idea that state lawmakers should fill the gap in the federally-funded food assistance program during the shutdown.
“We don’t have the resources to fill every single one of these program holes indefinitely,” he said.
To land on Whitmer’s desk, any supplemental spending measure requires approval by the Democratic-led Michigan Senate and the GOP-led Michigan House.
A day after announcing the $4.5 million from the state to assist food banks, Whitmer Press Secretary Stacey LaRouche said in an Oct. 31 statement: “Governor Whitmer is doing everything in her power to shield Michiganders from unnecessary hardship, despite the federal government shutdown being out of her control.”
She did not specifically outline the governor’s position on a supplemental state spending measure to support SNAP.
“Ultimately, this crisis is the federal government’s to fix, and they must act swiftly to ensure Americans don’t go hungry this November,” LaRouche said.
Why is SNAP at risk in the first place?
Michigan receives roughly $260 million in federal food assistance benefits a month. The benefits — administered by the federal government and issued by the state — are loaded onto electronic benefit transfer (EBT), or Bridge cards, that people can use to buy food at grocery stores and other retailers.
SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is regarded as the largest anti-hunger program in the country. Most people in the program are children, older adults and people with disabilities.
When asked about the threat to SNAP on Oct. 31, Trump told reporters, “All the Democrats have to do is say, ‘let’s go,’ ” by agreeing to reopen the government. “I’m president, I want to help everybody. I want to help Democrats and the Republicans. But when you’re talking about SNAP, if you look, it’s largely Democrats, they’re hurting their own people,” Trump said.
Following the court rulings, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social: “If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding.”
The federal government shut down on Oct. 1 as the most recent continuing resolution funding government operations expired. Republicans, in the majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, attempted to pass a “clean” resolution to keep funding at current levels and make no policy changes. But Democrats refused, insisting on negotiations regarding health care premiums for people insured under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which are set to rise precipitously.
The Trump administration had indicated that it would not pay SNAP benefits after Nov. 1 because of the ongoing monthlong federal shutdown, arguing that it was illegal for it to use some $5 billion in contingency funds to continue to pay benefits to some 42 million Americans — including 1.4 million Michiganders — without a congressional appropriation to keep regular benefits flowing.
Democratic-led states, including Michigan, sued in federal court in Massachusetts, saying it was illegal for the Trump administration to not use the funds to pay benefits, since that was the specific reason for which they were originally appropriated in past federal fiscal years. In that case, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order that gave the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) until Monday, Nov. 3, to decide whether it wants to pay partial or full benefits.
Even if the judges’ orders from the two Oct. 31 rulings stand and the Trump administration must use contingency funds to pay SNAP benefits, they won’t last long: A month’s worth of benefits nationwide cost more than $8 billion. The amount available, less than $6 billion in the contingency fund, would cover less than a month.
MDHHS spokesperson Lynn Sutfin said in an email Oct. 31 that the federal government has until Monday to determine whether it will transfer additional funding for full SNAP benefits in November.
“MDHHS will do everything in its power to expedite payments to the 1.4 million SNAP recipients in Michigan once we receive USDA’s determination,” Sutfin said.
Reach reporter Nushrat Rahman at nrahman@freepress.com.
