On Monday evenings at BasBlue, a community space for women and nonbinary individuals, guests are welcome − no questions asked − to enjoy free meals prepared by local volunteer chefs. 

The suppers came together quickly last month when families across Michigan faced uncertainty around whether they would get their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits during the federal government shutdown.

In the time since, both brick and mortar and pop-up establishments wanted to help BasBlue. Plum Market and the Children’s Foundation donated money to offset the cost of groceries. Volunteers bus tables and run dishwashers − just like a normal restaurant. Guests get to order from the week’s menu or take food to go.

“We saw ourselves as having resources that we could deploy,” said Ellen Gilchrist, CEO of BasBlue. 

The Midtown Detroit membership organization and cafe was among the groups that opened its doors to offset the impacts of the food benefit assistance limbo, and as need is expected to climb heading into the holidays. In the past few weeks, organizations − large and small − have stepped up during the ebbs and flows of confusion around SNAP and are not stopping anytime soon. It also comes amid the tightening of food assistance benefits, including new work requirements. 

Although the shutdown ended days ago and food assistance benefits began flowing again to some 1.4 million Michiganders, the BasBlue suppers will continue into January because of donations and volunteers. Dinner attendance has grown, too. The first Monday supper at the beginning of the month saw 25 attendees and the most recent one on Nov. 17 had 45 guests.

On Monday’s menu: Baobab Fare, the popular restaurant in Detroit known for its East African cuisine.

“We have a kitchen, we run a cafe, we work with the most amazing, generous chefs for our day-to-day operations and we thought, why don’t we step up and use these resources and create this opportunity,” Gilchrist said.

There’s also been abundant support from food distribution volunteers. More than 1,000 signed up to help staff a network of emergency food pantries in Detroit − more people than sites available. That network, a map of Detroit food pantries, is still available online.

Shutdown chaos, a fragile system and withering trust 

Food banks across the state saw a huge spike in demand starting last month, upwards of 25% to 50% in some areas, according to preliminary reports from across food banks part of the Food Bank Council of Michigan’s network.

Inventories also dipped sooner than usual. Though state support helped food banks, it didn’t fully meet the increased need that still remains, said Denise Donahue, director of communications for the food bank council. 

Families are still catching up after days of instability and food banks are continuing to serve higher levels of need as they head into the holidays when demand usually reaches its peak, she said.

“Demand remains elevated, especially as we enter the holiday season, and we remain focused on serving families still recovering from the effects of the government shutdown,” Donahue said in an email.

The Detroit Friendship House, which serves Hamtramck residents, offers a grocery store-style food pantry and sees 400 families, on average, each month. About 40% of people depend on SNAP benefits. In recent weeks, the nonprofit saw an increase in requests, compared to the same time period last year, for extra food help, including 67 inquiries − phone calls, emails and in person visits, according to Executive Director Khurshida Hossain.

“We’re getting more phone calls and more inquiries during this period than we have in any other month,” Hossain said.

Volunteers also signed up and more than 1,500 pounds of food donations came in. However, food pantries are equipped to provide supplemental food for a week or two, Hossain said, whereas SNAP goes beyond that. 

“These safety mechanisms that we have for social services, they can be taken away … it really demonstrated the fragility of these safety systems,” Hossain said.

Immediately after the government said it intended to paused benefits, lawsuits led to rulings and appeals over other funds that could be used for SNAP. Benefits stopped, started and then stopped again as the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court to maintain a halt on benefits during the shutdown. 

Chad Techner, founder and CEO of Metro Food Rescue, said the back-and-forth eroded trust in SNAP benefits and, in turn, increases demand on the charitable food system. 

“I would expect that many people who have been able to get by relying on benefits are no longer going to trust that they’re going to be available and therefore they’re going to rely more on charitable food,” he said.

In response to the SNAP uncertainty, Mayor Mike Duggan approved $1.75 million in federal and state grants for nonprofits combating food insecurity, including Metro Food Rescue which received $250,000. Since then, food donations have gone up threefold. In its mission to reduce waste and tackle food insecurity, the organization picks up food from dozens of locations and drops it off at partnering food banks and soup kitchens.

Metro Food Rescue’s pantry partners have seen a huge spike in people asking for help, including those who’ve never needed charitable food assistance before, Techner said. The nonprofit is looking for foundations and corporations to match the mayor’s investment, and get 5 million servings of fresh fruits and vegetables every week into the charitable food system, he said.

“Most food pantries have never seen the demand go down since the pandemic,” he said. “And over the last year − even before this acute crisis − have been seeing the demand grow and grow and grow, while the other federal food supports that they’ve relied on for years have shrunk and shrunk.”

Food banks across Michigan earlier this year, for instance, dealt with canceled orders from the federal government, forcing them to scramble to fill in the gaps with their own funds, food purchases and donations. More recently, confusion around if and when low-income families would receive SNAP benefits during the federal government shutdown put additional pressure on nonprofits already dealing with high demand.

The Twelfth Street Food Pantry in Detroit has served more households over the past few months, helping 379 households during its last distribution with up to 85 pounds of food, including fresh produce, pasta, cereal, dairy, rice and bread. It was a “tremendous increase,” said Mary Williams, the financial treasurer for the pantry board, and a 26% increase from around 300 households during a given distribution day last year. 

“Our numbers always jump tremendously right at Thanksgiving and we have been stocking up to address what we know is going to be an increased need, which means that we have been pretty heavily taking funds from our account in order to do this,” said Williams. The pantry lost some federal funding, taking a bite out of its budget, and donations stalled from August to October. But giving did increase in November in part because the public is realizing the need, she said.

The heightened need is not just due to SNAP confusion, either. People have lost jobs, can’t absorb increased costs and incomes have dropped, she said.

“It’s more than the food stamps. … We have a number of people who have recently lost their homes, so they are now homeless people coming to us,” Williams said. “There are people who are telling us about their lights being shut off. These are things that have been going since we started, but it seems to be at an increase. Right now, things seem to be so much harder for people.”

Samika Douglas works two part-time nonprofit jobs, anywhere from 60 to 80 hours a week, and makes too much money to get some benefits, but not enough for others. As a result, her family relies on SNAP benefits − $23 a month − and food pantries to fill in gaps. More than half of her monthly income goes to rent alone, she said.

“Sometimes we have to avoid paying certain bills just to pay other bills so we’re not making those ends meet all the way,” Douglas, 43, of Grand Rapids, said about her three-person household, including herself and two adult children. When SNAP was at risk, she worried about how she’d budget.

She’s been receiving SNAP benefits on and off for about 5 years. She typically gets her benefits on the 19th of the month, but got them sooner than that in November. After days of back-and-forth during the record 43-day shutdown, all Michigan SNAP recipients received their full benefits for the month by Friday, Nov. 14. The timing was earlier than normal for some and December payments are slated to resume on the regularly scheduled date, according to Erin Stover, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).

“It’s a lot of uncertainties and you try to maneuver and figure it out for your family,” Douglas said.

Ways to help

• The Twelfth Street Food Pantry is looking for volunteers. For more information, go to www.twelfthstreetfoodpantry.org
• The Detroit Friendship House Giving’s Tuesday campaign is coming up. The nonprofit hopes to raise $10,000. For more information, go to www.detroitfriendshiphouse.org
• Metro Food Rescue is looking for volunteers and donations. Techner also recommended people help local pantries and soup kitchens as well. For more information, go to www.metrofoodrescue.com.

How to get help

• To find area food pantries and other resources, go to www.fbcmich.org/food-bank-network; www.pantrynet.org; www.forgottenharvest.org/find-food, or call the Michigan 211 line. Call locations ahead to confirm availability, hours and location.
• To view the city’s food pantry finder, go to www.detroitmi.gov and click “Food Locations” to view the interactive map, searchable by distance and council district. The map includes locations and days and hours of operation.
• MSU Extension, a SNAP outreach agency, has a community food assistance website, featuring ways to get help, recipes and ways to stretch a food budget. To learn more, go to www.canr.msu.edu/nutrition/community-food-assistance.
• The Fair Food Network’s Double Up Food Bucks program, which matches purchases of fruits and vegetables using food assistance benefits up to $20 a day, has lifted the cap and it is now unlimited through the end of the year. Shoppers can also get $40 in Double Up Bonus Bucks, an additional offering, for fresh and frozen produce. For more information, go to doubleupfoodbucks.org. Call the program’s hotline at 866-586-2796 or text 734-213-3999 (9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday). Find a participating location at DoubleUpFoodBucks.org/find-a-location.

Reach reporter Nushrat Rahman at nrahman@freepress.com.