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“This could push our hunger relief network to a breaking point,” Jason Kanawati Stephany, the Vice President of the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina said on Monday.
It comes after a notice was posted on the United States Department of Agriculture website telling Americans that because of the government shutdown, SNAP benefits won’t roll out as normal on Nov. 1.
“We are expecting if the support is withheld starting November 1st, that we’re going to see a significant increase in the number of people seeking emergency food assistance through our network, and that’s on top of the challenges we were already facing,” Kanawati Stephany said.
In North Carolina, around 1.4 million families rely on that assistance.
“Four out of five of those families qualify because of children, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities in the household,” Kanawati Stephany said.
On Monday, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services said they were instructed by the federal government to delay the November benefits because of the shutdown.
DHHS said the USDA also alerted states they would not be using around $6 billion in emergency reserve funds to keep the program going and states would not be reimbursed funds for November.
With no state budget passed either, some North Carolina lawmakers say they need to act now.
“We also should be looking into our emergency funds to support families and keep SNAP going for them in this interim, what we hope is an interim period,” Representative Sarah Crawford said. “Nobody should have to decide between paying for their prescription drugs or putting food on the table.”
Governor Josh Stein released a statement urging the federal government to keep this assistance rolling out. He said they can use emergency funding to make sure families don’t go hungry.
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