Deborah Burch’s severe lung disease keeps her at home these days, amid air tanks and medical supplies, stuck on the sofa of the little apartment she shares with her husband.
Burch, 71, has end-stage COPD that curtails her breathing and has frequently landed her in the hospital.
So on Tuesdays, when her favorite Meals on Wheels driver, Jesse Araiza, turns up with five days worth of fresh and frozen meals, it falls to her husband to open the door.
Without those deliveries, says Burch, a former Social Security worker, “I don’t know what I would do. I’m thankful that I got a husband that can go, at least go out and grocery shop. … We just count our blessings each day.”
Burch is among more than 12,000 Chicagoans who rely on home-delivered food, ferried weekly to her apartment, as part of a safety net program for low-income, home-bound adults over 60 and adults of any age with disabilities. Best known for dropping off meals, its delivery drivers like Araiza also furnish a check on potentially unsafe living conditions and on loneliness.
Demand for Meals on Wheels is expected to surge as other publicly funded services for low-income people shrink in the days ahead. President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill signed into law on July 4 codifies massive cuts to Medicaid health insurance and the grocery subsidy known as SNAP, two major lifelines for vulnerable low-income seniors.
Locally, program officials are bracing for the ripple effects of these cuts. This comes as funding for Meals on Wheels — part of the Older Americans Act — is expected to be flat despite rising grocery prices and an aging population, according to the latest proposal for the federal budget year that begins Oct. 1.
“We’re going to have a harder time meeting demand,” says Cory Morris, director of community impact at Meals on Wheels Chicago, a nonprofit involved with the city of Chicago’s meal delivery program that also runs a food pantry for seniors.
Monday marks the 60th anniversary of the passage of the Older Americans Act, a piece of the War on Poverty aimed at helping senior citizens age with dignity by organizing senior centers to keep their minds active, providing transportation to doctor’s appointments and delivering food right into homes.
No waiting list, for now
The city of Chicago, which administers the Meals on Wheels program with state and federal dollars, says it can meet the demand for home delivered meals now, but that could change. Current clients could see less frequent deliveries as the need grows, says Morris, a former chef.
“That, in turn, will affect the socialization of our clients because 84% of our clients say the only person they see all week is the driver,” Morris says. “We’re not just really delivering nourishment, but we’re delivering social connection, a chance for somebody to have a wellness check and just see someone else and have a good interaction. So that’s gonna not just affect the physical health, but the mental health as well of our clients.”
Already, Chicago’s program has been growing by about 300,000 meals a year during the last three years, now totaling about 4.3 million meals annually, says Chicago Department of Family and Support Services spokeswoman Linsey Maughan. So flat federal funding means that Chicago will “experience challenges trying to keep pace with the growing need and expanding demand, and will need to consider programming changes,” she says.
The city, which spends about $18.7 million a year on the program, contracts with Open Kitchens, which prepares ready-to-eat and frozen dishes, and dispatches professional delivery drivers like Araiza. These drivers also keep tabs on the seniors and the very small number of people with disabilities they serve and report dangerous situations to the city, Maughan says: natural gas smells, extreme hoarding situations, extreme temperatures, and sudden changes in clients’ grooming and cleanliness.
Hired about a decade ago, Araiza took over his father’s route through the South Side’s Little Village and Pilsen, then Bridgeport and Armour Square, to apartments along the Lake Shore, and then as far north as the old Cabrini Green housing projects near Division and Halsted streets.
Araiza says he delivers more than 100 meals a day from a truck with separate hot, refrigerated and frozen compartments. Several seniors leave their doors open for him, anticipating his arrival. When he falls behind schedule, some call him to make sure he’s still coming.
In the suburbs, residents rely on Meals on Wheels for Northern Illinois, whose volunteer drivers delivered more than a million meals to 5,700 people in 2024 in suburban Cook County, Will, Kendall and Grundy counties. They also operate 26 senior community cafes with hot lunch and social activities.
“We’re talking about food, shelter, utilities, and health care for our nation’s veterans and grandparents,” says Andrea Proulx Buinicki, the group’s CEO, who also expects greater demand for deliveries following the federal cutbacks. “Senior incomes are fixed. If you take away their housing or heating assistance, you’re not solving a problem. You’re just shifting the cost to other programs like Meals on Wheels for Northern Illinois.”
The Medicaid, SNAP changes coming
The federal changes that just passed Congress are expected to hurt some seniors — and households containing elderly people — because the new law, championed by the president to pay for extensive tax cuts, raises the age limits on work requirements for SNAP benefits from 54 to 64 and adds a work requirement to get Medicaid benefits for people up to age 64.
To receive either benefit, adults without disabilities or older children in their homes will have to prove they work or a related activity at least 80 hours a month or that they qualify for an exemption. The bill also removed exemptions for SNAP for veterans, people who are homeless and former foster youth. Experts expect many people to lose their benefits not because they aren’t meeting requirements but because of new onerous paperwork requirements.
The Medicaid cuts aren’t immediate. States have until 2027, or potentially until 2029, to develop a system for the work requirements. The SNAP changes could come sooner. A Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program not limited to seniors but popular among them also is getting cut.
The new federal law also shifts new SNAP costs to the states and increases Medicaid premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. States like Illinois won’t be able to fill in all those gaps, particularly Medicaid, though Gov. JB Pritzker has said Illinois will do what it can to mitigate the impact.
At 76, Thomas Chambers has had meals delivered to his apartment for the last five years or so. A retired UPS warehouse worker who sees many doctors, Chambers also gets SNAP and Medicaid. A homemaker comes to help him two mornings a week with laundry, little errands, some cleaning.
Despite the help, his math on his basic fixed income already is tight: the rent on his apartment, what he has to contribute toward his health insurance, the cost of transportation until he gets a free senior transit pass.
“A lot of senior citizens like me will be going to food banks and soup kitchens to make the difference up,” says Chambers, something he has never done before. “Because even the rent goes up every year, too. With inflation, it’s just hard for people like me on a fixed income to keep up with that rate. So we depend more on Meals on Wheels, food banks and whatever government assistance we can get, but now they’re cutting out lots of entitlements.
“It’s gonna be hard to survive.”
Contributing: Elvia Malagón