With the country’s longest government shutdown finally over, Illinois officials say they expect full SNAP food assistance to begin flowing Friday and that the nearly 2 million people in the state that rely on the program to buy groceries will receive full benefits by Nov. 20.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds in Illinois and all states were delayed and then reduced amid the historic shutdown. Food pantries across the Chicago area were unable to match the need created by the $350 million lapse in monthly federal funding for people and families across the state, creating “unnecessary hardship,” according to state officials.
“This crisis was entirely avoidable — the Trump Administration had the funding to fully support SNAP but chose not to, putting tens of millions of Americans at risk of hunger,” the Illinois Department of Human Services said in a statement on Thursday.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The bill signed by President Donald Trump Wednesday night funds SNAP through next September. Across the state, there are 1.8 million people who get SNAP benefits each month, receiving about $370 on average, according to IDHS.
The communities with the most SNAP recipients in the six-county Chicago area include the West Side neighborhoods of Austin, North Lawndale, East Garfield Park and West Garfield Park, according to a WBEZ analysis of census data. About 67,600 people there receive SNAP benefits, with 45% living in a household that receives SNAP.
The median annual household income in these communities is about $46,000. A household of three can’t earn more than $43,973 a year to be eligible. Annual income for a single person must be at or below $25,823, according to the state.
On Thursday, people crowded into the Above and Beyond Free Food Pantry in West Garfield Park to pick out meat, vegetables and canned goods.
Clinton Weeks, 68, said he usually receives about $80 in SNAP benefits. So far in November, he has received only $12.
He’s used that to buy meat and some fresh vegetables — items harder to get at pantries — to accommodate his health condition. He said he recently suffered a seizure: “I can’t live off potato chips.”
Weeks said he has considered going to restaurants to see if they would spare a free meal. “It’s quite aggravating,” he said. “But you got no pride when it comes to food and health.”
Eva Jones, 82, said she has yet to receive any of her about $100 in SNAP benefits this month.
She has been able to manage through food pantries and her small supply of frozen food, even giving some to neighbors in need, she said.
“I can make a meal out of anything,” Jones said.
Ken Cozzi, the pantry’s executive director, said they’ve seen as much as triple their usual demand to several hundred people each day after the initial news that November’s SNAP benefits may not come.
Cozzi said demand has since leveled off after the state began distributing partial SNAP funds on Nov. 7 after two federal court orders. But many people are still worried about when their full benefits will arrive and about upcoming changes to SNAP. Expanded work requirements passed by Congress this summer start Dec. 1 and those who don’t qualify will lose benefits in March. In addition, parents of teens 14 and older are no longer exempt.
Nearby in Oak Park, more than 200 people from the West Side community of Austin have returned recently to the Beyond Hunger food pantry for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, said Jennie Hull, the group’s chief executive officer. The funding freeze and legal battle that ensued created a feeling of scarcity, she said.
“So many folks are on SNAP in Austin [have] that feeling of like, ‘Will I have enough? … Where am I going to find my next meal,’” Hull said. “You may be able to tally this up into days and weeks that this happened, but the impacts of this will be longer.”
The freeze in benefits also exposed how people are being vilified for using the program, Hull said, and that it could potentially happen again.
“Something that people have relied on for 60 years can just be taken away like that,” she said. “I think that’s going to have a lasting impact on people.”
Until the pantry hears that the November benefits have been fully distributed, Hull said the group will continue buying more food and encouraging people to go to more than one pantry to get what they need.
In addition to working with other groups, Beyond Hunger has been providing home deliveries to people who need immediate access to food. The program enables them to get food out to the community more quickly.
Meanwhile, Chicago residents — ranging from community groups to restaurants — have been stepping up to try to fill in the gap. Nearly 30 restaurants pledged free or discounted meals to SNAP recipients. Others donated to community Love Fridges and community pantries.
For Hull, one bright spot in the past few weeks is how community members have mobilized to ensure neighbors in Austin continue to have access to food.
“There’s a lot of need, but there’s also a lot of pride and a lot of love for the neighborhood,” Hull said. “I think that’s so impressive that people live in a place like that where there’s that much care.”
Contributing: Alden Loury