Already doing more with less, Salem food pantries brace for food benefit delays
With families unlikely to get timely federal support to buy groceries, Salem’s food pantries are preparing to feed more people. Despite their best efforts, leaders say some families will go hungry.
The ongoing federal government shutdown means millions of dollars in food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program won’t be distributed Nov. 1 as planned, unless Congress reaches a deal to fund the federal government.
The impending pause of food benefits has prompted Salem nonprofits, social service agencies and citizens to share resource lists directly with clients and across social media. But nearly everything points back to the same place: local food pantries supplied by the Marion Polk Food Share.
“We are seeing people who are desperate, who are trying to understand how to feed their children, how to take care of their families. We do want people to come to food pantries. We do have food. It will not be enough food,” said Rick Gaupo, the food share’s president and CEO.
Get help with food
A list of local food pantries and their hours is available here. The food share also publishes a list of hot meal providers.
Families who receive SNAP won’t get new benefits Nov. 1, but existing benefits on SNAP cards can still be used in November.
Meals on Wheels will continue operating normally in Marion and Polk counties.
The food bank supplies 49 pantries across Marion and Polk counties, including 20 in Salem.
Most distribute food to families on a weekly to monthly basis. Pantries don’t require identification or proof of income, though people are asked to verify they make less than the income caps set by the federal government: $63,450 for a couple or $96,450 for a family of four.
Like many Salem households, the food share is doing more with less this year.
The agency is already contending with near-record demand, with about 17,000 household pantry visits each month. That’s after seeing federal food shipments cut in half earlier this year.
Rising food prices are also eating into the nonprofit’s ability to buy food.
Gaupo said no amount of food banking will fix the need created by SNAP benefits not going out. For every meal the food share provides, SNAP provides nine.
“Food banks step in where SNAP falls short. This is the first time across the United States, across Oregon, across Marion and Polk counties, that food banks are trying to support food security without SNAP being the underpinning support system,” Gaupo said. “So of course families are panicking.”
SNAP helps feed about 38,000 Marion County families and 8,600 Polk County families, paying an average family about $330 per month, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. That amount is intended to supplement household spending on groceries, not cover all of a family’s food.
Benefits are distributed via the Oregon Trail Card, a debit card that families can use to shop at grocery stores. The economic impact is significant. Marion County families receive nearly $13 million per month from the program, and Polk County families about $2.8 million.
Statewide, 41% of Oregon families receiving SNAP have at least one working adult, and 37% have at least one elderly or disabled adult, DHS spokeswoman Sara Campos said. She said there’s some overlap between the two groups. The agency didn’t have county-level data readily available.
Democrats and left-leaning policy groups have argued the U.S. Department of Agriculture could use contingency money to temporarily fund SNAP, while Trump administration officials say that money is only available for true emergencies.
During the 2019 government shutdown under the first Trump administration, the president directed USDA to pay food benefits even while the government was shut down.
“SNAP has never not been rolled out during shutdowns,” Gaupo said. “The fact that SNAP is now being a political tool is a political choice.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield joined a lawsuit Tuesday from Democratic attorneys general seeking to force the federal government to pay SNAP benefits.
Gaupo also urged people to contact federal elected officials in support of paying out food benefits.
“It’s the first time the government has said, ‘We’re okay with more children being hungry. We’re okay with seniors being hungry and families being hungry,’ and that’s a choice,” Gaupo said. “This is intolerable, unconscionable.”
He said donations of food or money to the food share will help, though there’s no amount of extra that will fill the gap.
“We already collect the most amount of food that we know how to collect. We already buy the most amount of food we know how to buy. More support will make that easier, of course,” he said.
One ironic effect of the shutdown, he said, is that the food bank may temporarily receive more donated food from local grocery stores that are unable to sell as much as they anticipated in November because people can’t afford to buy it.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected].
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers education, economic development and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for over a decade and is a past president of Oregon's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Outside of work, you can often find her gardening or with her nose buried in a book.
