By Brad Brooks, Leah Douglas and Andrew Hay
LONGMONT, Colorado (Reuters) -For Anthony DeSousa, the owner of two pizza shops in Estes Park and Longmont, Colorado, feeding the hungry is personal. He grew up in poverty in New York and his dad was in jail for most of his life, leaving his mother to raise him and his two brothers.
“I know what it’s like to be a kid and starving, to check every cabinet in the house 15 times looking for food and never finding any,” DeSousa said.
Since the beginning of November, he has served about 300 free pizzas, hundreds of chicken and pasta dinners and distributed over 600 pounds of beans and rice to those who show their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits card or a federal worker ID during the record-long federal government shutdown.
DeSousa is part of an uptick in charitable donations and activities from businesses and individuals this month as a historic lapse in SNAP, also known as food stamps, has strained low-income households.
Some states have issued monthly benefits in full, some in part and some not at all while a dizzying legal battle plays out over whether the administration of President Donald Trump must fully fund November SNAP benefits.
The U.S. Senate on Monday voted to advance a funding bill that would end the shutdown and fully fund SNAP benefits, with the House expected to take it up later this week.
Meanwhile, the country’s nearly 42 million SNAP recipients have faced confusion and anxiety and made sacrifices like forgoing medication to make ends meet.
Stacy Smith, an eligibility technician with the Rhode Island Department of Human Services and president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2882, said her office has had lines around the block as SNAP recipients seek information about benefits.
“It’s been very stressful and disheartening and scary for families,” Smith said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not respond to a request for comment. The agency has repeatedly blamed Democrats for the shutdown and resulting disruptions to SNAP. Democratic-led states have fought the administration in court to try to get it to issue full benefits.
UPTICK IN CHARITY
Many food banks have seen an uptick in donations as communities rally to support pantries already strained by a multi-year rise in hunger rates and food price inflation.
Cyndi Kirkhart, executive director at Facing Hunger Food Bank in West Virginia, said donations have increased at least 50% this month.
Between those donations and emergency state funds for food banks, the organization has been able to meet the doubled or tripled demand at their pantries, Kirkhart said.
More than a dozen restaurants and coffee shops in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are offering free meals to children during the shutdown, among them The Burrow Cafe co-owned by Billy Nguyen, who has served 15 to 20 free kids’ meals per day to families impacted by the SNAP lapse.
Nguyen came to the United States as a refugee from central Vietnam and as a child knew what it was like to rely on food stamps. His wife Amanda Nguyen, 35, also relied on SNAP when she was a single mother.
“She knows what it’s like to go hungry,” he said. “Feeding kids is not political.”
CONFUSION ABOUT BENEFITS
Some states like Massachusetts issued full benefits to SNAP recipients last Friday after the USDA told states it was working toward complying with a court order that the administration fully fund November benefits.
Others like North Carolina started issuing benefits on Friday but stopped when a Supreme Court order later that day allowed a lower court more time to consider the administration’s appeal aimed at issuing less food aid.
The administration has said it would only partially fund SNAP benefits during the shutdown because it said the funds required to make up the difference were earmarked for other nutrition programs.
Florida is working to calculate reduced benefits in keeping with an earlier court ruling that required the administration to partially fund SNAP using a $5 billion agency emergency fund.
SNAP benefits cost about $8 billion to 9 billion each month.
Adding to the confusion, the USDA told states late on Saturday to “undo” any actions they had taken to fully fund benefits or risk financial penalties.
A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the USDA from carrying out that directive.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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