Juneau residents left in limbo as SNAP battle continues at national level
Thousands of Juneau residents will be in limbo as of Saturday, when SNAP benefits officially become a victim of the political battle between Congress, the Trump administration and the federal courts.
As the government shutdown continues, the Trump administration announced earlier this month that it would not use contingency funds to allow Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments to continue. On Friday, federal judges ruled that the administration must continue the payments either partially or in full.
But benefits are unlikely to be distributed on Saturday as scheduled, and it remains unclear when and how much of the expected funds will go out to American families. That leaves as many as 2,000 SNAP recipients in Juneau without the means to buy food.
Former Juneau Assembly Member Michelle Hale wrote an op-ed for the Juneau Independent about the SNAP cutoff last week. She told KTOO that even a week’s delay makes a difference for families.
“People are going to start going hungry tomorrow,” she said Friday.
Hale said the federal back-and-forth takes an emotional toll on the people she knows who use food stamps.
“What for me is really unforgivable is my elderly friends or this woman that I met yesterday, how frightening this is for them and how unnecessary it is to put them through this fear,” she said. “It’s really, really scary.”
Dan Parks leads the Southeast Alaska Food Bank. He said that even before SNAP was threatened, the demand for food support grew a lot this year. It nearly doubled.
He said the food bank is as prepared as it can be to help meet the gap in food services, but it’s not possible to fully meet it. Feeding America, the national food bank network, says that for every meal food banks provide, SNAP provides nine.
“We can’t increase that much, that fast,” Parks said. “Nobody can. No food bank is going to be prepared to meet that kind of gap.”
Normally, the demand is greater at the end of the month, when people run out of SNAP benefits, and then it eases up again in the next month. But Parks said he’s expecting the need will only keep increasing until people receive their payments.
But there are ways community members can help in the meantime.
“In order to prepare, we are watching. We are responding,” Parks said. “We aren’t panicking, but we are trying to make it known to everybody that wants to help, that there’s lots of things that you can do. You can donate time, you can donate food, you can donate money.”
Parks said people who want to help should reach out to local groups to see what is being done and how they can help. He also said they can contact the food bank’s member organizations, like St. Vincent de Paul and several local churches, that distribute food throughout the week and often need more volunteers.
Parks said until benefits are restored, Juneau’s food support network will keep doing whatever it can to put food on tables.