PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Local food pantries are still navigating the surge in demand while SNAP benefits are paused amid the ongoing government shutdown.
The staff at Neighborhood House in Southwest Portland said the number of people they are seeing at their food pantry is on par with COVID times. And they said the need for food help in Southwest is massive. Right now they let people stop in for their shopping style pantry along with food box deliveries. But come December, food security manager Jim Cooper said they are temporarily switching to just food boxes.
“It’s a concern about running out of food, and the consequences of that,” Cooper said. “So we want to make sure that we have some control over the situation. And I think it could easily get out of control, if we just have our front door open and let everybody line up.”
The fight in Washington, D.C. is shifting to how the government should fund SNAP, and how to bridge the gap left with contingency funds which are only covering about half of peoples’ normal benefits. Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley is calling on President Trump to fully fund SNAP with tariff revenue. Merkley said fully reopening the government would pay for SNAP, as the shutdown stretches into its second month. But he said Democrats have repeatedly voted to reopen the government and address inflation.
“The obstacle comes back to the president being missing in action, traveling overseas, telling people he doesn’t want to negotiate, just as kind of an exercise in, I don’t know, testosterone or something, and rather than addressing the need of the people,” he said.
While the debate continues, Cooper said Neighborhood House is not counting on anybody for help, outside of their community.
“We’re leaning heavily into the community and the community’s responding, giving us thousands of pounds of donations, over 5,000 pounds just on Monday,” he said. “Donations, and they are giving us a lot of money at the moment to help. Let’s buy food and pay for our services. And that’s extremely helpful because that’s what’s missing from the federal government right now.”
As helpful as money is, Cooper said they will take all the food people can offer.
“Canned proteins are very important,” he said. “When we can’t have that, dry beans, canned beans, same kind of thing. We’ve been low on all that stuff, really, ever since Covid, and we’ve never been fully stocked on those things. Pasta is a good one. Rice is a good one. And also, things like cereal, soups.”
Joey Vacca
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