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Tag: capital area food bank

  • Washington’s struggling economy takes another economic hit from the government shutdown – WTOP News

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    The Capital Area Food Bank, which serves 400 pantries and aid organizations in D.C., Virginia and Maryland, is providing 8 million more meals than it had prepared to this budget year.

    An employee moves pallets of food at a warehouse of the Capital Area Food Bank, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)(AP/Mark Schiefelbein)

    WASHINGTON (AP) — With the combination of the longest government shutdown, the mass firings of government workers and a fresh cut in federal food aid, the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington is bracing for the swell of people who will need its help before the holiday season.

    The food bank, which serves 400 pantries and aid organizations in the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and two Maryland counties, is providing 8 million more meals than it had prepared to this budget year — a nearly 20% increase.

    The city is being hit “especially hard,” said Radha Muthiah, the group’s CEO and president, “because of the sequence of events that has occurred over the course of this year.”

    The nation’s capital has been battered by a series of decisions by the Trump administration, from the layoffs of federal workers to the ongoing law enforcement intervention into the district. The added blow of the shutdown, which has furloughed workers and paused money for food assistance, is only deepening the economic toll.

    The latest figures from the D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis do not account for workforce changes since the shutdown that began Oct. 1. But even the September jobs report shows that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate hovers at 6%, compared with the most recent national rate of 4.3%, and has been the highest in the nation for months.

    The economic woes appear to be reverberating politically. Democrat Abigail Spanberger won election Tuesday as Virginia’s governor after focusing her campaign message on the effects of President Donald Trump’s actions on the state’s economy.

    The shutdown’s long-term impact on the regional economy will be felt long after the government reopens, experts say.

    Local businesses feeling the crunch

    Washington has the country’s largest share of federal workers — about 20%, according to official figures — and roughly 150,000 federal employees call the area home. By Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country will have missed at least two full paychecks because of the shutdown. Nationally, at least 670,000 federal employees are furloughed, while about 730,000 are working without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

    During the shutdown, the number of federal employees on Washington’s transit system each weekday has dropped by about one-quarter compared with ridership in September. Eateries that the Restaurant Association of Greater Washington says were already dealing with thin margins from seasonal declines and the fallout from Trump’s deployment of armed National Guard members on city streets are facing more challenges at a time when owners had hoped for a rebound.

    Tracy Hadden Loh, a fellow at Brookings Metro, a think tank, said that going without paychecks is causing significant cash flow issues for federal workers, potentially leading to defaults on mortgages and student loans. For local businesses, especially those reliant on federal workers’ discretionary spending, it could exacerbate the impact during the high-sales October-December quarter.

    “A lot of businesses rely on higher spending in Q4 in order to have a revenue positive year,” Loh said.

    Small businesses are feeling the loss of that spending.

    The crowd watching Liverpool’s Premier League game last weekend would have been standing room only at The Queen Vic, a bar in Northeast Washington. But that was not the case, said Ryan Gordon, co-owner of the British pub.

    “We still had seats for people, which means the bars around us who get our overflow got nothing,” Gordon said.

    Business is down about 50% compared with what it was before the shutdown, he said. He considers himself lucky in the local restaurant scene because he owns the building and does not have to pay rent.

    “To the extent to which discretionary spending by D.C. area households is limited, that could push a lot of local businesses into the red,” Loh said. The culmination of the shutdown, cut in SNAP benefits and layoffs are weighing heavy on households that have never sought help before, she added.

    A family gets squeezed out of the region

    Thea Price was fired from her job at the U.S. Institute of Peace in March of this year, part of the wave of layoffs meant to shrink the size of the federal government. Her husband, a government contractor, also lost his job at a museum. Since then, they have lived on savings, Medicaid and SNAP.

    Price, 37, recently went to a food pantry in Arlington, Virginia, for the first time recently. The shutdown halted funding for SNAP, after it took her months to get it, and the $500 payments she receives each month were set to stop. Virginia sent a partial payment but it was not enough, Price said. With her options to sustain herself and her family running out, Price is moving back to her hometown in the Seattle area.

    “We can’t afford to stay in the area any longer and hope that something might pan out,” she said. “We’re just in a much different place than when these things started in March.”

    At the Capital Area Food Bank in Northeast Washington, forklifts sped around in a controlled chaos, unloading trucks, moving food and preparing for a distribution set up for federal employees and contractors, and preparations are intensifying with the holiday season in mind. The organization is expecting to provide 1 million more meals this month than it had anticipated before the shutdown.

    “We’re very focused obviously on the immediacy of all of these impacts today and getting food to those who need it,” said Muthiah, the group’s director. But she cautioned there were long-term implications to the unfolding crisis, with people tapping their savings and retirement funds to get by.

    “People are borrowing against their futures to be able to pay for basic necessities today,” she said.

    ___

    Associated Press video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.

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    © 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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    WTOP Staff

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  • Food banks step up as shutdown leaves federal workers struggling – WTOP News

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    As the government shutdown continues, some furloughed federal workers are reaching out for help with keeping food on the table. And an area food bank is answering the call.

    As the government shutdown continues, some furloughed federal workers are reaching out for help with keeping food on the table. And an area food bank is answering the call.

    In Gaithersburg, Maryland, at Seneca Creek Community Church, boxes of food went out to federal workers and contractors in need. Among them was one federal worker who came to get boxes of food with her husband and young child.

    “It’s hard that you don’t know when you’re going to get paid, how you’re going to pay your mortgage, your utilities, everything else. So it’s really hard. You cannot plan anything,” she said.

    Radha Muthiah, CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank, said the need was growing.

    “This felt very much like the beginning of the pandemic to us, where people were really scrambling to be able to get food resources, uncertain about what’s going to happen,” she said.

    Muthiah said the region has been “hit disproportionately” hard, and the shutdown was just one on top of many other challenges.

    “We’d had many layoffs. We’d had fork-in-the-road separations. And the shutdown just comes on top of all of that. So it feels, as a food bank, that we were responding to multiple crises all at the same time,” Muthiah said.

    Since launching the effort, the food bank has more than doubled the number of boxes it brings to each site. Last week, at the first event, 150 boxes were handed out — this week it was 400.

    In Gaithersburg, Sharon Camacho-Meakes and the Community Hope Center hosted the food bank at their pantry inside the church.

    “We’d recently seen a peak of clients that stopped coming in the past years, but are returning. So we were noticing that more people need support and food,” Camacho-Meakes said.

    The Capital Area Food Bank organized five distribution events where federal workers and contractors could pick up boxes of vegetables and nonperishable food.

    “We were seeing that the need was indeed significant for individuals who are trying to make ends meet without having that paycheck,” Muthiah said.

    Muthiah said the plan is to continue having the events for federal workers and contractors until the shutdown is over.

    To learn more about how and when the food bank is providing workers with good, click here.

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Mike Murillo

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  • Shutdown double whammy: SNAP food benefits ending and Md. federal workers go unpaid – WTOP News

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    Hundreds of furloughed federal workers in Hyattsville, Maryland, lined up for emergency food assistance amid a government shutdown that threatens SNAP benefits for millions. The Capital Area Food Bank and No Limits Outreach Ministries responded with expanded distributions, highlighting growing food insecurity and economic strain across the region.

    This article was reprinted with permission from Virginia Mercury. 

    HYATTSVILLE, Maryland — Ginette Young lined up with hundreds of furloughed federal workers ahead of a special food bank distribution on Tuesday in a suburb just outside the District of Columbia.

    “I’m here because I’ve had no paycheck for the last two weeks, and a short paycheck for the two weeks prior. I’ve had to cover bills, and my credit cards have been paying my medical and doctor’s appointments. So I just need to restock the pantry a little bit, just to help get us over the hump,” said Young, a 61-year-old auditor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    Young, a District resident, was among hundreds of furloughed federal workers hoping to get pantry staples and fresh produce at the event sponsored by the Capital Area Food Bank and No Limits Outreach Ministries in Hyattsville.

    Food security took center stage in the shutdown debate this week as hundreds of thousands of furloughed government workers faced another missed paycheck and 42 million recipients of federal food assistance were told they will stop receiving benefits Saturday.

    The Trump administration has said it will not tap emergency funds at the USDA to extend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, despite loud cries from advocates and Democrats who say it’s perfectly legal for officials to use the rainy day money.

    “The longer the shutdown continues, distributions like this will end up being truly a lifeline for so many,” said Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank.

    “And I worry that we’re just going to see double, triple the numbers of people, both federal government furloughed workers, as well as those who are expecting SNAP benefits and being surprised Saturday morning when they don’t have it,” Muthiah said.

    Food bank staff anticipated about 150 households would show up at its first distribution event for federal workers earlier in October. The organization had to quickly double its figures, Muthiah said.

    At Tuesday’s event, the food bank and No Limits Outreach Ministries brought enough to serve 400 households. Add a complete stop to food assistance to low-income families, and the region’s hunger needs will skyrocket, Muthiah said.

    “In our entire region, there are about 400,000 SNAP recipients, and on average, they receive about $330 in SNAP benefits for a family of two people a month. And so if that were to be disrupted at the cost of a meal in our region, that’s about 80 meals vanishing from the tables of SNAP recipients across our region,” Muthiah said.

    “So we are ramping up, purchasing more food to be able to distribute through our partners into the community.”

    Kale, collard greens handed out

    Tracy Bryce, 59, of District Heights, Maryland, unloaded kale and collard greens from the back of a U-Haul truck as hundreds of federal workers, with employment IDs in hand, waited for the noon distribution to open.

    Bryce, a retired U.S. Marshal of 34 years, now volunteers with No Limits Outreach Ministries.

    “I’ve been where they are,” Bryce said.

    Byron Ford, 34, of Hyattsville, sat for hours in a chair he brought that morning, as temperatures hovered in the high 40s.

    “I’m just here today trying to get some food, just trying to provide healthy food for the family,” said Ford, who has two children ages 4 and 7.

    “We’re fortunate that we have things like this to provide for people who aren’t receiving a paycheck. So we’re fortunate, we’re still blessed.”

    A civilian employee who works in finance for the Department of the Navy, Ford is also worried about family members who receive SNAP benefits.

    “We’re just spending our savings and trying to help,” he said.

    Young said she remembers what it was like to need SNAP several decades ago.

    “I was, you know, trying to work and go to college at the same time, and I had my kid, so yeah, I had SNAP for a little while. It’s meant to help people until they get on their feet,” she said.

    A furloughed government project manager who did not want to provide her full name for fear of losing her job, said “being a political pawn is hard.”

    “They (lawmakers) get the chance to go home in the middle of all this and not finish with the appropriations, not continue to walk through conversations, because they are choosing to dishonor the position that the people put them in and still get paid while their people suffer,” she said.

    Grocers, retailers worry over SNAP cutoff

    Retailers and grocers, already bracing for losses when Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” SNAP cuts take effect, are also urging lawmakers to reopen the government.

    “We urge Congress to move forward now on a path that reopens the government and ensures families relying on SNAP can access their November benefits without interruption or delay,” Jennifer Hatcher, The Food Industry Association’s chief public policy officer, said in a statement Oct. 21.

    The already planned SNAP cuts are slated to cost food retailers hundreds of millions of dollars, industry groups warned.

    Food retailers estimate up-front costs of forthcoming new SNAP requirements signed into law by President Donald Trump in July will cost convenience stores roughly $1 billion, supermarkets just over $305 million, supercenters such as Walmart an estimated $215.5 million and small-format stores about $11.8 million, according to an impact analysis last month by The Food Industry Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores and the National Grocers Association.

    Ed Bolen, director of SNAP State Strategies at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said retailers could face “very drastic” losses if SNAP is also completely stopped Nov. 1.

    “Just imagine a 100% cut for a month or so,” said Bolen, of the left-leaning think tank.

    The United Food and Commercial Workers union sent a letter to USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins Monday requesting the agency spend contingency funding to extend SNAP benefits beyond next week.

    “Rising costs at the grocery store already threaten household budgets, especially for low-income families. An interruption in food assistance will only make matters worse, and workers in meatpacking, food processing, and grocery could see a reduction in hours and wages if SNAP dollars aren’t available to be spent in their stores or on their products,” wrote Milton Jones, president of the union that, according to the organization, represents roughly 1.2 million workers.

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    Ciara Wells

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  • Free food assistance for furloughed federal workers during shutdown – WTOP News

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    A D.C.-area food bank is stepping in to help furloughed federal workers who are having trouble making ends meet now that they’re missing paychecks.

    A D.C.-area food bank is stepping in to help furloughed federal workers who are having trouble making ends meet now that they’re missing paychecks.

    Starting next week, people can simply show their government I.D. and stock up on free food at Capital Area Food Bank, the organization’s CEO Radha Muthiah said.

    “A box of nutritious shelf stable items, like canned tuna, chicken, pasta, peanut butter, cereals — those kind of things, as well as a box of fresh produce,” Muthiah said.

    There are a total of five pickup locations around the D.C. region that will open starting Tuesday, Oct. 21, and continue operations on a weekly basis throughout the duration of the government shutdown.

    Here’s where to find the pickup locations:

    Tuesday
    Noon — 2 p.m.
    No Limits Outreach Ministries
    7721 Barlowe Rd, Hyattsville, Maryland 20785

    Wednesday
    10 a.m. — 11:30 a.m.
    So What Else
    6116 Executive Blvd, North Bethesda, Maryland 20852

    Friday
    11 a.m. — 1 p.m.
    United Community
    7511 Fordson Rd, Alexandria, Virginia 22306

    11 a.m. — 1:30 p.m.
    Urban Outreach
    5343 C St SE, D.C. 20019

    Saturday
    1 — 2:30 p.m.
    LindaBen Foundation
    10739 Tucker St, Beltsville, Maryland 20705

    In the first week, Muthiah said the organization will be able to help about 150 families at each of the sites. She said the food bank may be able to ramp up efforts further if the need is greater.

    “We get a sense of how long the lines are there, and we also will know about people calling in to ask us about those sites,” she said.

    Capital Area Food Bank’s Hunger Report 2025 found that 36% of residents in the D.C. area struggled to put food on the table at some point in the last year. Among households affected by reductions to federal jobs and spending, the figure jumped even higher to 41%.

    While all of the food intended for distribution will be bought by the food bank, Muthiah said that any help is greatly appreciated.

    “Every dollar that’s contributed by someone that can make that contribution is equivalent to two meals that we can provide,” she said.

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Kyle Cooper

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  • DC-area food bank bracing for prolonged shutdown – WTOP News

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    Federal job cuts are already putting an increased demand on the Capital Area Food Bank. A government shutdown figures to ratchet that up even more.

    It’s been years since a government shutdown happened, but recent DOGE cuts have already impacted the Capital Area Food Bank. A prolonged shutdown is only going to increase the pressure there.

    It was just last week that the food bank released its 2025 Hunger Report, showing that over 40% of laid-off federal workers and contractors in the region were dealing with food insecurity. It was facing the possibility of being asked to assist with providing millions of more meals every year.

    Now, demand could spike even sooner than that.

    “When there is a government shutdown, there are many federal government workers at income levels that don’t give them that much of a financial cushion if they’re supporting families,” Capital Area Food Bank CEO Radha Muthiah said. “So we know that a sudden loss of income could also mean a sudden inability to put food on the table.”

    The last time the government shut down in 2018, local feds went more than a month without pay. Calls for help started coming in after the first paycheck was missed and demand for food assistance increased as week two turned into an eventual five-week lapse.

    “We had different pop-ups across the region … focused in areas where we knew there was a higher density of federal government workers, and we were out there twice a week at five or six different locations across the region, providing food to those who needed it,” Muthiah said.

    “The first week, I remember when we had the special pop-up distributions, we may have had 100 or so people in line,” she added. “But by the second or third distribution, these were hundreds of individuals.”

    Now, Muthiah said, with many speculating that this current shutdown will be prolonged, they’re bracing for a repeat of that. The goal is to start preparing now so that if paychecks are missed, they’ll be able to start holding similar pop-up giveaways again.

    “Our philosophy is that to be ready, we have to stay ready, which is why we’re continuously monitoring events that could impact our region so that we can respond quickly,” she said. “Our partners already know who they are, and we have plans to get the additional food to them in about two weeks, and then for as long as it takes until the government reopens.”

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    John Domen

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  • Federal job cuts, inflation increasing hunger around DC region – WTOP News

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    A growing number of people are experiencing food insecurity in the D.C. area, according to the Capital Area Food Bank’s annual Hunger Report released Thursday.

    The D.C. region has seen a big increase in job losses thanks to federal cuts, but even those who have a job haven’t seen their wages keep up with inflation.

    And now there are fears that further cuts to the social safety net will only increase what’s already a growing number of people going hungry in the D.C. region.

    The Capital Area Food Bank put out its annual Hunger Report on Thursday and the stats paint a disconcerting picture, with reasons to think what’s already a bad situation could get worse. And it comes with a warning, if not a plea, for already strapped local governments to be ready to offer help in the future.

    “After a large jump in 2024, food insecurity remains at troublingly elevated levels,” said Sabrina Tadele, director of strategic initiatives with Capital Area Food Bank. “Specifically, 36% of households in the DMV are now experiencing food insecurity.”

    The numbers span from one in five households in Arlington, Virginia, to as many as about half of all households in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

    The numbers are essentially the same as last year when factoring the margin of error, but 4% higher compared to 2023.

    In addition, when the survey was done in May, it found 41% of those who lost their jobs during the federal purging of jobs and contracting positions were dealing with some level of food insecurity. Those behind the survey said they believe that number has changed in the past four months.

    The findings come at a time when wage growth has lagged inflation to a significant degree around the region.

    “Forty percent of adults, that’s up from 35% last year, said they were in a worse financial position than they were the year prior,” said Hilary Salmon, the food bank’s marketing director. “That means that household purchasing power has taken a major hit, especially for low income families. The dollars simply aren’t stretching as far.”

    The food bank’s CEO, Radha Muthiah, said hunger continues to be a persistent problem around the D.C. area.

    “We’re likely to have to increase the amount of food that we distribute by a good five to 10 million meals a year,” she said.

    CLICK TO ENLARGE: A chart showing food secure adults in the D.C. region. (WTOP/John Domen)

    Meeting that number will be difficult.

    “Given that we have a retraction in the level of federally provided benefits through SNAP and Medicaid and through sources of food that we may receive … we’re going to have to increase our purchasing of food to be able to meet the needs of our community,” she said.

    Muthiah said the food bank will lean on local governments to keep people on government assistance and help the food bank distribute those meals.

    The survey found that minorities, women, people responsible for children, and people who work multiple jobs are more likely to be considered food insecure, which is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life.

    Food insecurity has already led many to dip into their savings to make ends meet, make only minimum payments on credit cards, and put off saving for the future, either with retirement or college savings accounts. In fact, credit card delinquencies are up 25 to 50% around the region, varying by county.

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    John Domen

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