Quinn Marquis and Paula Kenitzer waited patiently Monday morning for their turn to collect provisions at the Capstone Community Action food shelf in Barre City.
Finances were tight for the couple well before the federal government halted benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the weekend. Marquis and Kenitzer, who live in their 1999 Buick LeSabre, say they’re not sure how SNAP beneficiaries like them are going to manage without their primary means of buying food.
“The rails of this train are getting hot. The train is moving pretty quick,” Marquis said. “And people are just kind of in a crash course right now.”
Food pantries across the state are reporting increased traffic and diminished supplies as low-income Vermonters turn to charitable organizations for the calories they can no longer access through SNAP.
"We’ve had to ration ... a little to make sure everybody that’s out there has at least something.”Dan Molind, Enough Ministries
In response to a court order, the Trump administration announced Monday that it will partially fund SNAP benefits in November, though it’s unclear when that money will be deposited on recipients’ Electronic Benefits Transfer cards. And elected officials in Vermont have kicked in $6 million to help offset federal funding losses for the roughly 63,000 residents who depend on the benefits.
But those remedies provide short-term solutions to a problem that will persist for however long the government shutdown continues. Liz Scharf, with Capstone Community Action, said the local food shelves seeing higher traffic this week weren’t designed to shoulder that responsibility.
“Food shelves have been preparing for this, so this isn’t necessarily coming out of the blue,” Scharf said. “I think that what people don’t realize is food shelves were never meant to be a main source of people’s food, they were meant to be supplemental.”
Dan Molind, the pastor at Enough Ministries in Barre City, said he brought on extra volunteers and purchased more food at his church’s pantry in anticipation of the SNAP funding lapse.
“It’s been quite busy,” Molind said Monday in a basement filled with bread, produce, canned goods and other supplies. “Today we have definitely seen a much larger uptick in the number of people who need assistance.”
Lawmakers and Republican Gov. Phil Scott allocated $250,000 last week to help local food pantries accommodate the spike in demand. But Molind said the $4,000 that Enough Ministries received ran out quickly.
“Normally we are able to be much more generous about how much meats and stuff we give people, but we’ve had to ration that a little to make sure everybody that’s out there has at least something,” Molind said.
Carrie Stahler, with the Vermont Foodbank, said the sudden spike in demand has compelled many organizations to resort to rationing.
“Sometimes that rationing looks like only allowing people to take so much per visit, only allowing people so many visits per week, or limiting geographically who can use their food shelves,” Stahler said.
The Vermont Department for Children and Families said it could take until Nov. 7 to disburse the $6 million in state funding to SNAP recipients, and that amount covers only two weeks of full SNAP funding. The contingency fund the Trump administration is using to partially fund SNAP benefits will dry up before the end of November.
Lawmakers and the governor are scheduled to reconvene in mid-November to reassess the situation.
Marquis and Kenitzer say uncertainty over the future of food benefits has made it difficult to plan.
“We used to have a goal and we used to focus on that goal,” Marquis said. “And now we just — it’s hard to say — go with the wind.”
