FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) — As the government shutdown drags on, now the longest in U.S. history, Californians are feeling the pinch.
“We don’t know if our food stamps are going to come through,” Nicole told Action News on Friday.
RELATED: Californians begin to see SNAP benefits return
She was one of 75 who lined up in Clovis for a food box giveaway. The event was supposed to last two hours, but all 75 boxes were gone within 25 minutes.
As the caretaker of an autistic woman whose $192 monthly SNAP benefit has not come through, Nicole has had to step in to make ends meet.
“We’re having to spend our own cash for her, and she needs the food,” Nicole said. “You know, she eats three times a day, so it’s a necessity.”
The food boxes provided by the Fresno American Indian Health Project come amid an unsettling back-and-forth.
SNAP benefits originally ran out on November 1st. Two judges then ordered the Trump administration to fund SNAP, and the president agreed to do so at 65 percent.
On Thursday, a court ordered President Trump to provide full funding to California recipients. That money hit some EBT cards late Thursday night
But on Friday morning, the Trump administration appealed, asking a court to halt the previous rulings. A panel of three judges denied it.
RELATED: Appeals court says it won’t block order to fund SNAP as states begin issuing benefits
“This really is a very unusual and rapidly evolving situation,” Fresno County’s Department of Social Services Director Sanja Bugay told Action News.
Her department administers CalFresh, the state’s name for the federal SNAP program, for nearly 250,000 people in Fresno County.
“Everybody who was supposed to get their benefits from the 1st through the 7th should be getting them today,” Bugay said.
The EBT cards connect recipients to food at grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and some restaurants. They can also buy seeds and plants to grow at home.
“They’re all families in poverty,” Bugay said of the recipients. “Some of those families work, and this is truly a supplemental nutrition. And for some of these families and individuals, this is the entirety of their food.”
Amid the Washington gridlock, Nicole feels stuck in the middle.
“This should be a priority,” she said. “We should have our food for everybody regardless of what’s going on in the government.”
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