JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Vanessa Lockett, a 73-year-old disabled retiree living on a fixed income in Jacksonville, is worried about losing her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. <\/p>\n
She relies on the program to buy food, but the current federal government shutdown threatens to halt SNAP funding starting Nov. 1.<\/p>\n
MORE: \u2018Such a need\u2019: Lutheran Social Services asks community to help restock food pantry as need spikes during shutdown<\/a> | Nearly 3 million Floridians receive SNAP benefits. An expert explains how a pause in federal food aid could impact them<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt is difficult. Yes. Am I worried? Yes,\u201d Lockett said.<\/p>\n SNAP is federally funded and provides millions of Americans with monthly assistance to purchase groceries. But with the government shutdown ongoing, the program is expected to run out of money this Saturday, putting millions of people at risk of losing access to benefits.<\/p>\n Lockett receives about $82 per month in SNAP benefits, which breaks down to roughly $2 a day for food. As a diabetic, she needs to buy higher-quality protein rather than just carbohydrates, making her limited budget even more challenging.<\/p>\n \u201cI now buy things like black-eyed peas because it\u2019s a dry good and you can mix meats in it to go longer,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n Lockett lives in the Cathedral Terrace apartment building, home to many low-income seniors and people with disabilities. She says most of her neighbors also rely on food stamps to meet their nutritional needs.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the people in here have some kind of condition, so we often speak of our conditions and how the food is necessary for us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n State Democratic lawmakers in Florida have urged Governor Ron DeSantis to declare a state of emergency to protect nearly 3 million Floridians who could lose their SNAP benefits by the Nov. 1 deadline.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Lockett blames both political parties for the shutdown and the resulting crisis, saying she feels like she\u2019s been caught in the middle of a war between the two sides. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019m not sure how many people can survive the war. The war is called, \u2018No Food,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Across the country, some states are stepping in with state-funded programs or additional support for food banks to help those affected by the SNAP funding gap.<\/p>\n As the Nov. 1 deadline approaches, vulnerable seniors like Lockett face an uncertain future, hoping for a resolution that will allow them to keep access to the food they need<\/p>\n Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Vanessa Lockett, a 73-year-old disabled retiree living on a fixed income in Jacksonville, is worried…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,2582,414,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-26296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-government-shutdown","12":"tag-snap","13":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}