Maritza Bruno, a Bethlehem resident and mother of three, gets by on her Social Security disability income and SNAP food stamp benefits to feed and care for her family.<\/p>\n
A former truck driver, Bruno said a car accident five years ago rendered her disabled and unable to keep working, which is why she relies on the assistance.<\/p>\n
But come Saturday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will not distribute SNAP food benefits to people who qualify for them. The USDA has said it does not have enough funding to pay out the $8 billion monthly cost of food stamps due to the ongoing federal government shutdown.<\/p>\n
Bruno, visiting the Northeast Community Center in Bethlehem on Tuesday morning to pick up a three-day supply of groceries, said it will be difficult to feed her family without the federal assistance next month.<\/p>\n
She already sometimes is faced with choosing whether to pay an overdue bill or buy weekly groceries, she told The Morning Call, so the halt in SNAP benefits will make it that much harder.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked all my life until I got into a car accident,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy. The situation is hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pantry\u2019s hours are 9:30 a.m. to noon Tuesdays and Thursdays, but by 10:30 a.m. this past Tuesday., it had already run out of some of its most popular items, including rice, peanut butter, pasta sauce and cereal.<\/p>\n
Forty-one families totaling 163 people visited Northeast Community Center to pick up groceries that morning, according to Paula Johnson, the community center\u2019s executive director. Families are permitted to visit once a month for a three-day supply of food, Johnson said. That number is about in line with what they have regularly been seeing recently at their pantry recently, a number that\u2019s increased in recent years. It\u2019s busiest on the first week of the month after rent is due.<\/p>\n
Johnson said the three-day limit is due to the pantry\u2019s limited supplies, and she worries it will not be able to keep up with the increase in demand due to the Nov. 1 cut-off. There is still no end in sight for the government shutdown, so it is unclear how long people will go without their benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cSNAP is sort of the first line of defense against hunger, and food pantries are the second line,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the first line anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two million Pennsylvanians rely on SNAP, including 97,000 across Lehigh and Northampton counties, according to data from Second Harvest Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n
Combating hunger<\/p>\n
Johnson said food pantry distributors are doing as much as they can to step up and meet what will inevitably be an increase in demand for affordable and free food from pantries. The center posted a photo of the empty shelves of its pantry last week and asked the community to pitch in, which prompted an influx in donations, sustaining the pantry through Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
Still, many advocates fear that they will not have enough food to meet the increasing demand. Even before the shutdown completely halted SNAP benefits, an untold number will no longer be eligible at all come Saturday due to work requirements put in place by the Donald Trump-backed tax bill, also called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.<\/p>\n
The changes, effective next month, require people ages 18-64 who receive benefits to prove to the government that they work, volunteer, job search or participate in training programs for at least 20 hours a week, with some exceptions.<\/p>\n
Edna, a Bethlehem resident who asked for her last name not to be used due to fear of repercussions for speaking about her personal finances, said she comes into the pantry \u201csometimes\u201d when she cannot make ends meet to feed her two children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I buy stuff \u2026 it is all for my kids,\u201d Edna said. \u201cEverything is expensive. Everything in the supermarket, the price has gone up, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although she is a SNAP recipient, her EBT card was targeted by a scammer, which drained her September benefits. She was able to feed her family last month only via help from her neighbors, she said, because she has no income.<\/p>\n
She said she previously worked as a home care aide but left her job to care for her 6-year-old son, who has autism.<\/p>\n
Edna said she plans to try to find a part-time home care job to continue to care for her son and afford groceries, but worries about the broader effects of cuts to vital programs that help people survive, like increasing violence, or neighbors with no support system going hungry.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people don\u2019t respect,\u201d Edna said. \u201cSome people can be like, \u2018Hey, you have food, break into your house, break the windows. Oh, you got food, give me food,\u2019 with guns, and everything. And for me it\u2019s scary because I have kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica Lee Ortiz, who runs a food pantry via her family-owned nonprofit Ortiz Ark Foundation, said she already has had to change the way that the pantry operates due to fights and aggression among people in line. Instead of having long lines of people waiting to pick up food at the pantry, Ortiz and volunteers now record people\u2019s contact information and ask them to come in at a specific time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to have a line, everybody would line up and come out to get food in the line but we cant, we just can\u2019t, the way things are right now,\u201d Ortiz said.<\/p>\n
Political strife in the way<\/p>\n