{"id":9369,"date":"2025-10-20T21:27:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/9369\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T21:27:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:27:06","slug":"pittsburgh-area-residents-food-banks-bracing-for-loss-of-snap-benefits-due-to-government-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/9369\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh-area residents, food banks bracing for loss of SNAP benefits due to government shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government shutdown is continuing to impact families in the Pittsburgh region. SNAP recipients will not get the benefits<\/a>\u00a0slated to be doled out next month.<\/p>\n

According to the state Department of Human Services, Fayette County has the second-highest percentage of residents getting SNAP benefits in the state. Greene County is sixth-highest on that list.<\/p>\n

One organization in McCandless, North Hills Community Outreach, acknowledged the demand they’re expecting in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n

“We serve hundreds of people each month,” said Brenda Hill, director of development and communications for North Hills Community Outreach. “Anywhere from 200 to 600 families each month.”<\/p>\n

Getting to that point takes a village.<\/p>\n

“We have a great community that takes very good care of us and provides us with a lot of donations for our food pantries,” Hill said.<\/p>\n

As SNAP recipients prepare for a world without their benefits because of the shutdown, many of them may start turning to places like North Hills Community Outreach.<\/p>\n

“We are preparing right now for the additional people that we may see come through our doors,” Hill said.<\/p>\n

Hill explained that the preparations include taking inventory of what the organization has, along with making sure it has enough items to provide for people in need.<\/p>\n

Some of those items include pasta, soups, and peanut butter. The preparation also means outreach.<\/p>\n

“It also means reaching out to our community and reminding them that now is the time to step up with additional donations.”<\/p>\n

McCandless police are helping with a food drive, too. It started on Monday<\/a>, with donations being accepted until Friday, Nov. 14, all benefitting North Hills Community Outreach.<\/p>\n

“Partnerships like this are extremely important and couldn’t be more timely right now,” Hill said.<\/p>\n

Hill says November is one of the organization’s biggest months.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes, even as many as 800 families will come through our doors,” she said.<\/p>\n

Couple that with people losing benefits, and Hill said that number could go to over 1,000. This is why the organization is again relying on its village to help.<\/p>\n

“That’s where NHCO comes in, to be here to prop those folks up,” Hill said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government shutdown is continuing to impact families in the Pittsburgh region. SNAP recipients will not get the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2298,4611,1014,3140,28,73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-9369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-fayette-county","9":"tag-food-stamps","10":"tag-government-shutdown","11":"tag-greene-county","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","15":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}