WACO, Texas (KXXV) — Concerns over food insecurity and Texas SNAP recipients grow as the federal government shutdown continues.
We recently reported on local military families turning to food pantries during week three of the government shutdown but local and federal leaders are also raising the alarm.
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Bob Gager is the CEO of The Shepherd’s Heart food pantry in Waco.
As he walked, 25 News' Bobby Poitevint through their pantry, he said they are now serving 12,000 more families compared to this time last year — a trend he's seen grow all year long.
However, as we creep further into the federal government shutdown, he’s worried about all families but especially single moms and those families using SNAP benefits.
Gager said, “the need is growing."
However, he’s not alone.
South Texas U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar taking to Facebook late last week and said in part “A long government shutdown threatens critical nutrition assistance — SNAP benefits will continue through October, but if the shutdown persists, future payments could be disrupted.”
Food Lifeline, a member of the nonprofit Feeding America, is urging people to contact their legislators right now to have your voice heard, believing the longer the shutdown goes on the larger the impact on families who rely on federal programs to put food on the table.
As of now, Gager said they haven’t seen a whole lot of change during the first full week of the shutdown.
“We’ve seen some distributions where we ran out of food and didn’t expect to really run out that fast and it wasn’t like we were totally unprepared it’s just we had a strong need and we’ve only had a few of those.”
While Gager said he wants to be optimistic right now about the shutdown, he knows the reality which could be heading our way.
“If they don’t get down to the works — and get this thing solved it could hurt a lot of people,” Gager said.
