While the federal government has officially reopened, local SNAP recipients had to navigate empty refrigerators and cabinets for more than a week. Now, work requirements imposed by the Trump administration are expected to cause further hardship.
A supermarket in Inwood. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
Mobility for 67-year-old Pinkie Grier is limited to walking just a couple of blocks around NYCHA’s Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn, where she lives.
So, when her Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) benefits didn’t arrive at the start of November, due to the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, her options for finding food were limited to the small radius she could walk.
“I walked to the senior place,” Grier said, referring to the local senior center in her neighborhood. “I was too late for the seniors’ place, because breakfast was over, so basically, for a couple of days here, I was kind of pretty messed up.”
Grier is among the nearly 1.8 million New York City residents who receive federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, which help low-income households afford groceries.
And while the federal government officially reopened Thursday, local SNAP recipients who depend on the benefits had to navigate empty refrigerators and cabinets for more than a week, uncertain about where their next meals would come from.
“They don’t understand that,” said Diana Gatham, a resident of NYCHA’s Woodside Houses who uses SNAP to feed her three-person household. “They don’t feel for us. I’m saying it’s not right. Once upon a time, I used to work too. I had it all. But now I’m on disability. I have hardly nothing.”
Following a court ruling earlier this week, New York began distributing funds to local SNAP recipients on Nov. 9 and 10, according to the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), which administers the program in New York.
All New York City beneficiaries had received their full benefits as of Friday, according to the New York City Department of Social Services (DSS).
“While Donald Trump has fought relentlessly to keep food off New Yorkers’ tables, families who rely on SNAP can finally breathe a sigh of relief as benefits begin to arrive,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said on social media on Sunday.
That same night, Grier said she went to bed early without having eaten. “That’s not fun. That’s not a good feeling at all,” she said. “And you wake up…and know you don’t have no food in your house, but you go in your kitchen anyway and look and know it’s empty.”
Grier said she usually spends her funds throughout the month. And after the delay from the shutdown, she decided to save $90 on her card for next month, in case it happens again.
During the week-long delay, emergency food giveaways popped up around the city. Pantries saw longer lines, and some hunger programs reported serving twice as many people.
Contents of a food bag prepared for clients experiencing homelessness at St. John’s Bread & Life, a food pantry in Brooklyn. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, a national nonprofit and advocacy organization, said calls to the National Hunger Hotline doubled during the first days of November.
“Food delayed is food denied,” Berg said. “We did our best to refer people to pantries and kitchens, but that’s not nearly enough. Everyone should understand that this is not even a Band-Aid.”
In Queens, Liz Alvarez is the programs director of The Connected Chef, a community-based organization working with food-insecure families—including those who don’t qualify or are unable to receive sufficient government assistance.
She said that they went from giving out 800 boxes of food to families per month to 1,240 in October, and project serving 1,840 boxes in November with the help of other organizations and mutual aid groups.
Other SNAP recipients told City Limits that finding food during that week without funds became their 24-hour task. They got up early to get to the lines at food pantries, which had become longer, and called and visited all the organizations they knew that could help.
“On a couple of occasions, we just wasted our time because the food ran out before we could get through,” a 31-year-old South Bronx resident, who asked to remain anonymous, told City Limits in Spanish.
Other times they got a reduced ration, so they had to continue searching. “Three potatoes, one broccoli, one onion, for example,” said the woman, who is mom to a 1-year-old. She was able to buy some food items on credit at her local grocery store, she said.
300,000 New Yorkers might be affected by new job requirements
The federal government is back open, and the deal passed by Congress this week funds SNAP through September 2026. OTDA said benefits for December will be issued on time.
But other challenges remain, advocates say.
Back in July, lawmakers passed the Trump administration’s sweeping “One Big Beautiful Bill”—which included new work requirements for food assistance.
The rules mostly affect people who are considered Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs), requiring them to work or volunteer at least 20 hours per week to receive benefits.
It also expanded the age range for who is counted as an ABAWD, from 18 to 54 to 18 to 64, and removed exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and foster youth aged 24 or younger, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) memo laying out the new rules.
A storefront on East 204th Street in the Bronx. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
The Trump administration also surprised many states by eliminating the waiting period for the above provisions, terminating waivers that had previously suspended the work requirements on Nov. 1.
New York’s waiver wasn’t expected to end until February. But advocates sued the USDA, saying it arbitrarily terminated them ahead of schedule.
Last week, a federal court in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the Trump administration from ending the waivers early.
As of Friday, DSS told City Limits, New Yorkers who fail to demonstrate compliance with the work rules within the three months established by the federal law could start losing their SNAP funds in June. For now, the waivers are set to expire at the end of February 2026, the work requirements would start in March, and households that don’t comply would lose their SNAP benefits in June.
Neither OTDA nor DSS knows whether USDA will decide to challenge the TRO decision, which could change that timeline.
“You have from the federal government a combination of incompetence and malevolence that are making all of this so much worse, Berg said. “And look, we support people getting jobs, and people on SNAP want to get higher-paying jobs, but this isn’t the way to do it.”
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