Minnesota SNAP Recipients Worry About Feeding Their Families As Shutdown Pauses Benefits

By Madison McVan, Minnesota Reformer

November 7, 2025

After growing up in foster care, Mary Davis extricated herself and her son from domestic abuse in Chicago and landed in a Minneapolis homeless shelter in 2011 — then quickly found stable housing and enrolled in support programs to receive a stable income and health care.

“I had to grow up really quick…so that’s always been the way I looked at things — like, no one is going to care as deep as I care about what’s going on in my situation, so I have to get out there and get it,” Davis said.

But the expiration of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps Davis buy groceries for herself and her 15-year-old son, is testing the resiliency that helped Davis go from the shelter to stability.

Davis gets $456 on an electronic benefits transfer card every month on the 10th, she said, and supplements the food she purchases through SNAP with trips to food shelves. Her only income is from Social Security — around $1,100 per month — because she is disabled; blind in one eye from domestic violence and diagnosed with several chronic health conditions.

Davis’ son is on human growth hormones, so she’s trying to feed him plenty of nutritious food. SNAP helps her buy foods at the grocery store that are harder to come by at food shelves, like meat and produce.

Mary Davis talks with her son Maurion, 15, as he has an after school snack in the townhome they share with another single mom and her two kids on Tuesday Nov. 4, 2025. Their dog Botchie walks through the kitchen. (Photo by Glen Stubbe/Minnesota Reformer)

The federal government shutdown means SNAP funding has run out. Democratic-led states and advocates have sued the Trump administration to pay out the benefits during the shutdown using emergency funds, and as part of the lawsuits the administration agreed to pay out partial benefits.

But it’s not clear when the money will get to recipients — Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said it could take “several weeks” to execute partial payments; the state Department of Children, Youth and Families said Tuesday it does not have a timeline.

Around 440,000 Minnesotans rely on SNAP; 152,000 are children, 72,000 are seniors and 52,000 are adults with disabilities. Nearly half of the recipients live outside of the Twin Cities.

Davis doesn’t know when she’ll receive her next round of grocery money. Until then, she said, she’ll be looking for free food wherever she can get it — and is considering taking out loans or using risky “buy now, pay later” services to make ends meet.

And she’ll pray about it.

“Really that’s the only other option I have,” Davis said.

Volunteer Mitch Gillman tells a couple they had to return later for food, something Neighborhood House has never had to do before. Monday Nov. 3, 2025. (Photo by Glen Stubbe/Minnesota Reformer)
Food shelves already feeling the pressure

At the Neighborhood House food shelf on Montreal Ave. in St. Paul on Tuesday morning, families loaded carts with food and household items. It was much busier than usual.

For the first time since it opened in June of 2024, volunteers turned families away. There wasn’t enough food for everyone.

“We have been anticipating this,” said Janet Gracia, president and CEO of Neighborhood House.

Demand at food shelves had already risen in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to food inflation. Neighborhood House opened up the Montreal Avenue food market — its second location — and doubled the food budget over the year and a half it’s been open.

That was all before the government shutdown and impact on SNAP.

Volunteer Dan Cornejo shows Janet Gracia, president and CEO of Neighborhood House, some of the donated food they received on Monday Nov. 3, 2025. Delays in the SNAP program has increased demand for their services. (Photo by Glen Stubbe/Minnesota Reformer)

The majority of the people served by Neighborhood House rely on SNAP benefits and have been using the food shelf to supplement their shopping, Gracia said. By early November, some Minnesotans were already missing their November credit; those who get their benefits later in the month may have already run out of their October credit.

Neighborhood House is expanding its hours and making emergency food bags available more frequently to its clients who need help.

“The people that you are seeing in our food markets right now…they already have empty shelves and empty pantries in their home,” Gracia said.

Moo Ehpaw is a 28-year-old mother of three who relies on SNAP and food shelves to feed her family. Her husband works at a turkey processing plant, and she stays home with their two-year-old.

She’ll be increasing her efforts to find free food when the benefits run out.

“I think a lot of other people, they worry too…they are aware of the cuts that are happening,” Ehpaw said in Karen through an interpreter.

Language barriers can be an impediment to immigrants who are searching for food resources, said Mu Lweh, a St. Paul resident who also speaks Karen.

Janet Gracia (left), president and CEO of Neighborhood House sat with clients Moo Ehpaw (center) and Mu Lweh (right), who spoke about how delays in the SNAP program are affecting them on Monday Nov. 3, 2025. (Photo by Glen Stubbe/Minnesota Reformer)

A nightmare for the state

A court order requiring the Trump administration to use emergency funds to pay out partial SNAP benefits isn’t likely to alleviate recipients’ hunger any time soon.

Guidance sent to Minnesota and other states from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Tuesday outlines how states must implement the reduced benefits.

Recipients will receive a maximum of around two-thirds* their usual monthly benefits, but some new applicants may have 30% of their net household income deducted from their (already-reduced) credit amount, according to the guidance.

“It requires a complete recalculation and a complete recoding of our system,” said Tikki Brown, commissioner of the Department of Children, Youth and Families during a media briefing Tuesday.

DCYF employees are running through “a variety of solutions,” but the department doesn’t yet know when it will distribute the reduced benefits.

“Initially we were hoping for the least burdensome, cleanest way for us to issue benefits, and unfortunately, the information that we received today is a really highly complex calculation,” Brown said.

(Complicating the situation: President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social after the USDA issued its guidance that SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government.”)

Volunteer Julie King tries to keep shelves stocked at Neighborhood House on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (Photo by Glen Stubbe/Minnesota Reformer)

Democrats are refusing to vote for Republican-authored spending bills that would reopen the government unless the GOP includes extensions of subsidies that lower the cost of health insurance plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Davis, the single mom, blames Republicans for the SNAP predicament and shutdown.

“I definitely get why [Democrats] are holding back. Like, it all goes together — if your health is not in order, none of it works,” Davis said.

This government shutdown is now the longest in history. There is still no end in sight.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..