Bay Area food banks in ‘crisis mode’ despite government shutdown ending

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The Bay Area’s food banks are warning the crisis continues despite the government being back up and running.

“We are still in crisis mode, and we are prepared to be that way into next year as well,” said Caitlin Sly, CEO of the Food Bank Contra Costa and Solano, noting the longest shutdown in United States history and the disruption to SNAP benefits has set families back.

“People do not just recover overnight from an entire week of not being able to put food on the table. Participation has ramped up at all of our distributions and those of our partner agencies, and we remain ready and prepared going into the holiday season.

Sly says starting with the pandemic, the demand has been piling on.

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“Food banks and food security organizations have really never seen a downturn in the need after COVID,” explained Sly. “So, we’ve been responding at this heightened level of need, and this most recent pause in SNAP benefits as a result of the government shutdown was just one more emergency on top of an already crisis-level situation.”

“It has really become just an incredible destabilization of families,” said Alexandria Medina, the CEO of the Oakland Public Education Fund, a nonprofit that helps raise money to support Oakland’s public schools. “This is up against the holiday season when food is also much more expensive for students’ families because school is not in session for an entire week this month, and it’s the Thanksgiving week.”

The nonprofit has been collecting donations to help fill the void, and will be distributing the funds to Oakland public high schools starting Monday.

“We’ll be giving them access to funding to either purchase food, which can be given to students or families to take home or to eat at school, as well as if they would like to offer cash assistance payments to their families.”

Meanwhile, the food banks warn the struggle is far from over as President Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill Act continues to kick-in, so too are the biggest cuts to SNAP benefits in decades.