‘Right on the margins’
Even before the SNAP freeze, Mass. families were already going hungry
By Will Katcher | WKatcher@masslive.com
When Maria Guerrero was raising three kids on her own in Lynn, she visited a food pantry about once a month to make sure her family had enough to eat.
But it wasn’t until about three years ago — retired, living with her adult daughter, who has special needs, and facing the spiraling costs of everyday goods — that Guerrero registered for federal food assistance.
“You make $400 or $300 a week. You think you can buy food, pay rent, pay electricity, pay gas, pay all the bills in the house? You can’t afford it,” Guerrero, 77, a retired head cook, said earlier this month, clutching her cane as she sat beside her daughter and son at the Catholic Charities food pantry in Lynn.
The money Guerrero and her daughter get through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the nation’s largest food aid program, only goes so far. Like many others, they turn to food pantries to fill the gaps.
But those critical safety nets are under mounting pressure.
Even before the sudden cutoff of SNAP benefits early this month, pantries were already stretched to their limits, more so than the public may understand.
The number of families struggling to find enough to eat spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic — and has remained persistently high ever since.
From the Berkshires to Cape Cod, Massachusetts’ network of independent food pantries was thrown into chaos at the beginning of November when the Trump administration paused SNAP assistance as the federal government shutdown dragged on.
Now entering the higher-demand holiday season, pantry directors wonder how long they may continue to see the lines that stretched around the block earlier this month.