What proposed food stamp changes mean
Perhaps higher need for Aurora, DuPage pantries
With proposed changes to the federal food stamp program looming and local changes already set to take effect, some food pantries in Aurora, DuPage County and across the suburbs are bracing for a spike in clients.
Recent changes to the program in Cook County could cause some residents there to lose their eligibility for food stamps, which could lead them to visit food pantries in the surrounding counties, said Teresa Schryver with the Northern Illinois Food Bank, which serves 13 counties including those surrounding Cook.
But more worrisome to Schryver, an advocacy and awareness specialist at the food bank, are proposed changes to the federal food stamp program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. Though the changes have not yet been finalized, if they do take effect they have the potential to drive up need at food pantries in the communities the food bank serves, she said.
In Aurora, the Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry is already bracing for a spike in need, said Executive Director Cat Battista. The pantry draws residents from DuPage and Cook counties as well as the Aurora area, she said, and is planning to seek additional local and private funding and step up efforts to advocate for legislation.
She said it’s also planning to work directly with local farmers, and grow its own vegetables on a plot of land.
“That’s how worried we are,” Battista said.
President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed a number of changes to the SNAP program recently, but two have the potential to significantly impact Illinois, Schryver said.
One proposal would tighten automatic eligibility requirements for the food stamp program. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said it would close “a loophole” in the system, but Schryver said it could have a ripple effect that reduces the number of households receiving SNAP benefits, which in turn makes fewer children categorically eligible for free and reduced school lunches. That, in turn, could affect communities eligible for summer feeding programs for students, she said.
The food bank estimated 24,000 children could lose access to summer meals in the area it serves, Schryver said.
The Trump administration also proposed a change to tighten work requirements for SNAP recipients, making it harder for states to obtain exemptions from requirements that ablebodied recipients work or risk losing their benefits. The change is intended to encourage people to find jobs while unemployment is low.
Illinois, like other states, has for years received an annual waiver for that requirement for areas with higher unemployment rates.
Under the existing rules, Cook County recently lost its work waiver because of its falling unemployment rate. That means that beginning Jan. 1, Cook County residents who receive food stamps and are able-bodied, under age 50 and not living with children or other dependents can only receive three months of SNAP benefits in a three-year period unless they work at least 80 hours a month. They can also participate in job training, volunteering or another work-related activity.
Most of the state’s 1.8 million SNAP recipients won’t be affected by the change.
DuPage County had already lost its work waiver in 2018 when unemployment rates there fell — it is the only other Illinois county to have lost the waiver — and the Northern Illinois Food Bank was bracing for increased need at that time, Schryver said. Fewer people ultimately lost their food stamp benefits than expected, she said.
While need ticked up in some areas at that time, it wasn’t as dire as the food bank expected. That could have been because those people who lost their food stamps were already using food pantries, Schryver said. And in many cases, people already visiting food pantries began visiting more often.
“People did lose benefits and that does increase their food insecurity and does increase their struggle,” she said. “But we were already in the communities and we were already there to help people.”
Still, Schryver said, DuPage and Will county food pantries located near the Cook County border could see increased need as a result of Cook losing its waiver and residents there losing benefits. Some residents will also likely travel a county over to visit a food pantry, thinking the further away from home they are the less likely they are to run into someone who knows them, she said.
At Naperville-based Loaves and Fishes, which serves DuPage County, President and CEO Mike
Havala said he didn’t anticipate any effects from the Cook County changes, but the proposed federal changes to the SNAP program could increase need at the pantry.
The pantry could see more families, or could see the same families coming more often, said Janet Derrick, vice president of the pantry’s CARES programs. Still, they couldn’t predict what would happen since the changes haven’t yet been finalized and they haven’t taken any steps as a result of the changes.
Every change takes time to try to address, Derrick said.
“It’s another way of sort of cutting into our ability to provide services, because we have to spend so much time trying to figure out what’s going to happen,” she said.
Diane Renner, director of the Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry in Aurora, said the pantry has already seen a spike in the number of clients. She couldn’t say if it was tied to impending cuts to the SNAP program, but she said the pantry has seen more people this year than is typical around Thanksgiving.
The pantry is working on several new programs, and has taken on more food rescue programs, where staff pick up food that otherwise could not be sold by stores or farms and make it available at the pantry, to try to meet the increased need, she said.
Renner doesn’t know why the uptick is taking place, but the pantry is working to address it, she said.
“We just know it’s already affecting us, and we know it’s going to continue to affect us,” she said. “So we’re just doing the best that we can to make sure that everybody leaves with as much food as they need.”
“People did lose benefits and that does increase their food insecurity and does increase their struggle. But we were already in the communities and we were already there to help people.” — Teresa Schryver of the Northern Illinois Food Bank