Government shutdown pushes some assistance programs in Minnesota to the brink

[MUSIC PLAYING] NINA MOINI: Our top story on Minnesota Now, several government assistance programs are under threat due to the federal government shutdown. WIC, a nutrition program for mothers and young children, is right now funded in Minnesota through mid-November. SNAP, a wider food benefit program, will not have funds starting November 1, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps Minnesotans heat their homes, is delayed. Altogether, these programs help hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans. We're going to talk to the director of the Home Energy Assistance Program in Hennepin County, but first, MPR News reporter Dana Ferguson takes us to a food shelf in Rochester, already on edge.

VIRGINIA WITHERSPOON: So this is our cooler where the fresh food is.

DANA FERGUSON: As she looks out across the Channel One Food Shelf, Virginia Witherspoon can't help but notice that offerings are sparser than they were years or even months ago.

VIRGINIA WITHERSPOON: We just don't have the food, and we're doing our best.

DANA FERGUSON: Shoppers push carts around rows of crackers, boxes of mac and cheese, and canned vegetables. They open the refrigerated case to pick up half-gallons of milk. The lights are turned off in another bank of refrigerators. Inside, the shelves are empty.

VIRGINIA WITHERSPOON: If you had been here in 2022, that third case would have been lit up, full of meat, and we wouldn't have been limiting it.

DANA FERGUSON: Witherspoon is the food bank's executive director. She says grocery staples like produce, meat, and eggs are under new limits.

VIRGINIA WITHERSPOON: People are in the fresh cooler getting fruits and vegetables. There used to be, in front of that, bins full of produce. Now we've moved that over to our market counter because it goes so fast.

DANA FERGUSON: Channel One, and food banks around the country, are in a bind. Demand for food is up while supply is at the lowest point it's been in years. Witherspoon points to empty racks that stand dozens of feet high in the food bank storage space. Normally, they'd be full.

VIRGINIA WITHERSPOON: This is just the perfect storm of high need because of high grocery prices, so working people are standing in line here because they can't afford their food. Then on top of that, you've got the decrease in manufacturing donations because of the high cost of food, the cancelation of those government commodity loads.

DANA FERGUSON: This is all before the latest and most significant wrinkle, she says. The protracted federal government shutdown could force a sudden cut to SNAP, also known as food stamps.

VIRGINIA WITHERSPOON: All of these things happening at once, and we really need something to break.

DANA FERGUSON: This week, Olmsted County commissioners approved a one-time $200,000 payment to the food bank. It could keep the provisions coming. Minnesota's Department of Children, Youth and Families says SNAP and MFIP recipients won't get their November benefits until Congress can reach a deal, although some cash welfare assistance will still go out.

Witherspoon says Channel One serves about 10,000 households a month across 14 counties in Southeast Minnesota, but that's before adding families who currently use their SNAP benefits to shop at grocery stores or farmers' markets. For every one meal that food banks provide, SNAP provides nine of them.

VIRGINIA WITHERSPOON: We don't have the food or the funding to bridge that gap. So if you do this, we will be turning people away.

DANA FERGUSON: Sara Carlson turned to Channel One when she and her kids faced food insecurity years ago. Now she serves on the food bank's board.

SARA CARLSON: I know firsthand that this is going to hurt. It's going to hurt people.

DANA FERGUSON: She says this is an especially challenging moment for Minnesotans getting by with less, or going without.

SARA CARLSON: I can't even imagine. And that's what keeps me up at night, is thinking about the people that are facing this reality right now. It's a ton of people, and even just the threat to think in a couple of weeks, I'm not going to have this resource to feed my kids.

DANA FERGUSON: Witherspoon says she's implored lawmakers to end the shutdown, or at least approve SNAP and emergency food assistance. So far, the message hasn't broken through.

VIRGINIA WITHERSPOON: We don't take a position on whose fault it is. I mean, I have a poli-sci undergrad and a law degree, and I don't know whose fault it is. I don't spend much time thinking about that. I just think about telling lawmakers what the result is of not having staff, and it's catastrophic.

DANA FERGUSON: Without a change, she says Channel One will keep serving families, but they'll send them off with less in their grocery bags. Dana Ferguson, MPR News, Rochester.

NINA MOINI: On top of the uncertainty around food assistance, funding for a program that helps more than 100,000 Minnesotans heat and power their homes is on hold due to the shutdown. The Minnesota Department of Commerce says benefits under the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program may be delayed. My next guest helps administer that program at the county level. Tammy Alto directs Community Action Partnership of Hennepin County's Energy Assistance Programs. Thanks for your time this afternoon, Tammy.

TAMMY ALTO: Thank you, and pleasure to be here.

NINA MOINI: This is so important. We were just hearing, in my colleague Dana Ferguson's piece there from Rochester, what people are dealing with. It's like hanging at the edge of a cliff, it seems like. For starters, I hope that you could just describe what Low-Income Home Energy Assistance is, how it's funded and dispersed.

TAMMY ALTO: Yep. The Low-Income Energy Assistance Program is federally funded through the LIHEAP grant that goes to all of the states. And so the Minnesota Department of Commerce receives the dollars from the federal government, and then they distribute it throughout the state. And so Community Action Partnership of Hennepin County, where I work, has the honor of distributing it through Hennepin County.

Once we receive our funding, we are able to provide what's called primary heat benefits to low-income households in Hennepin County who apply. Every year we get about close to 30,000 applications during the heating season to help households, and we're able to help about 20,000 to 21,000 households of the 30,000 that apply. The primary heat benefit goes on their account, and then they're eligible for crisis dollars to help with disconnections and shutoffs, or running out of fuel for heating, fuel assistance.

And this year we are collecting applications and we're getting them ready for the first payment, as we await funding news. Normally we receive our funding the last week of October to the first week in November, and the indicators, we're waiting for the government to move out of the shutdown and approve the funding. And then once we receive that funding, it's going to take probably close to about a month for the state to get the funding. So our first payment is most likely going to be delayed, and we won't be making payments until after Thanksgiving or even closer to Christmas.

NINA MOINI: And how does that impact people inside of their homes? Because my understanding is there is a state rule that prevents the heat from being cut off for folks during the winter. What about electricity? What really concerns you about this, when it comes to people being in their homes and wanting to be safe?

TAMMY ALTO: For regulated utilities, such as Xcel Energy, CenterPoint Energy, which are two of our largest vendors, there is the cold weather rule that households can sign up for. That does not guarantee that they won't be shut off. They have to sign up for a payment arrangement. And so a lot of our households will sign up for any payment arrangement they can, even knowing that they can't afford to pay it. And so the minute that they miss a payment arrangement, they can be disconnected even in the coldest of winters.

For our renters who are heat-included with rent, they are not eligible. And so their electricity can be shut off at any time because they're not classified as heat-affected. And so this is a huge worry of all of our households, that if our funding is delayed, that more disconnections could happen and they won't stay safe and warm.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. What about just some of the delays that are happening? I'm trying to get an idea, a sense for our listeners about how much money might be coming into a home if they're benefiting from maybe SNAP or a program like this. Obviously whatever the cost is of that utility bill, but could you just try to put into perspective for us what the people that you're serving, what that means for them if they're not getting $100, $300 coming in a month?

TAMMY ALTO: What that means is that money that they would have counted on us being able to cover, they're now having to pull out of their limited funds to cover. So people are going without medicine. They're going without food. With our food banks running slim with the ability to help, they're having to utilize those funds that they might have paid a medical bill for, or diapers for their children, to go and actually have to cover for food. And then if they don't choose to pay their utility bill, hoping that we're going to eventually have funds, that they can end up, especially if they're a renter, they could end up being evicted if their electricity gets disconnected. It's just a--

NINA MOINI: A lot of concerns.

TAMMY ALTO: --a vicious circle.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

TAMMY ALTO: It's a vicious circle, and the safety net seems to be breaking.

NINA MOINI: I know you said last year, when things were normal, so to speak, you were not able to serve all of the people, the 30,000 or so that applied. I wondered for this year, if you're nervous about how many people you will be able to serve? And then if you do have to turn more people away, where else do you recommend they go?

TAMMY ALTO: I am very nervous that we won't be able to serve the households. We still are encouraging households to apply, because we can get them ready to go once we receive funding. But there's always that question of, when is the funding going to come? If the funding gets allocated, will it come and will it be helpful?

We refer households to Hennepin County for emergency services, to the Salvation Army for HeatShare. But I know that they are also worried about the amount of people that they can help. They help during our offseason, and so if our offseason goes longer, their money that they've budgeted for that time frame to help isn't there. And so then it's churches, families, friends, who are already struggling themselves with the higher inflation that has happened, and the prices that seem to be higher everywhere.

NINA MOINI: So more reliance on community ends up happening. But you're saying, definitely apply. Don't not apply out of a lack of hope or something like that. All right, Tammy.

TAMMY ALTO: Absolutely. Apply now.

NINA MOINI: All right, Tammy.

TAMMY ALTO: Apply early.

NINA MOINI: OK. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

TAMMY ALTO: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Tammy Alto is director of Energy Assistance Programs for Community Action Partnership of Hennepin County.