I’m a Journalist on SNAP. Right here’s What I Noticed Through the Newest Meals Disaster

They informed me they have been custodians on the close by college dorms. “Should be a troublesome job,” I mentioned, to which they replied by nodding emphatically.

As we continued to attend, the one who spoke the very best English agreed to an interview with me. She requested a pseudonym—Maria—as a result of her supervisor had restricted how typically she and her coworkers may go to the meals heart, in order to not compete with their work hours.

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Initially from Hermosillo, 4 and a half hours south of Tucson in Sonora, Mexico, Maria informed me she labored on campus for 11 years. She was proud to be offering an training to her two children—an 18-year-old freshman and a 21-year-old senior—because the UofA, like practically all US schools and universities, offers an amazing tuition break to full-time workers and their dependents. However though Hispanic college students like Maria’s children are enrolled on the College at a a lot decrease proportion than white college students, they comprise one of many highest demographics of scholars who make the most of the Pantry. (That is compounded by the 32 to 52 p.c of all UofA college students who reported experiences of meals insecurity over the course of a complete era.)

Maria, like her coworkers, is just not on meals stamps, however needs she may very well be. “I may use [SNAP benefits] as a result of all the things is so costly now with this president,” she mentioned, clutching a mustard-colored backpack over an empty black purse, each of them able to be stuffed with meals objects as soon as the middle opened within the subsequent couple of minutes: “This 12 months has been so exhausting.”

However her wages don’t rise with the rising prices, she defined, and she or he doesn’t qualify for meals support as a result of she and her husband, a handyman, regardless of holding low-paying jobs, collectively make simply over the revenue required to qualify. Even when her husband was laid off a number of months earlier than, she added, they have been nonetheless not granted meals support, though he was capable of gather some unemployment advantages. In line with the Pantry, individuals like Maria, between 45- and 54-year-olds, make up the biggest non-student inhabitants that makes use of this system.

I do know the sensation of 1’s earnings by no means fairly being sufficient, as a single, previously unhoused one that qualifies for SNAP on account of my low-paying career as a journalist—the place, amid growing media layoffs and increasing “information deserts,” a full one-third of journalists at the moment are estimated to be freelancers.

Twenty twenty-four and 2025 have been two of my greatest years but when it comes to skilled achievement: I had information and literary fellowships and part-time employment from mainstream media retailers. Nevertheless it nonetheless wasn’t sufficient to maintain me housed in Arizona. Full-time work saved me afloat to afford meals, however housing prices—particularly after two evictions—overwhelmed my checking account, inflicting me to continuously transfer between Airbnbs and mates’ couches (and infrequently, a lot much less comfy conditions), as I reported on public curiosity tales starting from ultra-right-wing efforts to dismantle public training to the US/Israel struggle on Gaza, to nonprofit corruption on the border, to working-class homelessness, to mass shootings.

Just a few weeks into October, I took a hesitant breath of reduction when a federal decide ordered the Trump administration to pay for meals support throughout the shutdown. Nevertheless it wasn’t clear how lengthy it will take for the funds to change into obtainable—or if the administration would struggle the order, which might delay issues additional and make sure the suspension of meals support within the interim. Positive sufficient, the Trump administration made a last-minute “emergency” bid to the Supreme Court docket, which partly sided with Trump, blocking the lower-court order to totally fund SNAP simply as residents had begun to obtain advantages.

And but, on the eleventh hour a brand new, chilly missive from the identical state welfare workplace that had notified me on October 24, 2025 of the suspension of meals help introduced a reversal after all: “On November seventh, 2025, USDA authorized the issuance of full November 2025 NA advantages. DES expects advantages to be obtainable to purchasers starting as early as November 7, 2025.” (Even after the shutdown ended nonetheless, the Trump administration continued to attempt to prohibit SNAP {qualifications} by demanding that states hand over knowledge on support recipients, together with their immigration standing.)

After saying goodbye to Maria and thanking her for talking with me, I loaded my meals objects —an onion, a lime, 4 bananas, and a few boxed dinners—into the wire basket on my bike and rode away to drop them off on the place the place I used to be staying. I had misplaced rely of the spots I had been bouncing between within the final a number of months—as much as two dozen—yo-yoing between housing insecurity and outright homelessness.

In a manner, it’s just like the pandemic by no means ended: Every single day, your objective is to satisfy primary wants, in a life-or-death battle. However fortunately, some optimistic outcomes stay. In early spring, 2020, mutual support teams—like tenants’ rights unions—sprouted nationwide to ranges higher than earlier than. Many are nonetheless functioning midway into the 2020s.

“Gabb!” a voice referred to as from a passing automobile. I turned however the driver’s face had additionally handed. The automobile made a U-turn, bringing the motive force’s face into view: It was Brandon—a volunteer with Tucson Meals Share (TFS), with whom I had been a meals support volunteer throughout the pandemic, in between reporting on the pandemic as a journalist.

Brandon was doing a meals supply proper now, he mentioned. The timing was uncanny. Might I trip alongside? I mentioned I used to be reporting on the present state of meals support, amused by the coincidence of crossing paths with him like this after so lengthy.

“After all!” He motioned to leap in. I locked my bike to a street signal and opened the door.

Going from Campus Pantry to Tucson Meals Share highlighted many similarities between the 2 packages, although with completely different organizing fashions. Campus Pantry operates via a director who presides over numerous coordinators who act as chairs, with volunteers on the backside. Tucson Meals Share, in the meantime, practices as a nonhierarchical construction frequent amongst leftist organizing teams: the bigger group decides an general path and divides themselves into volunteers who do consumption to prepare supply requests; others who put together meals packing containers and hand them off to volunteer drivers who disburse the meals. Right this moment, Brandon, who usually is simply a part of the prep group, volunteered to be a driver to cowl for a driver who couldn’t make it.

Now 5 years older than final time I noticed him on the Tucson Meals Share home, Brandon was simply as I remembered: the jolly face and finely groomed beard. All black-clad in pants and sweatshirt, an arm of his darkish sun shades was hooked into the collar.

As quickly as I closed the door and we began shifting, previous reminiscences of our work collectively fluttered again to me. Again then all of us had rapidly change into very shut, partially as a result of Brandon and our fellow support volunteers have been the one individuals I interacted with throughout the lengthy, remoted shutdowns. The bonds of solidarity blended with bonds of trauma. We ready and delivered meals collectively; we have been tear-gassed by police collectively whereas disbursing meals and water throughout the George Floyd protests.

Oddly, these nostalgic emotions of years previous unleashed a pang of guilt—one which, at first, I didn’t perceive. Brandon was nonetheless volunteering and I had receded to a lowly recipient. Might it’s a type of survivor’s guilt I used to be feeling?

Again once I was volunteering, each housing and having sufficient meals—even throughout a world pandemic—didn’t really feel practically as tough as it’s now. Now my precedence needs to be feeding myself greater than it’s feeding others. Possibly part of me didn’t survive the pandemic. And the opposite half, which continued on, felt egocentric for giving up volunteering as I transitioned right into a self-imposed type of social demise or abandonment of neighborhood rules—or so it appeared—instead of a relentless, private seek for meals and shelter.

After Brandon let me out at my bike, I appeared on the meals objects I had collected that day and did the maths. A half-gallon of milk lasts about one week—two when you stretch it. A field of cereal can final a number of weeks. A number of assorted greens, a couple of cans and boxed meals can contribute to some meals with leftovers. A bit at a time can go a good distance. SNAP picks up the distinction by acquiring low cost staples like beans and rice in bulk.

However what is going to occur within the occasion of one other shutdown or emergency to return, when the administration decides to “pause” meals support? Loads of the hungriest, typically very resourceful, individuals know which dumpsters at which grocery shops are usually not locked after unopened, nonexpired meals are discarded out every single day; which of the church buildings have meals pantries and which day(s) they’re open. The issue is, many get a lot of their meals donations from USDA, which stopped companies throughout the shutdown. So what is going to they do throughout the subsequent disaster? (The latest shutdown, a results of the federal authorities’s making an attempt to siphon extra money to DHS—although partial and far smaller than its predecessor on the finish of 2025—was triggering, to say the least.)

Usually the reply means trying inward and looking out throughout from you. The teams composed of abnormal individuals, neighborhood by neighborhood, every engaged in mutual support—particularly when recipients are additionally volunteers and vice versa—are the primary and final traces of protection when governments let individuals go hungry on goal. The Campus Pantry and lots of meals facilities prefer it closed when the pandemic hit—simply because the campus that runs it, closed its doorways. However in March 2020, teams like Tucson Meals Share and its allies, not beholden to institutional bureaucracies, have been simply getting began. Many have merged or grown since then.

However now that the pandemic is over and persons are nonetheless in want of meals, Brandon rhetorically asks the query that drives TFS and different types of mutual support organizing into the longer term, whether or not in occasions of disaster or normalcy: “How can we, like, think about a manner of getting individuals meals that’s not in present methods or doesn’t takde financial change?”

The reply to this query will outline how individuals like all of us reply to the subsequent disaster, and people to return. In a manner, it’s already right here, as I and tens of millions of others will almost certainly be booted off SNAP because of the Trump administration’s new limitations positioned on this system, which went into impact February 1.

Common individuals should take care of each other when the federal government fails to take action.