Some SNAP recipients say they have to choose between rent and food amid halt in benefits
Over the last week, Martina Santos said she feels like she's been living a nightmare.
The 67-year-old from the Bronx, New York, is one of the nearly 42 million Americans who saw their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits lapse on Nov. 1.
Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would partially fund the program using emergency funds, officials said it could take "a few weeks to up to several months." Additionally, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that no benefits will be distributed until the government reopens.
The uncertainty of if or when SNAP benefits will be funded is leaving many Americans, like Santos, wondering whether she is going to pay rent, pay her bills or buy food.
"This is crazy. I'm nervous ... thinking about how I can get the money to buy what I need right now, because I don't have food stamps," she told ABC News. "I need to make a decision if I pay my rent, when I pay my electricity or I buy food. It's not easy."
Santos, who volunteers at the nonprofit West Side Campaign Against Hunger, said she is asking her landlord if it's possible to make a partial payment for the month of November.
She added that she's going to a pantry this week because she doesn't have much food in her house besides packets of beans and cereal, along with a gallon of milk her son bought for her.
In addition to food, Santos said the loss of benefits is particularly devastating because she uses them to purchase distilled water for her CPAP machine, which helps treat sleep apnea and, in turn, her high blood pressure.
"When I don't use the machine, by the next day, I [wake] up tired, I don't want to do anything, because I don't sleep [well]," she said. "I want to wake up. How can I get out of this nightmare right now?"
Domestic violence survivors impacted by loss of SNAP benefits
Nicole, 42, from Long Island, New York -- who asked that her last name not be used -- started receiving SNAP benefits in 2024 after leaving a domestic violence situation.
She receives about $994 in SNAP benefits per month to help buy groceries for her and her three children -- ages 12, 13 and 17 -- which she said is a struggle.
"Food is so expensive right now. So, when you go into stores and you're buying and trying to budget and save, it's just not enough," she told ABC News. "That's the feeling that I get when I go food shopping. I'm a budget shopper. I try to look out for deals that they're having and just stock up and be a bulk shopper."
Nicole said she receives cash assistance and help from family, which has helped cover the cost of some groceries in the wake of SNAP benefits being halted, but added she has been occasionally checking her mobile app to see if the EBT card balance is still $0.
"I've been checking periodically just to see if it's going to say that food stamps are going to be available. I just still have this little hope in praying that it will be there," she said. "And I was thinking to myself today, like, 'How long do you think it's gonna go and thank God we're getting the cash assistance and some people they just don't have it. They just don't have family.'"
She said she thinks this situation is going to last for a couple of months and said she is using this as motivation to hopefully get off of SNAP benefits for good.
Nicole Branca, CEO of New Destiny Housing, a nonprofit that provides housing to domestic violence survivors and their children, said 70% survivors that the organization serves receive SNAP benefits.
She said the loss of benefits can compound the physical and mental health struggles that many survivors already experience.
"Domestic violence survivors are particularly harmed by this loss of SNAP benefits because of the economic abuse that they've experienced," she said. "Nearly 100% of DV survivors experience financial abuse as part of the abuse, so that means their abuser restricted their access to bank accounts, ruined their credit and didn't allow them access to their own paycheck. And so we work with them to start from scratch."
Branca continued, "It's so hard to find the words to describe how devastating this is for our families, who are just starting to recover financially, emotionally, physically and the thought of not being able to pay for food on the table for their kids or having to decide between food and rent. It's really taking a toll on our families."
'Anxious and concerned'
Elayne Masters, 68, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, started receiving SNAP benefits in 2017 after suffering a traumatic brain injury following a fall down a flight of stairs.
In addition to her injury, Masters also suffers from hypothyroidism, which occurs when the thyroid gland doesn't make and release enough thyroid hormone in the bloodstream, as well as Lyme disease, an inflammatory illness usually caused by an infected tick bite.
Masters typically receives about $250 in SNAP benefits, saying it allows her to buy healthy foods that help improve symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, confusion and joint pain.
She said her various conditions are improved by a healthy diet, and she's worried that she won't be able to buy nutrient-dense food without SNAP benefits.
"Foods that are basically high amounts of produce, vegetables and fruits, help to decrease the problematic health symptoms that I have and when I'm eating a really healthy diet, I'm doing better, I'm seeing the doctor less frequently, I'm taking fewer medications. I'm more functioning," she told ABC News.
"And when I'm not able to pay for those healthy foods, my health declines, my cognitive functioning declines," Masters went on. "If I weren't able to maintain those healthy levels of eating, because it affects me so dramatically, so it's a huge, huge difference in my quality of life and my ability to be a productive part of society as well."
Masters said she went to a pantry last Wednesday and received a pre-packaged bag of food after attending a meeting at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
She said she is "anxious and concerned" about being able to pay her electric bill, car insurance and house insurance within the next month.
"Winter is coming, and heating bills will be higher. If anything breaks down, I'm in trouble," she said. "The holidays are coming, and I may not be able to finish gift shopping."
In the past, to make ends meet, Masters said she has done things to stretch the shelf life of her food, such as cutting mold off a block of cheese, peeling the rotting layers of an onion to reach the layers that are still good or saving vegetable scraps to make her own broth.
"I'm starting to consider, okay, what kinds of things can I do that are going to help me stretch my dollars and some of the strategies that I've used in the past?" Masters said. "I may be able to skate through a month, but much beyond that, and it's going to be difficult."
