INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — As the federal government shutdown enters its sixth week, many Treasure Coast residents who rely on federal food assistance are facing mounting uncertainty.
“Right now, the funding for SNAP, which is the food assistance program, has been frozen,” said Jane McNulty Snead, development director for United Against Poverty of Indian River County. “So beginning Nov. 1, when people should have received their benefits, they are not receiving them. A judge ordered on Friday that they need to figure it out. And so now there's some word that as of Wednesday, it may get partially funded. But again, we really don't know how that's going to go. So our immediate concern is our neighbors who were relying on that to put food on the table.”
To help fill the gap, United Against Poverty (UAP) is extending its grocery program through a new SNAP Support Initiative, which launched Nov. 3. The expansion provides vouchers to households who would normally receive SNAP benefits but have been unable to due to the freeze.
“Normally, you come in, you just get your membership, and you can come in as often as you like, and we accept cash, card, or SNAP,” Snead said. “What we're doing right now, we're calling it the SNAP Support Initiative. For now, it's Indian River County because that's where our funding came from. So at our Indian River campus, if you come in, in the week that you would normally receive your SNAP benefits … you come in, you show proof of what your SNAP amount is, what the date that you should have received them is, and we're giving you vouchers for 30 percent of what your SNAP benefits would be.”
Snead said turnout was immediate.
“I can tell you today, just in the first couple of hours, we had over 50 families. Today, we handed out over $6,000 in vouchers,” she said.
The organization’s grocery program — the Member Share Grocery Program — has long served as a cornerstone of UAP’s mission to help working families stretch their budgets.
“The core program that we were built on is what we call the Members Share Grocery Program,” Snead said. “It's a free membership for people who are income qualified, which right now is 200 percent of the federal poverty level and below. So our members make a contribution for what they're getting. We try and keep everything around 33 cents on the dollar compared to what you would spend in a traditional grocery store.”
The store offers a variety of healthy options, Snead added.
“Fresh produce, all of our proteins or meats, we get before the sell-by date and freeze it. So we've got freezers full of meat. You can get milk, eggs, cheese, bread, canned goods. I mean, you name it,” she said.
United Against Poverty’s initiative comes at a time when many families in Indian River County are already living on the edge.
“In Indian River County, about 50 percent of the residents in our county struggle to provide the basic necessities, food, clothing, shelter, utilities, health care,” Snead said. “So we know that at least half of our community is living paycheck to paycheck.”
That estimate aligns with United Way’s ALICE (Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed) population — individuals and families who earn above the federal poverty level but still cannot afford the basic cost of living in their communities. Per United Way’s website, ALICE households often work full-time yet struggle with expenses such as housing, child care, food, and transportation.
The ongoing federal government shutdown, now stretching into its sixth week, has caused temporary halts in several federally funded programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides monthly food assistance to more than 40 million Americans.
With no clear end in sight to the funding freeze, UAP officials said the SNAP Support Initiative will remain active through the duration of the shutdown.