Minnesota families face tougher choices with cuts to food assistance programs

Cory Bell gathers a variety of foods from the food shelf at PRISM in Golden Valley on July 2, 2025. Credit: Aaron Nesheim | Sahan Journal

Gloria Cadotte stood in line with her 5-year-old grandson Adrian. Slightly hunched and with a slow gait, Cadotte wheeled her walker full of cardboard boxes, collecting the onions, carrots, apples and potatoes being distributed at the Waite House Food Shelf in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning.

Cadotte, 75, has been coming to Waite House ever since it opened in the 1980s, and has seen a reduction in food quantity over time, with fewer options for protein and fresh produce. She needs both in her diet as she awaits kidney transplant surgery.

Waite House isn’t the only food shelf struggling to maintain the quality and supply of its food. A wave of federal funding cuts has strained food shelves nationwide, pushing places like Waite House to rethink how they operate in order to meet rising demand with fewer resources.

The federal cuts

In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cancelled $1 billion in funding for schools and food banks to buy food from local suppliers. Of that, $420 million was for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement (LFPA), which allowed food banks to purchase local produce, increasing their supply of fresh produce and boosting local farmers.

Following pushback, the USDA notified states that it was unfreezing funds for existing LFPA agreements, but said it did not plan to carry out a second round of funding for fiscal year 2025. Minnesota received $4.7 million through the program this year to support local food banks and food shelves. These funds will no longer be distributed.

In May, Minnesota lawmakers passed a bill that included a new state-level LFPA program offering $700,000 to fill in for the federal cuts. While food banks welcome the state support, they say the funding gap remains significant.

The blow to food assistance was compounded when Congress passed Trump’s massive federal budget bill, slashing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food assistance to low-income Americans.

The changes increased work requirements, removed eligibility for legally admitted immigrants, and offloaded a share of the costs to the states. An analysis by the Urban Institute found that the revised changes could lead to 22.3 million families to lose some or all of their SNAP benefits.

“It’s a sneaky way of kicking out people from the program,” said Sophia Lenarz-Coy of The Food Group, a nonprofit food bank that serves 200 food shelves in Minnesota. “It also reveals [the] disparity along racial lines as it will impact the communities who have been historically disinvested in,” she said.

Cory Bell’s mother Sarah Lemon gathers food in her cart as she makes her way through the line at PRISM’s food shelf in Golden Valley on July 2, 2025. Credit: Aaron Nesheim | Sahan Journal

One in 13 Minnesotans received food stamps in 2024, most of them below the federal poverty level, according to a report by the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. The report also revealed that more than 52% are in working families, higher than the national average of 38%.

In 2022, the most recent year that the data is available, Minnesota SNAP recipients received $246 per month, on average.

Undocumented immigrations will be especially pinched, food bank administrators say. They rely heavily on food shelves because they don’t qualify for food stamps. But highly publicized immigration raids have left many to avoid workplaces, leaving them even more at risk of food insecurity.

Impact on Minnesota’s food banks and shelves

Higher food prices were already driving an increase in food shelf visits. Last year, Minnesota food shelves saw a record 9 million visits, The Food Group reported, many from seniors and families with children.

The system is breaking down at the moment of greatest need, said Ethan Neal, director of partner operations at Second Harvest Heartland, which serves 41 counties across the state.

Food banks, including Second Harvest, buy and rescue food from local producers and retailers in bulk and sell it to food shelves at marked-down prices. Food shelves buy this food using, in part, using LFPA funds, he said.

Food shelves also receive food deliveries from the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which were also cancelled and/or substantially reduced. The food is distributed to families in need free of cost, regardless of their income or immigration status.

Each of these cogs “has to turn for the larger wheel to move. If you throw a wrench into one gear and it stops, the entire system breaks down,” Neal said.

Lenarz-Coy of The Food Group said 30 to 35% of their food supply was impacted by the TEFAP fund freeze. “The cuts are making work that is already hard, harder,” she said, adding that the SNAP cuts will cause more people to rely on food shelves with shrinking resources. “Both sides are getting pinched.”

Keeping food on the table

Cory Bell, a father of three and a resident of south Minneapolis, says it’s at the end of the month that he needs to visit food shelves. He remembers going to food shelves with his father and brother as a kid. Now, with three young adults to feed, he needs the help.

Falisha Taylor and Cory Bell pick up a variety of foods from the food shelf at PRISM in Golden Valley on July 2, 2025. Credit: Aaron Nesheim | Sahan Journal

Bell, who is currently trying to start a business and is unemployed, is concerned about the new blow of cuts. He said he feels the pressure “that you got to keep hitting all these different food shelves week after week after week to make sure there’s food in the house. Just in case all of it just comes to a stop at one point cause I feel like that’s how it’s going to happen; they’re not going to warn anybody.”

Before July 4, Bell, who also uses SNAP benefits, visited PRISM, a marketplace food shelf in Golden Valley to stock up for the long weekend. He likes the grocery store experience and the availability of options at PRISM.

“They don’t make you feel like you’re actually going to a food shelf,” he said, referring to the shame and embarrassment people often associate with food assistance. “My kids ask me why we have to go to food shelves, and it hurts to hear your kids say stuff like that.”

Thinking about how many ‘we’ll have to turn away’

Michelle Ness, the executive director of PRISM, says the food shelf has been impacted on multiple fronts, including TEFAP, LFPA, and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) funds for rental assistance, which were cut without notice or communication.

“Right now we would be in the process to secure funding for the upcoming year, but that is no more,” said Ness. PRISM serves 1,800 households per month, with an average of 350 new households every month.

But Ness knows that there’s only so much food shelves can help with. “We do not have everything. We fill in and replace some of the things that people might have otherwise had to purchase.”

At Keystone Community Services’ food shelf in St. Paul, which served 52,000 families in 2024, potential policy changes and a “disaster plan” have been an active conversation for the past six months.

“We are already thinking of how many people we’ll have to turn away when we run out of food,” said Georgi Nguyen, director of basic needs. Part of the disaster plan involves restrategizing their food budget, sourcing and operation to fit people’s restricted access to SNAP benefits as well as the reduced variety and volume of foods they can order from food banks.

“We are looking at modifying distribution methods and have also considered providing pre-packed boxes of food, which is difficult because as food shelves, we want to offer a choice-based model so that people can have the same experience as buying groceries.”

Nguyen said the balance of quantity and quality of nutritional food will also be harder to straddle. “We will have to consider if we serve the staples to more people or more options to [fewer] people.”

Gloria Cadotte collects supplies from the Waite House Food Shelf with her grandson, Adrian, on July 9, 2025. Credit: Shubhanjana Das | Sahan Journal

Cadotte has a sister and a brother, both seniors, and a 16-year-old granddaughter at home. She fills her pantry using both SNAP and the assistance of food shelves. Without these, she fears that 5-year-old Adrian will go hungry. “I just wish that they don’t take it all away completely,” she said in a low tone.

Sahan health reporter Mohamed Ibrahim contributed to this story.

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Please direct media inquiries to Alisha Weis, Advancement Director

Call Alisha763-432-4229
Email Alishaaweis@prismmpls.org

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