Only weeks after the suspension of SNAP benefits in Georgia and across the country during the longest governement shutdown in history threatened to expose over 1.6 million vulnerable Americans to increased hunger conditions community leaders and avocates for the poor are sounding the alarm reagarding the immense strain on food banks.
The primary impact was the immediate threat of over a million Georgians losing a critical source of food assistance, forcing families to make difficult choices between food, medicine, and rent.
Elzabeth Omilami, director of Hosea Helps explained that local nonprofits and food banks, reported a surge in demand, in some cases up to a 70 percent increase in visits, as families scrambled to find alternative food sources. Many food banks were forced to use their financial reserves to meet the elevated need.
“If anything good came out of that debacle it was that the shutdown elevated the conversation around SNAP benefits and we bcame mpore aware of the need for food assitance,” said Omilami.
The long time human rights activist added that a significant number of Georgians did not receive SNAP benefits in October as Trump’s food assitance program overhaul under the auspices of the ONE Big Beautiful Bill and the administration’s charges of fraud and abuse required many applicants to reapply under more stringent rules to receive benefits.
“We held several events to try to ameliorate the situation,” Omilami said. “We had large food giveaways with fresh fruits and vegetables. … We had turkey giveaways, chicken giveaways, twice as many as we would have had previous to the SNAP [disaster].
“For example, on a Wednesday we might serve 20 cars with 3 persons or families per car, but now we are seeing more than three times that, with 70 cars coming in. It started to deplete our inventory, but we didn’t turn anybody away. We served people as they came, and now we’re in a situation where we need help. We need food and we need finances,” Omilami explained adding that the level of need is reminiscent of requests for assitance received during Katrina and covid.
Now Omilami explains the the impending Christmas holidays will require local nonprofits to dig deeper in their coiffeurs to try and meet the needs of families with children during the season.
The challenges in adjusting Hosea Helps and Hosea Feeds the Hungry resources are proving to be difficult and it times duanting, but Omilami and her staff are finding ways and means to bridge the gap and feed families at this crucial time of year.
“Publix gives a regular yearly donation of two truckloads of food. Okay, but we were biting into that which is supposed to last us through to January” she said. “Kroger gave us an additional 500 turkeys and Hormel gave us beef stew. Then we participated in the million meals drive with the Hawks, so we had that. And Michael Thurmond really helped out. He bought 500 boxes of fruits and vegetables that also included a dozen eggs and we were able to add canned goods. We gave all of that away [by mid-November],” she added. “Recently I emailed Arthur Blank and explained what we were up against this year and we received a coprorate donation of $100,000.”
Recognized as one of the most responsive commiunity service agencies in the Atlanta metropoiltan region, the organization’s warehouse 2545 Forrest Hills Dr. in the city’s soutwest area can accmommodate 300 palettes of food and nutrition staples. However, Omilami says that they have not received many large palette donations to date and will need assitance to serve families and individuals, including the homeless through the end of the year.
“We usually serve about 200 to 300 individuals a week, and that doesn’t include the homeless packs that we give out to what they now call the unhoused, right? Somehow homeless started to be a word that nobody wants to use anymore and they want to make it appear prettier by calling them the ‘unhoused,'” she adds with a hint of sarcasm. “But that’s about another 150 people a week.”
As organizations and support centers scramble for resources to provide services to those in need, Hosea Helps is also serving as a conduit to other non-profit organizations. “On Thursdays churches and nonprofits come and get food that we pick up from Kroger. Some weeks they have surplus, and some weeks they don’t, okay. So we are hitting the phones and social media and activating to find the additional resources we need to take care of people,” Omilami concluded.
Georgia has the 4th highest level of child hunger in the United States. That translates into 1 out of 5 children going to bed suffering food insecurity every night. A little closer to home, Metro Atlanta and its surrounding counties have 12,000 homeless students under the age of 18 years old.
