Going Hungry In Hawaiʻi? Government Shutdown To Halt Food Stamps
The state is creating a relief fund to cover costs for some — and will consider tapping into a $200 million contingency fund.
The federal government shutdown is coming for people’s food, sending state officials scrambling for stopgap measures to keep people from going hungry.
More than 150,000 Hawaiʻi residents will not receive their food stamps next month, as effects of the budget impasse strike widely into daily life.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has told states “there is not sufficient funding” for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and to “hold off on sending payments” for November, according to Scott Morishige, administrator of the state division that oversees SNAP.
How to cope with that reality is a challenge for people like Monica Williams-Kaapuni, a mother of four from Waipahu, who relies on $1,850 a month in SNAP benefits.
“How am I going to feed my kids?” she asked. “They’re in school throughout the day but they still come home hungry, and snacks in between meals, and weekends, it’s just – oh, gosh.”
Even if the government shutdown — now in its 27th day — were to end today, Morishige said the USDA hasn’t said when November benefits would be paid out, though they would later be reimbursed.
SNAP has a contingency reserve of about $5 billion that Democrats called on the USDA to use to partially fund November benefits. But on Friday, the agency said it could not legally use the funds for that purpose.
This week, the state will announce plans to step up with some support, but it remained unclear how far it would reach. To “avoid mass hunger in the islands,” the Hawaiʻi Food Industry Association in a press release urged the governor to also “deploy a small portion” of the state’s $1.7 billion rainy day fund to keep benefits flowing.
Faced with the uncertainty, Williams-Kaapuni put it simply: “We’re going to have to ration everything.”
An Immediate Impact
Commonly known as food stamps, SNAP is the nation’s biggest anti-hunger program with nearly 42 million recipients. About 168,000 Hawaiʻi residents — or 85,000 households — participate each month.
The average monthly benefit in Hawaiʻi is $343 a person, automatically loaded onto debit cards on the third and fifth day of each month.
The program is already targeted for a major overhaul beginning Nov. 1, when work requirements kick into gear. Other changes are on the horizon, written into the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Donald Trump signed into law July 4, including shifting administrative costs to the state.
“We’re going to have to ration everything.”
Monica Williams-Kaapuni, SNAP recipient
While those changes will phase in over time, the delay in SNAP payments will have an immediate impact.
To help fill the gap, Morishige said, Gov. Josh Green plans to use $100 million from the federally funded welfare program run by the state, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, to provide up to two months of assistance to households with dependent children.
About 28,000 Hawaiʻi households with SNAP benefits fall into that category — less than a third of those currently covered. The aid would not go directly toward food but could be used to offset housing and utility expenses.
“We know that housing is one of the highest costs that local families struggle with,” Morishige said. “By helping to alleviate that burden for housing, we’re really helping to provide some relief for families during this very difficult time.”
Details of the relief fund are to be announced on Wednesday. But Morishige said households earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level – or $110,940 annual income for a family of four — will be eligible to apply.
Contingency Fund May Help Others
For the roughly two-thirds of households that won’t be eligible for assistance through the emergency program, help could come from a $200 million contingency fund that state legislators set up in anticipation of federal cuts.
State Sen. Tim Richards said he wants some of that money to support families and individuals whose food stamps are on hold.
“Whatever way we can kind of shore things up,” Richards told Civil Beat. “It’s not something we can delay.”
He said he believes the Legislature will step up to offer that support.
“This isn’t a district or a county issue; this is a state issue,” Richards said. “So we have to come together as a state and figure it out.”
Nonprofits such as Vibrant Hawaiʻi, on the Big Island, are nevertheless trying to help. The organization said Friday that it is buying “locally sourced produce, proteins, and shelf-stable food” to serve nearly 2,000 residents during November.
In a September interview with Civil Beat, the governor said the $200 million was set aside “mostly because we anticipate cuts, either to SNAP food stamps or to Medicaid.”
Green also highlighted the state’s rainy day fund and, citing “the specter of a federal shutdown,” said “we are already preparing to make sure that if there are services that we feel are essential like public safety or certain health functions, those will stay intact.”
“We are looking at having $200M available as we continue to monitor the situation and based on the need.”
Scott Morishige, administrator of the Benefit, Employment and Support Services Division, state DHS
The governor was in Washington, D.C. meeting with military officials and the secretaries of the Interior and Energy departments and unable to respond to questions about the SNAP delay, relief fund or whether he had ruled out using the contingency fund, said Makana McClellan, his director of communications.
She referred questions to the Department of Human Services, which houses the SNAP program, and Morishige, responding in an email, said: “We are looking at having $200M available as we continue to monitor the situation and based on the need.”
Elsewhere in the nation, Virginia’s Republican governor has declared a state of emergency to allow the state to make sure SNAP recipients don’t go hungry. New Hampshire authorities plan to deploy mobile food pantries. And in California, the Legislature appropriated $80 million in emergency funding for food banks.
The $58 million a month in federal SNAP benefits that come into Hawaiʻi is equivalent to more than five times the amount of food aid that all the food banks in the state give out, said Amy Miller, president and CEO of the Hawaiʻi Food Bank.
Even before learning of the likely delay in SNAP benefits, Miller said the food bank estimated that the shutdown would increase demand by halting wages for federal workers, leading to between 60,000 and 80,000 new people needing assistance.
“We’ve already started ordering additional food and we’ve already started to schedule additional distributions for folks who are affected directly,” she said. “We are really worried and concerned.”
And even before the shutdown, the state was experiencing a crisis of food insecurity, Miller said. A 2024 report from the food bank found that 1 in 3 children statewide live in households where access to adequate nutrition is limited and meals are sometimes skipped.
Morishige said the state is still accepting applications from people trying to qualify for SNAP as well as current recipients who are recertifying so they can continue with the program.
Civil Beat’s reporting on economic inequality is supported by the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation as part of its work to build equity for all through the CHANGE Framework; and by the Cooke Foundation.
