CLEVELAND — Pasta, canned foods and other ingredients fill a plastic bin outside of Dahlia Coffee in Cleveland, helping people make meals at home under the SNAP freeze
Coffee shop owner Natalia Alcazar is collaborating with neighboring nonprofit The Young Latino Network and Old San Juan Jewelers to assemble community meal bags. SNAP benefits remain on pause for thousands of families across the state, due to the government shutdown.
Using around $4,000 in funds and donations, the group has provided approximately 300 meals since Monday.
“We got some inspiration from a famous TikToker, it’s ‘Dollar Tree Recipes.’ They created these customized meal bags, and they’re free printable recipes,” Alcazar said. “So, we decided to print the recipes, and then basically we created all of the meal bags.
Other local groups and food pantries have stepped up to meet a growing demand in the community, but Alcazar said she’s hoping to alleviate another daily pressure.
“I think the food banks are great, and, I think a lot of people – although they get different types of items – they struggle with knowing what to make with the items,” she said. “So this kind of takes the guesswork out of it. We have busy lives, people that are on SNAP, they typically have jobs.”
Changes to SNAP
The City Club of Cleveland and local leaders joined for “Happy Dog Takes on the SNAP Situation” forum on Wednesday. (Spectrum News 1/Tanya Velazquez)
The lapse in food assistance also coincides with changes to SNAP eligibility and work requirements, passed by the Trump administration earlier this year under H.R. 1, or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Annette Iwamoto, director of the Cuyahoga Human Services Chamber, joined the City Club of Cleveland and other community leaders at the Happy Dog, discussing how to address widespread food insecurity.
She said the recent SNAP changes means a permanent loss of federal food aid for many Ohioans, including refugees.
“4,200 newcomers, we believe, have already lost access to SNAP … but with the federal shutdown, that leaves 190,000 people in Cuyahoga County not receiving their SNAP benefits,” she said,
David Merriman is the director of Cuyahoga County Department of Health and Human Services, and was one of three speakers on stage. He said the county is still providing support to food stamp recipients even as the federal government hasn’t reopened.
“We’ve heard that there’s going to be partial benefits coming, but we don’t have a timeline for that. We don’t know when those dollars are going to lead from the Washington, D.C., to the state of Ohio,” he said. “… I think one of the most important messages is we still want the public to follow through with any of their eligibility requirements.”
Future of SNAP
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services announced that it is working with vendors to determine updated benefit amounts for the approximately 1 million Ohioans who were enrolled in SNAP before the government shutdown.
The announcement came after the Trump administration said it would be using a contingency fund to cover November benefit payments, but it would only fund around half of the $8 billion distributed to food stamp users each month. In a recent court declaration, Dept. of Agriculture official Patrick Penn said this amount has been bumped up to 65% of SNAP November benefits.
Still, the Young Latino Network said they’re hoping to expand their resources to other northeast Ohio neighborhoods.
“We are planning right now to do pop-ups in different areas in Cleveland to provide those meals so people are not traveling too far, or either to those individuals that don’t have transportation, they could get these meals too,” said Kelvin Matos, who’s the civic engagement coordinator at YLN.
While its unclear when SNAP benefits will resume, Alcazar said the group plans to help families keep food on the table through the holiday season.
“Small businesses struggle too, but I do recognize that we have more than some people have right now,” Alcazar said “So whatever we can do to help community.”
