Cuts to the National Emergency Food Assistance Program Affect Food Access in Southeast Seattle

On a rainy Friday morning in late March, a line of about 50 people waited to pick up vegetables, meats, and staples. It was about 10 a.m. at the Rainier Valley Food Bank (RVFB) pop-up in the Paradise Baptist Church parking lot in Rainier Beach. Most of the people in line spoke Cantonese, Vietnamese, Amharic, Laotian, Tigrinya, Somali, Oromo, Mien, or other languages.

RVFB's Community Connector team member, Viri Ortiz, was engaging with the community to link people to additional services, such as access to employment, housing assistance, and more. King County's monthly free medical mobile service van was parked at the end of the lot with a medical doctor and registered nurse inside. Nearby, Peter Hoover played Chinese traditional songs on an Asian flute, while R&B beats pulsed from the RVFB tents that sheltered volunteers handing out potatoes, onions, and bell peppers.

Kendra Willis, an RVFB client and volunteer, had just unloaded boxes of vegetables from the truck and described what brought her here. "With the new [insurance] premiums, the tax [and] rent increases and utilities up, there was no money left for food," Willis said. "I don't honestly know how we would have survived the last couple of months."

Willis is a mother of three who sought help from RVFB in November and has been volunteering there in recent months. "Every time you come, you see another smile or another tender moment where [RVFB] is helping people who really need it," said Willis.

In 2023, more than 26% of people living in Southeast Seattle had limited or uncertain access to food compared to the rest of Seattle, where 1 in 10 people were food insecure. Southeast Seattle residents with barriers to food and the services that ensure their families eat are already seeing shifts in available food. Due to federal and state budget cuts and rising grocery prices, community services and the people they care for face a difficult future.

Last year, RVFB served more than 16,000 people through pop-up shops, weekly home deliveries, partnerships with more than 12 schools to supplement food for youth during the weekends, and ready-to-go meals for people without access to a kitchen. (Their 11,000-square-foot brick-and-mortar food bank is under construction and will open this July.) The food distributed comes from a range of sources, with roughly 30% from Food Lifeline and the rest from local farmers, neighbors, and a bustling food-rescue program that partners with local grocery stores and restaurants.

But the Trump administration cut the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) by $1 billion in late March. Recently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued $500 million worth of food deliveries to Washington State food banks for 2025, but Politico reported near the end of March that many of these had been canceled, including a $4.7 million delivery of food to Washington State.

As a result of the recent food delivery cancellation, Food Lifeline, the state's largest hunger-relief organization, lost $500,000, which amounts to 7.1 million pounds of food. That food, for about 300 food banks, was to be distributed from April through June.

Zoey Ferenczy, RVFB development associate, pointed out a noticeable trend in the food coming in for distribution. "Less dry goods, that's rice, beans and canned goods," said Ferenczy. "[It's the] first time in our history we're buying them [to supplement supply]."

Relieving Hunger With 'Finite Resources'

The cancellation of the large shipment of food isn't the cause of fewer staples at RVFB, according to Food Lifeline's chief development officer Ryan Scott. At their warehouse and offices in Southwest Seattle, Scott said the thinning of dry goods is likely from rising grocery prices. Grocery costs have gone up over 20% since 2020. Meanwhile, Scott said there were 10 million visits to food banks in Western Washington last year. "That's 2 million more than the year before," Scott said.

Scott pointed out that another part of TEFAP funding cuts was for the local food assistance program (LFPA). Food Lifeline says this would amount to about $2 million in funding cuts for them. Scott noted the loss would have an impact on the region. "For 10 cents, we can get a pound of potatoes, so when you think about the multiplier effect of our ability to stretch those dollars through the partnerships that we have in our system, it has a profound impact on the food that moves out into our communities."

In addition to the federal TEFAP cuts, Gov. Bob Ferguson's budget proposal recommends limiting funding for the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) budget to $82 million over the next two years, a decrease from the $128 million allocated during the 2021–2023 biennium, when the state used one-time federal funds to increase the program during the pandemic. WSDA provides assistance to food banks.

At the federal level, the Republican-led House Budget Committee has directed the House Agriculture Committee to slash $230 billion to programs, including a significant reduction to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. More than 800,000 Washingtonians benefit from food stamps.

"Hunger relief resources need to be preserved and should not be considered a cost-saving measure in balancing budgets," Scott said. "I totally understand that there are finite resources, but this is not the place. This is not the place to look for savings."

RVFB's development director, Kathy Ulrich, pointed out that the combination of factors — increasing food prices, TEFAP cuts, proposed cuts to food-stamp benefits, unemployment — are creating challenging conditions for food security. "A lot of folks who come to food banks are working two jobs, three jobs, and they're having to make a choice between paying their light bill and paying for food," Ulrich said. "So a couple bags of groceries from a food bank can help them pay their rent, pay their utilities. It can help them make ends meet." Eight percent of RVFB's budget comes from federal grants, but 23% comes from in-kind donations, like Food Lifeline. Cuts to Food Lifeline's funds will directly impact RVFB and the community it serves.

Ferenczy addressed how the community can help, saying that supporters can advocate to protect SNAP from any type of budget cuts. "Reach out to both your state and your federal representatives," she said. "This is where your voice really matters."

"We're also requesting $93.25 million for the Washington State food assistance programs," said Ferenczy. "That would allow us to continue services like this. [Otherwise] come volunteer and donate to your local food bank because it really does make a difference."

But Ferenczy added that volunteering is about more than distributing food. "There's a lot of community, there's a lot of joy, there's a lot of just being together. And I think now more than ever, that's what we need to make it through."