Emergency food providers brace for need as Nevada joins lawsuit to avert SNAP shutdown

Southern Nevada’s food bank is expanding its emergency response to meet anticipated demand as federal funding to a program that helps feed nearly 500,000 residents threatens to dry up Saturday.

Three Square Food Bank’s announcement Tuesday came the same day as Nevada joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration aiming to release emergency funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Attorney General Aaron Ford joined a coalition of nearly two dozen states’ attorneys general and governors seeking to release federal funding for SNAP for November 2025, according to the federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.

The lawsuit comes as state and federal lawmakers spar over how to keep the program open. Nevada’s SNAP program, fully funded by the federal government, costs about $90 million a month.

A bill to fund and open the federal government passed the House but has failed in the Senate several times since the shutdown began Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year. The bill has majority support in the Republican-controlled Senate but lacks the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster. Democrats say they will not agree to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate with them on extending expiring health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., has voted to pass the bill reopening the government, while Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., has voted against it.

As politicians point fingers over who is responsible for the pending need and how to avert it, food bank operators say they are preparing for long lines come Saturday.

“We’re just trying to stock up like crazy,” said Vic Caruso, executive director of City Impact Center.

Food pantries feel uncertainty

Outside the organization’s Urban Food Bank, Las Vegas resident Randy Alberto Gonzalez said he comes to the pantry once a month to supplement groceries for his household of himself, his mother and his son.

Gonzalez said he has been underemployed since a motorcycle crash disabled him in 2011. He said he likes the food options at City Impact Center and a church food pantry he also visits monthly.

Gonzalez said he did not know the extent of the SNAP funding cuts until he was heading to the food bank that day.

“Everybody comes here because the government right now is bananas,” he said.

Caruso, executive director of City Impact Center, said the organization’s Urban Food Bank at 928 E. Sahara Ave. is receiving increased calls to ask if the pantry is still open.

“We get a lot of single moms,” Caruso said. “They have two or three kids, so they probably get $900 to $1,000 a month. You know that’s coming on Saturday morning. When you know that’s not coming, you panic.”

The pantry offers a pre-assembled box including bread, fruits, vegetables, cheeses, eggs, frozen meat and other prepackaged food. Caruso said the recipients use it as a supplement to offset their budget. He estimates a box is worth about $225 of groceries. It’s meant to feed a family of four for about a week.

City Impact’s pantry is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It’s also open 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Thursdays to people who do not have access to a kitchen.

Caruso said he is not concerned about a lack of food availability at the organization’s pantry because it gets enough through Three Square and food donations from restaurants like Starbucks and Strip hotel-casinos.

Caruso said he has talked to city officials about the expected influx of need, but they said they don’t have funds to distribute because of reductions in grants distributed through local governments.

“We’re all government dependent,” he said. “It starts from the top and it trickles down — in the wrong way. It’s not plenty falling off the plate. There’s nothing on the plate right now.”

Nevada’s efforts to supplement aid

About 28 percent of Nevada SNAP households report work-related incomes, while 42 percent have incomes that include unemployment and Social Security benefits and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, according to Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office.

Nevada’s congressional Democrats asked the Republican governor on Friday “to use every tool and resource available” to continue to support SNAP, including calling for a special legislative session to fill the funding gap.

In his response, Lombardo said U.S. Department of Agriculture rules prevented states from directly funding the federal program.

“Accordingly, per the regulations outlined by the USDA, even if Gov. Lombardo called a special convening of the Legislature and the Legislature opted to appropriate temporary SNAP funding, the State would not be able to directly fund the program,” his office said.

Instead, Lombardo’s administration is seeking $30 million from the Interim Finance Committee to help fund food banks, his office said. That’s on top of another $8.6 million from a contingency plan.

The legislative committee is slated to consider the $30 million on Thursday, as well as a $200,000 request to deploy Nevada Guard members to assist with food distribution.

Earlier this month, Nevada lawmakers set aside $7.3 million in emergency funds to keep funding another supplemental food program until late December, if the federal government does not reopen by then.

Nevada’s Women, Infants & Children program, commonly known as WIC, serves almost 56,000 pregnant women, new mothers and young children in the state.

Scrambling to help

In response to the imminent loss of that support, Three Square, the nonprofit regional food bank responsible for distributing food to pantries, nonprofits, houses of worship and other partners, said it will increase food supplies and set up emergency food donation sites and distribution events.

A May report prepared by the hunger-relief organization found that there were about 377,000 locals experiencing food insecurity in the Las Vegas Valley, President and CEO Beth Martino told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Over the last four months, the pantries’ needs have increased by about 16 percent, she said.

“Most of those people that are coming in were first-time visitors to a food pantry, so a lot of people that are newly experiencing food insecurity are reaching out for help,” Martino said.

The nonprofit is slated to receive about 80 percent of the new state funding, dollars that can only be used to buy food.

Martino said Three Square has been stocking up on supply in recent weeks.

Three Square is securing “everything from fresh produce and dairy, to meat and shelf-stable food,” Martino said. “We are trying to focus right now on more shelf-stable food, because we don’t know how long this government shutdown may go on.”

New funding won’t completely supplement the need, “but it certainly helps make a big dent, and it’ll allow us to reach both federal workers and SNAP beneficiaries who are all struggling to put food on the table right now,” she said.

Martino said that about one-third of locals who already rely on food pantries are SNAP recipients.

“We do expect to see a lot of first-time visitors in light of what’s happening to benefits in November,” she added.

Martino said Three Square has been receiving truckloads of food every day.

“For the time being, we’re continuing to schedule as many (deliveries) as we can accept,” she said. “Our goal at the moment is to bring as much food as we can.”

‘While kids in Nevada go hungry at night’

At an afternoon press conference detailing the state’s legal action, Ford said the Trump administration’s decision to cut SNAP benefits was “a cruel and an illegal choice.” He argued the ongoing federal government shutdown does not prevent the administration from using contingency funding to continue the program.

Ford pointed to $20 billion in federal support sent to Argentina earlier this month.

“But when it comes to feeding Americans, they’re cut off,” Ford said. “And as Trump does this, others are acquiescent, just going along with what Trump wants to spend money on while kids in Nevada will go hungry at night.”

Asked about Nevada’s efforts to fund food banks and Tuesday’s lawsuit, the White House referred comment to the Office of Management and Budget.

“Democrats chose to shut down the government knowing full well that SNAP would soon run out of funds,” an OMB spokesperson wrote in a statement. “It doesn’t have to be this way, and it’s sad they are using the families who rely on it as pawns.”

A USDA spokesperson echoed the message in a separate email to the Review-Journal.

“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats,” the statement said. “Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments.”

Nevada Treasurer Zach Conine, who is campaigning for the 2026 Democratic ticket to replace Ford, who is term-limited and running for governor, praised the lawsuit.

“The Trump Administration continues to violate federal law by putting up unnecessary roadblocks to providing food assistance to nearly 500,000 Nevadans, who are just days away from not being able to put food on their tables,” he said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Conine told the Review-Journal that he understood Nevada can’t directly fund SNAP but urged the state to “explore every possible way to provide emergency food assistance.”

Letting the federal government benefits lapse could lead to a $162 million hit a month in economic output for Nevada, Conine said. He added that Nevada has about $1.3 billion in its rainy-day fund, and that the state can supplement the benefits “in a meaningful way.”

Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X. Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.