Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Across the region, nonprofit service organizations and food banks are warning federal funding cuts have led to a higher need for their services.

The most recent Washington Food Security Survey polled more than 5500 residents.

It found 55% of households experienced food insecurity, and nearly 70% of homes with children didn't have enough food.

We're outside one Seattle food bank to understand how reductions to SNAP and other rising costs are trickling down to them.

Tell us about the need and how great it is for the families that you serve.

And in that has a demographic change.

-Since 2023, we've gotten to be 70% busier with respect to the monthly households participating in the food bank.

So for us, that means about 11,000 household visits every month across our core programing, which is the pantry here in the University District, two satellite pantries that we operate at Magnuson Park and at North Seattle College, and then an extensive home delivery program.

About 20% of our customers are unsheltered.

That's kind of been about consistent over the years.

Fluctuates a little seasonally, but what is really, you know, a telling thing is that 80% of our families earn $30,000 or less, right?

It's a remarkably small number to try to survive in this city on a family size of about three.

And so what we really are experiencing are a lot of folks who are working part time.

They're working very unstable hours.

But really trying to kind of balance all those difficult costs.

Let's talk about the impacts of federal cuts to SNAP.

How has that impacted families and individuals?

-This year we've seen several important kind of losses or changes to federal programs that are really impacting kind of the work that we do and the families that are participating in the food bank.

You know, the spring TEFAP, the government commodity program suffered a reduction, you know, that we estimate cost us about $250,000 in food support, right?

That's food that wouldn't be coming onto our shelves as a loss of that.

And then with H.R.1 this summer, we're really seeing sort of a decision by the federal government to erode SNAP participation over time, right?

They're making it harder for folks through increased work requirements and some other changes administratively to participate in general.

Now, with the federal shutdown, we really look at and are worried about the beginning of November when, SNAP dollars will no longer be available to community members if the shutdown continues.

When we think about how many people rely on SNAP in order to stay well fed in our community, there's no way that food banks are going to be able to make up for that.

And speaking of community, how can the community help you guys meet the needs in this community?

-It is really, truly the support of everybody in our neighborhoods that have made the work of the U District Food Bank and our peers around the city possible.

And so thinking about a capacity to give during this time, whether it's, you know, time as volunteers, right?

We're going to become much busier space.

And so having more active and engaged volunteers will really help us continue to kind of work on the just the core programs, making sure that there are folks here to help facilitate shopping and help make it easier for the more customers who are coming in.

On Saturday, October 18th, thousands gathered across Washington state for No Kings demonstrations against the Trump administration.

We captured the rally through downtown Seattle.

Organizers say there were more than 2700 protests nationwide, with an estimated 7 million people.

In other news, you should have received your ballots for the November 4th election.

Voters will weigh in on a statewide constitutional amendment, local office races and local measures.

You must return your ballot to a county drop box by 8 p.m.

Tuesday night, or make sure it's postmarked by Election Day.

I'm Paris Jackson.

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