The Open Door and the Federal Shutdown

The Open Door is monitoring the impact of the ongoing government shutdown on our community and are working with partners to develop proactive plans for making additional food support available, should the need arise.  Here is what we know as of today:

• All sources of government financial support to low-income individuals (SNAP, WIC, etc.) have been fully funded through February via an early distribution last week. 
• No new applications for support will be processed during the shutdown 

• Should the shutdown continue, we anticipate an increased demand for food support near the end of February as the support that has been issued is depleted 
• We have seen an increase in “new client” appointments in the past two weeks 
• We have seen an increase in requests for “Emergency Bags” from individuals and families voicing expectations of a “temporary need” 

Current Response: 

We are currently working with a group of affected federal employees in Farmington and have scheduled a special distribution via our Mobile Pantry for their families in late January.   

We are currently partnering with Dakota County’s Economic and Employee Assistance team to make additional food support available to families who may have lost access to financial support, or are unable to apply for new support during the shutdown.

Planning for Increased Demand: 

The Open Door is consistently scheduled at least 5-6 weeks out for appointments.  We do all we can to never turn away anyone who needs food, but we are not always able to accommodate an influx of new community members in need of support.   

With current capacity near its limit, we will leverage the flexibility of our Mobile Pantry and the generosity of our community partners to create new opportunities for our neighbors to access fresh and healthy food. 

Our Mobile Pantry team is working with partners, identifying sites, and laying out a schedule to make additional fresh and healthy food available in strategic locations across our community should the shutdown continue and more of our neighbors find themselves affected.

Your generous support has made all of this possible and we thank you sincerely for helping us be in a position to respond to unexpected needs in our community.