The federal government reopened on Nov. 12 after a record-breaking 43-day shutdown – during which funding ran dry for a range of social benefit programs and federal employees went weeks without pay.
Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program resumed almost immediately and roughly 3 million federal workers saw their paychecks restored. But in La Plata County, the impacts have been slower to resolve as just a few weeks without benefits has created a lasting strain on families, service providers and the local food system.
“What we’re hearing is that people made really difficult decisions during that time,” said Martha Johnson, director of La Plata County Health and Human Services. “They didn’t have their SNAP benefits, and had to decide whether to spend money on food or on rent or utilities.”
Residents who shifted limited income toward groceries when SNAP funds ran out are still in crisis mode, Johnson said. While benefits have been reinstated, families can’t retroactively use them to cover the bills they skipped.
Rachel Landis, executive director of the Good Food Collective, said she and her team have observed the same trend.
“SNAP benefits can’t be turned into rent money,” she said.
Landis said the ripple effects are twofold and will last far beyond the shutdown. Emergency food providers who stepped in to respond to the increased need “dug deep into their reserve funds,” she said.
“The timing of it is all a little tricky, because we’ve been hearing from pantries that they really rely on funds and donations that come in during the holiday season and end of year to support their work for the year to come,” Landis said. “There’s a fear that those are going to be lessened because people gave so generously to meet the crisis.”
The two-week pause in SNAP benefits cost the community an estimated $2.9 million, and small, independent grocers were among the most affected, she said. She added that groceries operate on a small profit margin of about 3%, and for many smaller stores, SNAP makes up a significant chunk of sales.
“As folks are going out to do their holiday shopping for meals, we’re encouraging them, when possible, to go to those small independent grocers and help support them,” she said.
Now, weeks after government services resumed, the shutdown has underscored a vulnerability Southwest Colorado had already been wrestling with: a fragile regional food supply chain.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, local organizations learned that a strong communications network allowed for more effective support, Landis said. The Southwest Food Assistance Resource Guide emerged as a product of the pandemic, and she said it helped nonprofits mobilize quickly during the SNAP lapse.
According to Landis, the shutdown also highlighted a broader challenge. Even as food insecurity has continued to grow locally and nationally, the funding needed to fill those gaps have decreased at both the state and federal level.
Landis noted that while the shutdown created an acute crisis, food insecurity “existed before and remains after.”
Addressing it, she said, will require regional collaboration and local funding sources.
“We’re starting conversations here about looking into some mechanisms like a sugary beverage fee that would support emergency food relief and generate that locally, as opposed to really relying on the federal or state government to support our needs,” Landis said.
Some better post-shutdown news: The San Juan Mountains Association is back to operations as usual, with little lingering affects, according to Stephanie Weber, the organization’s executive director.
The lapse in federal funding froze many operations under the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. This included the San Juan National Forest Service and partner agencies like SJMA, which had to furlough six employees due to the shutdown.
All six employees are back to work as usual, Weber said, and the rest of the staff – some of whom took pay cuts in solidarity with their furloughed colleagues – have seen their pay return to normal.
“Everybody is back to work, and all of the retail outlets at the public land centers across the San Juans are open. So it’s all good news,” she said.
But Weber was also cautious about being too optimistic.
“The reality is, Congress still has not passed the budget for the current fiscal year,” she said. “I think a lot of us like to forget, but it’s still only a temporary funding measure.”
The continuing resolution that ended the shutdown funds the government at 2025 levels only through Jan. 30. While it includes full-year funding for the Agriculture, Legislative Branch and Military Construction–VA appropriations bills, nine other appropriations bills still need approval for the 2026 fiscal year.
Because Congress has not passed its traditional full-year spending bills, the possibility of another shutdown in February remains.
A spokesperson for the San Juan National Forest Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
jbowman@durangoherald.com
