For Those Who Help The Poor, 2025 Goes Down As A Year Of Chaos

LOGAN, Ohio – Before dawn, in a cold, blustery drizzle, a line forms outside a small, squat building on an open stretch of road on the outskirts of town. "My heater quit working in my car," Scott Skinner says good-naturedly to the next man in line. "Man, what kinda luck am I having." The building is called "The Market" because it has a food pantry, but Skinner and the others are here to sign up for heating assistance. He's been calling for a month to get an appointment with no luck, so he showed up an hour ago to snag a walk-in slot. The demand for help is more acute than usual because heating aid was suspended during the recent government shutdown. At the same time, SNAP food benefits were suspended for weeks, and some food pantry shoppers are still playing catch up. One of those people is Lisa Murphy. She's 61, disabled and relies on Social Security, and says it's important to have "places like this that really help us." "I still owe my gas bill. I owe $298," Murphy says. "It's hard to buy food and pay my bills, too." But even as need grows with rising costs and unemployment, local anti-poverty groups like the one that runs The Market say their work has been threatened as never before amid the Trump administration's funding cuts, pauses and reversals targeting a long list of safety-net programs. The shutdown was only the latest disruption that forced them to scramble to keep operating. And, they say, the year of chaos has left deep uncertainty over which programs may be hit next." Read more at NPR.