With SNAP cuts looming, a growing Albuquerque food line may foreshadow future need

‘Whenever there’s changes to SNAP, we see food lines grow.’​
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By PATRICK LOHMANN
Courtesy of Source NM

Marissa Brown, a community advocacy manager at Roadrunner Food Bank, stands over free flower bouquets at a food line Friday in Albuquerque’s International District. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM)

The line at a local food bank’s weekly distribution in Albuquerque’s International District has increased in the last few years, organizers say, as neighbors in nearby homes join the queue alongside the growing population of unhoused residents.

Marissa Brown, who runs the Roadrunner Food Bank distribution, says the line has increased by approximately 50 households to 225 each week. She estimated a line once composed mostly of unhoused people pushing carts is now probably 60% people with roofs over their heads.

“We are just seeing more of our neighbors who are housed coming, too, because it’s just hard for everyone,” Brown told Source New Mexico as people worked their way through the line Friday morning. “We’re really pleased that we can just expand that reach to anyone who might need it, but it certainly has expanded.”

Even before cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program contained in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” take effect, President Donald Trump’s second term has already hurt the food bank’s ability to feed hungry people in a state where more than one in five residents has food stamps, food bank officials told Source New Mexico on Friday. 

For example, inflation has reduced how much food Roadrunner can buy with donations or grant funding, and the federal “Department of Government Efficiency” cuts to emergency food assistance programs earlier this year by 30 truckloads of food worth a little more than $1 million, according to Roadrunner officials. 

On Friday, that reduced budget meant food recipients had less variety to choose from, she said, as they walked through the line at the International District Library, though the food bank did happen upon a donation of flower bouquets, giving recipients a “surprise gift of joy.”

Still, Brown called it “frightening” to consider what will happen if the food bank has to rely solely on donations as people lose SNAP benefits, both at the distribution she runs and at food banks and other nonprofits across the state. 

“Even though the SNAP cuts haven’t quite happened yet, the [existing] benefits are not lasting as long,” she said. “So folks always do express how grateful they are that we’re here week after week, because they just wouldn’t be able to make it through the month.”

Food banks across New Mexico have previously warned that they don’t have the capacity to feed all New Mexicans if SNAP goes away. 

Jason Riggs, Roadrunner Food Bank’s director of advocacy and public policy, told Source New Mexico in a phone interview Friday that the Albuquerque food line, which is growing and feeding an increasingly diverse group of people across the income spectrum, is a harbinger of the near future after SNAP cuts go into effect. 

“Whenever there’s changes to SNAP, we see food lines grow,” he said. 
New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee analysts told lawmakers at an interim legislative meeting Wednesday that one-in-four New Mexico children live in households without consistent or adequate food. 

Of the roughly 460,000 New Mexicans who receive SNAP benefits, more than 36,000 could lose them entirely due to their immigration status or new work requirements, according to the LFC analysts. 

The Legislature will convene Oct. 1 in a special session primarily to discuss how the state will adapt to the federal cuts. 

Riggs said he hopes the Legislature focuses immediately on how it will mitigate the impacts of SNAP’s new work requirements, which go into effect Jan. 1. 

“Within months, there’s thousands of people that are suddenly going to be subject to work requirements,” he said, and the state has to figure out how to explain what’s happening and identify resources as soon as possible. 
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“All that has to happen extremely quickly in order for thousands not to just flat out lose SNAP. So regardless of where we point the finger for people losing SNAP, our concern at the food bank is people suddenly losing their food resource and relying more on our food pantries.”

Kyle Neri, who accepted some groceries from a food line Friday, said he’s worried about looming cuts to SNAP benefits, which inflation has already greatly diminished. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM)

One of the people who could lose benefits is Kyle Neri, a military veteran who has lived on Albuquerque streets for the last few years with his dogs Mama and Bailey. He picked up a bag of mandarins and tins of beans and oatmeal Friday morning, along with a Ziploc bag of dog kibble. 

He said a car crash a few years ago damaged his spine, but he was denied disability assistance. He’s making do with $120 a month in food stamps, he said, along with a veteran’s disability payment of $700 for his Army service in the late 1990s. But inflation is already making it nearly impossible, he said, to feed himself while trying to save for permanent housing. He said he’s “of course” worried about losing food stamps amid rising food costs. 

​“You spend, like, $20, you get nothing now,” he said. “I’m trying to get me housing. Out here, it’s rough.”