The city of Jacksonville will contribute $200,000 to help residents contending with the loss of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits stemming from the federal government shutdown.
Jacksonville City Council voted 17-0 on Nov. 12 to approve Ordinance 2025-0857, which provides the city funding to Feeding Northeast Florida. Council members Matt Carlucci and Terrance Freeman were not present for the vote.
The ordinance states that Feeding Northeast Florida will use the funding to purchase food and pay freight costs to provide emergency food assistance to Duval County residents.
“Distribution of this food will either be coordinated with existing and pop-up emergency events throughout the County or FNEFL will host large-scale mobile pantry distributions at its partner locations,” the ordinance reads.
The ordinance was approved on a one-meeting emergency basis. Another measure that would give $2 million in city funding to Feeding Northeast Florida, Ordinance 2025-0858, is headed to Council committees.
Feeding Northeast Florida is a Jacksonville-area food bank that services Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties. The organization says it distributes 97,000 meals daily.
SNAP is a federally funded program that supplements low-income households’ food budgets. It stopped distributing full funds at the end of October as the shutdown reached the one-month mark.
The city estimates that 160,000 Jacksonville residents received SNAP benefits in 2023. Parvez Ahmed, city chief of analytics, said those figures have likely increased over the past two years. He estimated that Jacksonville residents were receiving $30 million a month in SNAP benefits before the shutdown.
Colman Shepard, Feeding Northeast Florida’s public policy and government relations director, said the $200,000 commitment from Council would provide around two weeks of supplies.