Nonprofits feel strain as thousands lose benefits

A version of the following article appeared in the October 12, 2026, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.

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by Lindsey Banks

Last month, a Mecklenburg County resident called Nourish Up, Charlotte’s largest food pantry, in a panic. Their food stamp benefits had been reduced to just $24 a month. That’s a stark difference from the $175 that the average Mecklenburg County SNAP recipient received each month last year, according to county data.

It’s a situation that Tina Postel, CEO of Nourish Up, says her organization is hearing more often as cuts and changes to federal assistance programs take effect.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July 2025, introduced stricter eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), locally called Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), and Medicaid. Among the most significant changes, local experts say, are expanded work requirements for adults ages 55 to 64 — a group previously exempt because of age — and a shift from annual to six-month recertifications.

As those changes rolled out this year, local officials and nonprofit leaders are preparing for potentially thousands of Charlotte-area residents to lose benefits, leaving those people to seek assistance elsewhere. 

Leaders at organizations like Nourish Up, which operates 41 food pantries throughout the Charlotte area, are concerned about whether they can accommodate an influx of people previously supported by government assistance. 

And if they can’t, some residents could find themselves without enough food, health insurance, or both. 

Mecklenburg County has already reported a noticeable decline in SNAP participation, although officials caution that not all of it can be attributed to the new federal law. 

According to Ellese Massey, assistant division director for Mecklenburg County's Department of Community Resources, the county averaged 151,606 SNAP participants during the fiscal year ending June 2025, before the law was enacted. 

That number declined to 138,101 during the following fiscal year, Massey said, and since July 2026, participation has averaged 128,596, a nearly 7% decrease from the previous year. 

Massey said the county can’t differentiate between how many residents lost benefits directly because of the legislation or because of economic conditions, unemployment and other factors that influence participation. However, the county did confirm anecdotally that a significant number of residents who previously qualified are no longer eligible under the new requirements. 

One of the biggest changes to SNAP and Medicaid expanded the work requirements to adults ages 55 to 64, a population previously exempt because of age. The new requirement took effect for SNAP participants on Dec. 1, 2025; the change for Medicaid will go into effect at the beginning of 2027. 

Certain exceptions remain, including for qualifying medical conditions and disabilities, caregiving responsibilities and pregnancy. However, participants must log at least 80 hours of work per month, which can include school, training or volunteering. 

The county hasn’t experienced a corresponding decline in SNAP applications, Massey said. Residents are still seeking assistance, but fewer are actively receiving benefits. 

The changes have also caused confusion among recipients trying to determine whether they are still eligible, and the process of recertification isn’t straightforward.  

For some residents, losing benefits might have less to do with whether they qualify and more to do with navigating a complicated application and recertification process. 

Karina Barnes, a benefits navigator with Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, which provides legal assistance for low-income people, said that additional document requirements and more frequent recertifications could cause eligible residents to lose assistance simply because they miss deadlines or submit incorrect paperwork. Residents now have to apply for recertification every six months, instead of one year. 

Proving employment can be particularly difficult for people who are self-employed or work informal jobs, Barnes said, such as housecleaning, landscaping or construction. The required documents can also differ from state to state, which adds another layer of confusion for people who have recently moved to the area. 

And the consequences don’t stop there, Barnes said. The additional paperwork and frequency of it will increase workloads, potentially “by double,” for already stretched social services departments and nonprofit navigators. 

CCLA previously had 12 benefits navigators but now has three, Barnes said, due to funding cuts last year. It’s reduced the number of healthcare enrollment appointments the nonprofit can take on by more than 80%. 

The center and Mecklenburg County officials, however, report that their workload has remained relatively steady so far. But because SNAP’s new six-month renewal requirement is coming due for the first time for many participants, and Medicaid’s requirements haven’t kicked in yet, Barnes worries that will change. 

In addition to the eligibility shake-up, some of the organizations that assist low-income people are facing funding constraints of their own. On Friday, CCLA said in a press release that it is joining two other North Carolina legal aid organizations in suing the state over legislation that redirected more than $15M annually from civil legal aid to criminal defense services.

“The organizations that provide civil legal services have had to take on fewer cases due to the funding diversion,” CCLA said in a statement.

The consequences are already showing up in Nourish Up’s call center. 

Postel said staff members regularly hear from residents whose FNS benefits have been reduced or terminated, including first-time clients who previously had enough assistance to avoid visiting food pantries. 

Although Nourish Up’s traditional pantry visits have remained relatively typical, demand for its food-sharing program has surged, especially as the cost of groceries and other living expenses rise. According to an analysis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, beef prices were 5.9% higher in August 2026 compared to August 2025; fresh fruit was 3.8% higher for the same time period; and vegetables were 2.6% higher. 

In August 2025, the organization served approximately 21,000 people through its Food Shares program, which distributes surplus fresh food for anyone who shows up, no questions asked. This August, that number climbed to 38,718, an 83% increase. 

To accommodate the demand, Nourish Up expanded the program from approximately one distribution per week to three. 

Postel also said Nourish Up has experienced a 50% reduction in food received from the Emergency Food Assistance Program, a federal program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture that provides free food to low-income individuals through food pantries and banks, forcing the nonprofit to purchase more groceries. 

Even with strong community donations and volunteer support, nonprofits cannot replace government assistance on that scale. 

Mecklenburg County residents received approximately $24M in monthly SNAP benefits as of last November. Nourish Up, meanwhile, operates on an annual budget of about $7M, Postel said. 

Food insecurity challenges have already begun; health insurance could be next. 

More than 345,600 people are expected to fall off the Medicaid rolls in North Carolina next year when the new age eligibility restrictions take effect Jan. 1, NC Health News reported last month, due to either the new requirements or a complicated recertification process. 

Barnes said changes to Medicaid eligibility for non-citizens, which began last week, could leave previously eligible residents without health insurance. In order to qualify, non-residents must meet typical Medicaid requirements and either have a green card or qualify for an exemption, like women who are pregnant, recently had a baby or children 18 or under. More than 66,800 documented noncitizens were enrolled in Medicaid in August, NC Health News reported. 

The changes could also have implications for families receiving other government assistance, like WIC, which provides assistance to women, infants and children under age 5. 

A National WIC Association analysis estimated in June 2025, as the bill was about to be signed into law, that approximately 3 million out of 8 million WIC participants in the U.S. could lose their income eligibility if they lose Medicaid coverage. 

Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy offers nutrition and health insurance resource guides in multiple languages for residents who lose assistance, but those resources could become overwhelmed as more people turn to nonprofits for help. 

If those organizations can’t keep up, Barnes said, thousands of Mecklenburg County residents could be left without the food and medical care they need. 

Lindsey Banks is assistant editor for The Charlotte Ledger. Reach her at [email protected]. 

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