SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The government shutdown has halted child care and food benefits for millions of low-income Americans, including Head Start programs and a pause in Supplemental Nutritional Assistance payments.
NICOLE HINES: I received my last one about the 4 of October 'cause that's when I get mine. But I have not received them. I've been calling almost every day on my food stamps since the 4th and still not received anything.
SIMON: Nicole Hines is 38 years old. She lives in Davenport, Iowa, with her grandmother and 16-year-old daughter, who has an 8-month-old baby named Haylee (ph). Earlier this week, a federal court ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP benefits for November. By Friday - yesterday - the Trump administration appealed this. And just last night, the Supreme Court issued an administrative stay, which blocks the order to fully fund SNAP while the appeal plays out. Some states have started giving payments to their residents anyway. Many have not. Nicole Hines doesn't know when she will receive her money. And while she waits, she's trying to get by.
HINES: My daughter needs nutrition. My granddaughter is needing all that. So I'm taking over the responsibility of what my grandma used to do of making sure us kids ate before she did. I'm doing that to them now.
SIMON: Well, do you ever go hungry?
HINES: Not really. I make sure - you know, my daughter makes sure there's a little bit of food for me. Like, when we make potatoes and gravy, she makes sure there's, like, enough that I would eat because I don't eat much, but I eat enough to keep myself going.
SIMON: Have you gone to any food banks?
HINES: I go to the one at NorthPark Mall, the River Bend food pantry. We can go once a week. Sometimes they'll have meat, where we can get meat. Sometimes they have milk. Sometimes they have fruit. But it seems like some of their shelves are empty on some things because they're - I know they're getting low.
SIMON: Do you have to make choices in a given day what you're going to eat, where you're going to go, what you got to do?
HINES: Sometimes. Sometimes not. Like, sometimes I'll make a menu for the week of what food we have here at the house. And that way, me and my daughter know kind of what we're making that night.
SIMON: What do you make?
HINES: Sometimes I'll make chicken breasts that are dipped in eggs and then breaded with flour or bread crumbs, and then I'll fry them and make mashed potatoes and gravy. And sometimes we'll eat green beans so Haylee can have the green beans. And she's doing really well of eating green beans and potatoes. We're going to try her on peas soon.
SIMON: If you have an 8-month-old that's eating vegetables, (laughter) I am in awe. Good work.
HINES: Yeah. She's doing really good with them.
SIMON: She was in Head Start, but it closed?
HINES: Yeah. It closed October 31. They gave us a paper saying that since the government was shut down, that Head Start had to close down until further notice. Me and my daughter were a little upset about it because Head Start was our lifeline. I could do schoolwork why Haylee was at Head Start. My daughter could go to high school and get her education. With Head Start closing, it's hard to do anything with a single - you know, single mom and single grandma because we don't have other places we could take her.
SIMON: How's your daughter doing?
HINES: She's doing OK. I mean, stress of being a teenager, stress of having a baby. But she goes to school every day, sees her friends. They cheer her up. Sometimes she goes, Mom, can I go over to this person's house? She goes, will you watch Haylee so I could at least, you know, still be a teen? And I said, go. Haylee's sleeping. If she wakes up and needs you, I'll call you. You can come and get her and take her with your friends.
SIMON: You're a student, too, I gather, right?
HINES: Yep. I go to Southeastern Community College in Burlington online.
SIMON: OK. And can I ask what you're studying?
HINES: Early childhood education. Right now, I'm in field experience for school, which means I go into a daycare center once a week for three hours a day. But it's kind of hard when I have Haylee home right now.
SIMON: With Head Start closed, how is Haylee's day different?
HINES: Well, she's used to routine at Head Start. It's hard to do those routines because I'm not a person that sits on the floor all the time and does things. You know, I do other things in the house. And when she wasn't able to go back, she started crying. She just wasn't herself. She's just not a happy baby lately, and she's barely sleeping now.
SIMON: And was Haylee getting - I mean, was she getting food and supplies there too at Head Start?
HINES: Yep. They were paying for food, as in formula, baby food. They paid for cereal. They even paid for diapers. They even provided bottles. They provide everything there. And that helped us out a lot.
SIMON: Are these tough times?
HINES: It's really a tough time right now with the Head Start closing, food stamps not available for people, especially with Thanksgiving coming. It's kind of hard to get Thanksgiving dinner if I don't have the food stamps to do it because it is a lot of money to get stuff to make for Thanksgiving dinner. The other night, I was pretty much crying myself to sleep not knowing what's going to happen with - you know, how I'm going to get to daycare when I have Haylee all the time, if we're going to be able to do much with food. It's just - it's a lot of stress.
SIMON: How much longer do you think you can live like this?
HINES: Probably a couple more weeks.
SIMON: Couple more weeks. That's not a lot of time.
HINES: No. I mean, I'm going to see if I can find other pantries and things like that to go to just to get by. But I'm just hoping that they open up so everybody can go back to their lives and be able to eat and survive.
SIMON: Nicole Hines, Davenport, Iowa. Thanks so much for being with us.
HINES: Yep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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