The customers at Bread For The City are typically homeless, elderly, disabled, or living in deep poverty. But D.C.’s largest food pantry is now serving a new category of people in need: unpaid federal workers and contractors.
On Tuesday, volunteers at the facility in the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest D.C. worked quickly as they packed groceries into shopping bags for a long line that included many furloughed workers.
“We’re working. We’re not getting paid. It’s not fair,” said one federal worker waiting in line who didn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisals.
She’s one of the roughly 400,000 “essential” federal employees who still have to work but aren’t getting paid. She said she’s taking care of two children as her day-to-day life unravels.
“I get up, go to work, come home and wonder how long my food is going to last,” she said.
Others in line had been sidelined by the shutdown.
Janine Sanford with Bread For The City estimates that one in three people who visited the food pantry on Tuesday were federal employees or contractors.Patrick Madden / WAMU
“It’s disrespectful to the federal workers who have been there for years and have dedicated their lives to public service,” said one woman, a furloughed federal worker who didn’t want to be identified for fear of possible repercussions. “It’s really an embarrassment.”
Federal contractors also showed up to the food pantry. Unlike federal employees, contractors are unlikely to receive any back pay when the government reopens.
“Some people live paycheck-to-paycheck, so it’s hard,” said Robin Horne, a federal contractor who works in the cafeteria at the National Museum for African American History and Culture.
Horne says she’s supporting six children by herself and is relying on support from friends and food pantries.
Bread For The City is one of several area food banks offering help for federal workers and contractors.
“This does not feel like your average Tuesday morning. It’s definitely busier,” said Janine Sanford, an official at Bread For The City.
Sanford estimated that one in three people visiting the food pantry were workers affected by the shutdown.
“When a government shutdown happens the people who really get hurt are the people at the lower rungs of the economic scale,” Sanford said.
This story originally appeared on WAMU.
