Tourist towns see rising hunger in the off-season

By late September, the striped umbrellas are folded, the taffy shops go dark and the only thing moving along the boardwalk is the autumn wind. That’s when the lines start forming — not at the seafood stands, but at the food banks.

The coastal summer vacation has long been a staple of middle-class Americana, but what happens when the tourists go home? What happens when the middle class isn’t so middle anymore, and the people who make those postcard-perfect towns run are left counting the dollars in their wallets — or the cans in their cupboards?

Across the country, the communities that thrive in July are tightening their belts by November. From the South Carolina Lowcountry to the Jersey Shore to the islands of Massachusetts, food banks are seeing year-round workers — teachers, servers, landscapers, fishermen — lining up for help in numbers not seen since the pandemic. The difference now, many say, is that the problem isn’t temporary anymore. 

And with the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” it’s about to get worse.

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” — formally known as HR-1, the federal reconciliation package passed earlier this year — was pitched by lawmakers as a way to “restore fiscal sanity” and “reward work.” But beneath that language, the bill slashed hundreds of millions in funding for the country’s food assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program. For the nation’s 200-plus food banks, it’s been described as a perfect storm: federal cuts colliding with a government shutdown, inflation and a cost-of-living crisis that hasn’t let up.

“This isn’t something we can just backfill,” said Cindy Huddleston, a senior policy analyst with the Florida Policy Institute. “Where are they going to get this, potentially more than $1 billion a year to be able to support [SNAP]? Unless the state steps in — and we’ve seen no plan for that — food banks are going to be left picking up the pieces.”

And Huddleston isn’t confident that food banks and other community groups could even afford to pick up that slack. 

Florida’s challenges, she added, are especially sharp in coastal counties, where the cost of a meal is already 47% more than what SNAP allows. “People were already stretching their benefits to the end of the month. Now, they simply won’t make it,” says Huddleston.  

SNAP is an optional program, and there is some worry across Florida that the state could potentially back out completely. Florida was one of 15 states that chose not to participate in SunBucks, a new federal summer meals program designed to help low-income families feed their children when school is out. “That was $120 per child that could have gone directly to families,” Huddleston said. “Instead, the state turned it down.”

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There are nearly one million children in Florida receiving SNAP benefits. Officials argued that existing programs already filled the gap, but Huddleston said that’s misleading. “Most of those programs require transportation, and a lot of families can’t get to a feeding site every day. It’s really only able to serve a small percentage,” she said. “[SunBucks] would have brought hundreds of millions [of dollars] to the state to feed millions of children.”  

Regardless, Huddleston says Florida backing out of SNAP is a worst case scenario and she’s “cautiously optimistic” that lawmakers will realize the importance of these programs. 

“The value of the program and the long term effects, you really can’t understate those things,” she says, “We’re worried because we haven’t seen any planning, and the planning has to begin now. It needed to begin yesterday.”

When the season ends, so do paychecks 

For Nick Osborne, CEO of the Lowcountry Food Bank in South Carolina, the challenge isn’t just size — it’s diversity. His network spans 10 coastal counties, serving both rural and urban communities across the Lowcountry.

Osborne says the landscape of Lowcountry has changed a lot in the past five years with many, often wealthy, people from the North moving down South for lower cost of living. 

“In many senses, that’s brought wealth into the area but it’s also created some displacement,” says Osborne, “House prices, cost of living have gone up especially along the coast in more sort-of touristy places, so that’s created a dynamic as well and put pressure on people living there.” 

One of the biggest issues facing the Lowcountry Food Bank is the vast differences between their service areas. 

“During the height of the tourism season, there are a lot of people that are dependent on the hospitality industry, but then in the off season that then creates a challenge because obviously those jobs are no longer there so you see a fluctuation trend in terms of food insecurity,” says Osborne, “If you go to the southern part of our service area, which is more rural, that’s more sort of generational poverty but they’ve also got seasonality with the farming system.”

He says the Gullah Farm Community has a deep-rooted history of farming on the Southern Coast, and they’re being heavily impacted not just by farming cycles, but also by developers trying to build on their lands. When harvests slow, so do paychecks — leaving agricultural workers just as vulnerable as those who depend on tourism.

In Horry County, which includes Myrtle Beach, he said the food bank sees a clear pattern: when the tourist season ends, need spikes. “During the summer, food insecurity is around 11%,” Osborne said. “In the off-season, that can climb closer to 20%.”

The Lowcountry Food Bank’s response has been to meet communities where they are, literally: mobile distribution sites, refrigerated trucks, and partnerships with local farms help get food into areas where traditional pantries are out of reach. But Osborne said those efforts can’t fully make up for the loss of federal aid. “When SNAP is cut, we see an immediate increase in demand,” he said. “Us at the Food Bank, we have to fill that gap, in a context where costs are already going up and the resource access we have is getting lower.”

New Jersey’s shoreline: Living at the edge of wealth 

At the Community Food Bank of New Jersey (CFBNJ), CEO Elizabeth McCarthy said that as soon as the summer crowds leave, the phones start ringing. “We see an uptick at all of our pantries,” she says, “Anywhere from 10 to 20% increase very quickly after the season ends.”

New Jersey is home to some of the wealthiest zip codes in the country — and some of the hungriest.  

Over 1 million people in New Jersey report being food insecure, and many of them live in food deserts, an area with limited access to affordable, nutritious food. There are 50 food desert communities across New Jersey, including densely populated cities like Trenton and Atlantic City. McCarthy says Atlantic City doesn’t even have a “full grocery store,” most residents rely on bodegas or smaller markets for grocery shopping. Earlier this year, a $30 million grant program was approved by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to combat food insecurity, but will it be enough to combat an exponentially increasing issue or will it just be another Band-Aid on these evolving problems? 

The food bank puts a lot of resources into mobile pantries or farm-to-pantry initiatives that get fresh produce into these food desert communities. With the proposed HR-1 cuts not only are these programs at risk, but the small businesses where SNAP users currently shop will be impacted as well. SNAP users are crucial for the small-business economy. For every dollar spent with SNAP benefits, the USDA says the U.S. gross domestic product increases by $1.54. That increase could support nearly 14,000 additional jobs annually. 

“I think we’re going to see, especially smaller grocery stores, or grocery stores that are in areas with a concentrated level of poverty, we will see places closing down,” says McCarthy. 

Food insecurity in New Jersey has increased 65% since the height of the Covid pandemic. Of the over a million people who are food insecure, 45% are above the SNAP threshold and may not qualify for benefits. 

“They’re consistently facing, kind of the lack of predictability of their work and therefore their income, so for a lot of people, that also affects where they can live.”

McCarthy says it’s a very “transient population” in the beach towns, especially the south shore. A lot of people live in motels throughout the year, but when rates go up in the summer, they can’t afford it anymore. Many are forced to move to the streets until the rates go down again.

Ali Stefanik, Assistant Director of neighbor experience at CFBNJ, oversees all the direct services out of Egg Harbor Township, which covers Atlantic County, Cape May County, and Cumberland County. 

She said the shift has been striking. “We’re starting to see families or populations who’ve never needed help before,” she said. “People who own seasonal restaurants or work on farms — they had a decent summer, but not enough to carry them through the winter.”

“We have seen skyrocketing numbers of ALICE households across all three of our counties, and this is true of most coastal communities I’ve talked to,” says Stefanik, “Poverty, by federal definitions, might be declining but ALICE households are growing and it’s in two directions.” 

ALICE stands for “Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed.” These are families who work full-time but still can’t afford basic expenses like food and housing.

Stefanik says individuals and families are climbing just slightly out of the federal poverty level into ALICE status, and large numbers are falling from “not wealthy, but comfortable” into the ALICE threshold. 

Less and less people can afford to go out, which is making the New Jersey summers end sooner, heavily affecting the seasonal economy. “They’re paying all their employees, they paid their bills, but are they going to have enough money to feed their families until they can open again? This is what we’re starting to see more and more,” she says. 

Like coastal South Carolina, New Jersey has an extremely varied population — from dense urban centers to vast rural farmlands — in a very small land area. The seasonal workers are some of the most at-risk with the HR-1 bill because new work requirements may make them ineligible for benefits in the off-season. 

“Other states have this too, but for us, it’s such a concentrated area. We have incredibly rural areas. We have lots of suburban areas. We have very densely populated urban areas,” says McCarthy, “We need lots of different responses to the problem, there is no one size fits all for what we have.”

At the same time, the cost of running food banks has skyrocketed. McCarthy says their federal food allotment is down 35%. “We’re really looking internally to see if there is anything we can do to become more efficient, to make sure that we’re operating as close to the margin as we can and just put our funds toward purchasing food.”

McCarthy says they’ve told partners that they won’t cut any food distribution for now, but as demand starts increasing, there’s an increased pressure and need to purchase more food to meet that demand. The food bank might not be able to raise the funds to cover that gap. 

Stefanik says that the food bank spends about $90 million annually across the state. If the HR-1 cuts proceed, their budget would have to double to $180 million.

“There’s no way we can do that,” she says, “We’re really well supported, our supporters are incredibly generous, but there’s no way we can come up with another 90 million dollars.” 

Unfortunately, that means either less food for the people they’re serving or less reach for some harder to access communities. CFBNJ puts a lot of work into reaching as many people as possible through programs like mobile pantries, refrigerated lockers, and even home delivery. These programs may have to stop or be dramatically reduced soon. 

“Realistically, we’re never going to recover if these SNAP changes stay the same as they are in the bill right now,” says Stefanik, “We’re just gonna get worse and worse and it’s gonna be harder for us to bounce back.” 

“Lunch for two at a deli costs $75” 

On Nantucket, where the median home price hovers around $2.3 million, even teachers, nurses and Coast Guard members struggle to afford groceries. Nearly half of the island’s public school students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and the local food pantry reports record demand every fall.

A recent Boston Magazine story described the contradiction well: “It’s a place where lunch for two at a deli costs $75, yet residents working two or three jobs still can’t make ends meet.”

That same paradox plays out in coastal communities nationwide. Tourists see abundance — the beach houses, the boutiques, the seafood shacks — but the year-round population lives in an entirely different economy.

“New Jersey is thought of as a wealthy state, people don’t always expect that there’s food insecurity,” says McCarthy, “I think people don’t understand just how many people live close to the edge and can’t withstand an emergency.” 

Priced out of paradise 

On the opposite ocean, there’s another island struggling with an affordability crisis. In Maui, the housing market is so inflated that even lifelong locals are being pushed off the island. “You’ve got billion-dollar homes right next to older, local homes,” said Brandi Saragosa, chief operating officer of the Maui Food Bank. “We call it ‘being priced out of paradise.’”

For Saragosa, the phrase isn’t a slogan — it’s lived experience. She and her three sisters once shared a six-bedroom house with their families, a multigenerational solution to Maui’s steep housing costs. “It’s just getting too expensive,” she said. “Minimum wage is now $12, but to buy a two-bedroom home is $900,000.”

When Covid hit, and again after the 2023 Maui wildfires, everything changed. “Everyone was unemployed because tourism is the main money generator for our islands,” she said, “You saw food banks having to feed the need, which felt impossible. We saw lines as long as 700 cars per distribution in each district.”

That sudden spike forced many residents to confront just how fragile the island’s food system had become. “It was alarming, but I think our community needed to see that and realize that we need to start looking inward.” 

Saragosa says that Hawaii’s food is 80 to 85% imported goods. This is a stat she personally has worked tirelessly to change. “We’re refocusing our energy to help sustain local farmers.” Saragosa said. They’ve created budgets and programs specifically to get local food into the food banks. Last fiscal year, they were able to send $1.1 million back to local growers. 

If Hawaii is less reliant on imports, that helps fuel the local economy, encourage local farming and growing, and protects the community when natural disasters could potentially destroy critical ports.

That strategy — keeping food and money local — has become central to the food bank’s philosophy. “We try to keep our money on island,” she said. “I truly believe it’s the high cost of living and the locals are being priced out of a place they’ve lived for generations.”

When the fires struck, food banks across the state had to join forces. “To take care of that scale, it was way too big for us,” she said. “You saw people using personal boats coming across the water to bring fuel and supplies. And that was all uncoordinated, it was just a rise of people helping the community.” 

She says that the unwavering community support and rise in awareness is part of what makes Hawaii so special, however, families still aren’t recovered. Many are still living in temporary housing sites. The food bank has developed mobile pantry programs to serve those groups, but this isn’t a viable long term solution. “We’re challenged with how we’re going to keep up this pace for a long time, because we don’t see anything changing legislatively,” she said, “This is a problem that’s not going to go away, but get worse.” 

Even a big Band-Aid can’t stop the bleeding 

Saragosa’s concern echoes what many food bank leaders across the country are saying: the crisis isn’t just about hunger, but policy. “Any cuts are not good.” She says a large percentage of Maui Food Bank’s distribution is from The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). “My first thought is how do we make up for that?” 

In response, the food bank has begun inviting local and state officials to see the problem firsthand. “The best way you can show anyone anything is to let them experience it,” she said. “Invite them to see our distributors, meet those families. If someone’s willing to take the time to do that, they will feel something, because that’s what we feel every day for these families.”

Maui’s government has shown interest — creating a Farm to Food Bank Fund — but Saragosa said the program’s reach falls far short. “The amount at the end of the day,” she said. “It’s only enough for us to source for maybe two days.”

That’s why she and her team have begun engaging in policy discussions through groups like the Hawaii Food Alliance. “We’re at these tables and discussions because we need to start making a change at that level — at least our state government level, and even our federal level — but at this point it doesn’t look very promising.”

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Saragosa said it feels daunting but necessary. “It feels like such a huge job, it’s overwhelming, but we’ve got to start with policy. We want to implement policies that truly help now and the next generation.”

The bank has recently launched educational programs to teach residents about business, local food systems, career paths, and how to become farmers themselves.

“We’re thinking of ourselves as this really big Band-Aid,” she said, “but we need to do more to stop the bleeding.”

A national reckoning for food banks 

Across the country, people are worried about what HR-1 cuts will do to their state’s already vulnerable communities. 

In Florida, Huddleston says she’s most worried for the immigrant community, many of whom are employed in agricultural hotspots like Miami Dade and Palm Beach. The expanded SNAP work requirements put all farmers who experience periods of unemployment between growing seasons at. 

“We rely on them, especially these local communities and their local economies, to get this job done. So we need to make sure that they don’t lose their food assistance,” she said. 

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a memo saying that states had until November 1 to start enacting the new SNAP work requirements. In a statement on October 4, The Food Resource and Action Center called this mandate “unreasonable,” saying, “All of this will lead to unnecessary chaos and confusion in the midst of widespread uncertainty, record inflation, and a government shutdown.”

On top of losing their food assistance, Huddleston says that many legal immigrants are worried about losing their immigration status as well, especially after the chaos following changes to H1-B visas earlier this month.  

In New Jersey, McCarthy worries about balancing the state’s wealthy reputation with the reality of the situation. They need to continue meeting all vulnerable groups in the ways that are best for them and do their best to decrease hunger and food insecurity while simultaneously dealing with tighter budgets, rising costs, and fewer resources. 

“It’s definitely harder to figure out the best responses [in a transient community],” says McCarthy, “Especially, if someone has diabetes or high blood pressure, that moving around and living in different places definitely has an impact on health.”

CFBNJ recently conducted a study tracking patients with diabetes and found that once they learned about food and how to eat for their disease, their missed work days dramatically decreased.  

“[If the cuts proceed as planned], people won’t be as healthy,” McCarthy said. “This program has been evaluated. It’s proven to work, and when people aren’t healthy, they can’t go to school or they can’t focus in school, for kids, or they can’t go to work.”

CFBNJ has already had to eliminate its nutrition education program due to funding losses, laying off about 30 staff members.

“Their job was to be in the community teaching people how to eat healthy food,” she said. “It was a great program. It was not only beneficial to those people’s lives that they were healthier, but even financially. I mean, the health care costs that you save down the road has been proven time and time again.”

Food insecurity rarely exists in isolation, McCarthy said. What pantries need now is a more “holistic response.” When food banks can pair families with social workers, she said, more than half of participants are off pantry lines within four to six months.

“If someone can actually meet with a family to help understand why they’re at the pantry and help them navigate that, we really see a difference,” she said. “Getting people food for today is incredibly important, but really looking at those longer term solutions is what we all need in the long run.”

Down the shore, Stefanik’s biggest concern is the rising cost of living and limited housing.

“In the summer, a lot of places will add a tourist tax. There’s no ‘locals discount’ at the grocery store,” she said. “And then wages aren’t keeping up with the costs, and the third thing that’s pretty unique about living down here is not just the cost of housing, but the fact that there’s no housing available.”

She said being able to rise out of the ALICE threshold often comes down to salaries, stability, and wage growth. Many residents in New Jersey’s southern counties are hourly workers, and even with a high minimum wage, the cost of living remains out of reach.

“The majority of properties sit empty for most of the year. The locals can’t secure housing to begin with, and then if they can, the cost to do so is like one of the highest in the country right now,” said Stefanik. “The ability to break into home ownership is almost impossible in the communities that we serve.”

The problem extends beyond New Jersey, she said—across nearly every coastal town, wealth and hardship exist side by side.

“When people think of someone living in poverty, most of us can imagine that, but when you think of an ALICE household — above the threshold but not comfortable — you want to paint a picture of a person that’s not like you because it feels safer, but that’s almost the entire population of people we’re serving,” said Stefanik.

She said one unexpected car repair or hospital bill can easily push families over the edge.

“You look at a place like New Jersey, and our tax dollars are so high, we’re being taxed at such a high rate, like is that really the best that we can do? And why is that the best that we’re doing for our people?” she said.

When crisis becomes the status quo 

In theory, food banks are built to respond to crisis — hurricanes, floods, pandemics. But in many of these places, crisis has become the status quo. Osborne said that in South Carolina, they’re already operating at their limits. “We’re distributing millions of pounds of food every year,” he said. “We’re serving more people than ever before, and it’s still not enough.”

In coastal communities around the country, the refrain is the same: private charity can’t replace public infrastructure. And while communities are adapting — through mobile pantries, food lockers, and expanded delivery programs — innovation can only go so far when the underlying problem is affordability and bad policy.

The story unfolding in America’s coastal towns isn’t just about hunger; it’s about the erosion of stability. The middle-class families who once filled hotels, rental homes, restaurants, and ice cream stands each summer are shrinking in number, while the workers who make those vacations possible can no longer afford to live where they work.

It’s a quiet crisis — one that surfaces every fall when the beaches clear and the storefronts board up. These are communities built on the idea of plenty, now confronting what scarcity really looks like.

For the families lining up at food banks from Hilton Head to Cape May to Maui, the promise of the American coastal dream feels increasingly out of reach. And unless something changes in Washington, the off-season may become the only season that matters.