In its 42 years of serving families in west Houston, the Mission Bells food pantry has never been busier.
Each week, more than 550 individuals typically show up to Christ the King Episcopal Church in Mission Bend, picking up food during one of the nonprofit’s two distribution days. The count has more than doubled in the past year, said Mission Bells director and pantry manager Vas Kenyen.
“The need has increased significantly, even though people are gainfully employed,” Kenyen said. “Still, the money they’re making isn’t enough to meet housing, medical expenses and food. What happens is, after paying for the house and the medical bills and other necessities, there’s not enough left for food.”
The increased demand at Mission Bells comes as enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, has fallen sharply across the region over the past year, in part due to new federal laws tightening access to the food benefits program and expanding work requirements for some recipients.
Between June 2025 and June 2026, about 155,000 fewer people in the nine-county Houston metro area were approved to receive SNAP benefits, an 18% decline, according to Texas Health and Human Services data. Children accounted for slightly more than half of the decline.
With the drop, local SNAP enrollment fell in June to the lowest level — about 710,000 residents — since at least January 2022, the earliest month with available data published by state officials.
The enrollment drop likely will increase the rate of food insecurity in Harris County and beyond. In mid-2024, a Kinder Institute survey of more than 5,200 Harris County residents found nearly 40% of households experienced food insecurity, defined as facing uncertain or unstable access to enough nutritious food at some point over the prior 12 months.
“(SNAP) enrollment numbers tell us who's getting help, not necessarily who still needs it,” said Sejal Mistry, a researcher with the Kinder Institute’s Center for Community and Public Health.
“To understand what's really happening, we need to look at both the data and what families, food banks, the people who help families apply for SNAP and community organizations are seeing and experiencing every day. Together, those perspectives give us a more complete picture.”
A rapid reduction
For decades, SNAP has served as the largest national food benefits program in the U.S., helping to feed tens of millions of people each year. In Texas, about 1.5 million households received an average of about $375 each month over the past year.
Historically, SNAP enrollment has fluctuated with economic, policy and other cultural shifts. But the decline over the past year is exceptionally large.
Across the nine counties in the Houston metro area, the declines in SNAP enrollment ranged from 14% (Galveston County) to 23% (Austin County). Total payments to local households decreased from about $158 million in June 2025 to $125 million in June 2026.
The number of Houston-area children approved for SNAP benefits dropped year over year from about 444,000 to 359,000, a 19% decline. SNAP enrollment fell 21% for adults age 18 to 64 and was virtually unchanged for adults age 65 or older.
The declines coincided with new eligibility rules included in the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act that took effect in the second half of 2025.
Under the regulations, able-bodied adults under the age of 65 without dependents must complete at least 80 hours a month of work, job training or volunteering to keep their benefits. Previously, the requirements only applied to people under the age of 55.
The new regulations also limit or deny SNAP benefits to a larger share of people, including refugees and asylees who aren’t legal permanent residents and adults caring for children between the ages of 14 and 17 who aren’t meeting work requirements.
Brian Greene, president and CEO of the Houston Food Bank, added that some SNAP recipients who still qualify for benefits are opting out of the program because they’re uncertain about the new rules or worried about penalties for failing to meet work requirements.
“The rate at which people are calling for charitable food assistance has increased dramatically, which would be somewhat consistent with people thinking, ‘I’m not going to be eligible. How am I going to get by?’” Greene said.
The growing need
Already, food pantries are struggling to meet the increased demand for help.
Greene said the Houston Food Bank has received additional donations to address some of the need, but it’s constrained by the quantity of food it can collect, store and prepare. The amount of food distributed to residents so far this year is “actually close to flat” compared to 2025, he said.
“Philanthropy did go up for us, so we were able to do a bit more,” Greene said. “But when you ask what we do with surging demand, the main thing is we spread the food out thinner.”
At Mission Bells, organizers are securing enough food to serve families via the Houston Food Bank and community partners, but distribution is a growing issue.
“We can find the food, but we don’t always know how to get it to our location,” Kenyen said. “That’s our main issue: finding enough volunteers.”
Mistry said the consequences of lower SNAP participation likely will extend beyond hunger.
Kinder Institute research published last November found residents of food-insecure households were more than twice as likely than those in food-secure households to rate their physical health as “poor” or “fair.” Nearly half of those without reliable food access reported not receiving needed medical care for a physical condition in the past year, compared to 39% of food-secure residents.
“When families are in survival mode, it becomes much harder to prioritize preventive care and manage their health,” Mistry said. “We can’t expect people’s health to improve when they’re struggling to meet one of their most basic needs.”
