Mary Kennedy wheeled a small cart overflowing with paper grocery bags up to her apartment building, Kingsbury Tower.
She had just returned from the Greater Cleveland Food Bank’s community resource center. She picked up some apples, green onions and ground pork. The center on Waterloo always passes out good portions of meat, she said. She had plans to make egg rolls and couldn’t always find the ingredients in the stores near her at E. 89th and Hough.
At the food bank, she also grabbed raisins to pass out to the neighborhood kids, fruit cups for her blind neighbor who is nervous to leave the building and hot dog buns for an upcoming barbecue at her apartment. She snagged a few cans of tuna and cat food for the skinny black creature — a cat with no name — that wound through her legs when she arrived home.
“I wouldn’t turn a person down that needs help,” she said.
Across Cleveland, more and more seniors need help.
As grocery prices rise and the county’s population ages, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank saw demand among people over 60 grow 45% between 2019 and 2025, more steeply than adults and kids in the same time period.
“Many of our older adults are living on fixed income. So if they only have so much resource in a month, yet their living expenses are increasing, we see older adults having to make really tough choices,” said Jessica Morgan, the chief programs officer at the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.
Meanwhile, older adults — aged 55 to 64 — are some of the most likely to lose SNAP benefits under a new set of work rules handed down by Trump administration. And county cuts locally are reducing the number of home-delivered meals seniors can get each week.
I hoped to find out what these changes meant for the day-to-day lives of seniors in the area. So this summer, I spent time speaking with more than a dozen of them around Cleveland. I met most at a senior program at Fatima Family Center and at two federally-subsidized senior apartment buildings, Kingsbury Tower and University Tower.
Looking for advice on how to shop, cook and put food on the table? We’ve gathered tips from seniors, for seniors. Read more here — or share your own!
In those conversations, seniors shared the growing obstacles to getting food, from the new work requirements to shrinking SNAP benefits. They also shared solutions. For example, health insurance plans are helping many pay their grocery bill. For others, informal networks like the support Kennedy provides is increasingly important — as are the remaining services and resources that exist.
Here’s what I heard.
Catherine Gainey at Trinity Cathedral in September, a church where she began volunteering to keep her SNAP benefits.
Older adults are losing SNAP benefits under new work rules
Sixty-four-year-old Catherine Gainey was one of nearly 14,000 Cuyahoga County residents who lost SNAP benefits in the past year.
Two years ago, she retired after working as a chef. The $248 she received from the SNAP program helped keep her pantry full. This spring, though, her food assistance was cut, like thousands of others in her age range.
“So I got real smart,” Gainey said.
She read the paperwork the county sent her and realized new federal rules required her to work, volunteer or go to school.
In order to get her small retirement check, she couldn’t work many hours each month — so a part-time job was out. She walked to the library near her apartment in the Central neighborhood to ask about volunteer opportunities. Staff there suggested the food bank’s community resource center on Cleveland’s East Side. For Gainey, that would require an hour-long ride by public transit.
“I can’t even get no food stamps. How am I going to catch the bus every day?” Gainey said.
The library also recommended Trinity Cathedral, a church within walking distance of her. That’s where Gainey found a solution to get her benefits back. After hearing her plight, church leaders offered her an opportunity. She could volunteer there, cleaning, watering plants, doing laundry and helping serve free hot meals to the public. At first, Gainey worked on a trial basis. After a couple weeks, the church invited her to stay on longer-term.
The arrangement was new for staff at Trinity Cathedral, who typically deal with volunteers that come in once a month or week for a couple hours. Gainey needed 20 hours a week. The church had to assign Gainey a supervisor and find work that fit both her skillset and their needs, said Eric Travis, who works as the church’s associate for congregational ministry.
“It is feasible, but only for a single person. We could not support a number of people,” Travis said.
Gainey doesn’t mind the work. She likes staying active and spending time in the century-old chapel, with its stained glass windows and intricate stone carvings.
The biggest pain point is the paperwork. Every month, she walks to the county’s Department of Job and Family Services building on Payne Avenue with the sheet of paper confirming her volunteer hours. There, she scans it in to make sure they won’t cut off her benefits again.
That’s more frequent than is required. But she and Travis are being extra careful, so that her food stamps won’t “have a chance to unintentionally lapse,” Travis said. She just has four more months to go. At the end of January, she’ll turn 65, and the work requirement will no longer apply to her. She’ll keep volunteering, if the church will let her, Gainey said.
Anna Washington, in the black hat, plays a game with other Kingsbury Tower residents about nutrition. Kindred Harbor, a behavioral health and case management nonprofit, leads the classes. (Mikey Indriolo/Signal Cleveland)
SNAP benefits fall far short of grocery costs, some seniors say
Many seniors I spoke with still received SNAP benefits in spite of the new work requirements, which don’t apply to people over 65.
But they had their own issues with the program: Namely, that it paid for barely a fraction of their grocery bill.
The federal government estimates it costs women over 70 about $260 a month to feed themselves on the thriftiest possible budget. But 86-year-old Mabel Messam gets a little over $20 a month. Seventy-one-year-old Mary Morris gets $50 a month. Anna Washington, who is over 65 but declined to share her specific age, gets $26 a month — enough for a “loaf of bread and milk,” she joked.
Nikki Williams, the social service coordinator for Kingsbury Tower, helps residents at the building sign up for SNAP. But many turn her down, daunted by the required paperwork and frustrated with the small allotments.
“They don’t even want to go through it for the $23,” Williams said. “They’re like, it’s not even worth the headache.”
The food bank also hears complaints from seniors about how much they get from SNAP, Morgan said. She suspected that it’s mostly due to how the benefits are calculated — an opaque system that accounts for residents’ income, household size, monthly rent and utility costs. Social Security income or retirement counts against recipients, as does smaller family size. The program also assumes residents will stick to the cheapest possible food budget and spend 30% of their own income on groceries.
Still, the women I spoke to said the measly amount of assistance they receive feels far from the reality that ground beef costs nearly $7 a pound.
“I don’t eat a lot of meats no more. I eat fruits, vegetables, salads, stuff like that,” Washington said. “Grapes and oranges. I may eat some meat one time a week, maybe twice a week.”
The most frustrating part for many was that they used to receive more help. In the last couple of years, Valeria Ray, 77, remembers getting $100 a month in SNAP. Now, she receives $24 a month. She’s not sure why it’s shrunk, given the cost of groceries.
It may be because of the expiration of COVID-era benefits, said Emily Campbell, the president and chief executive officer for the Center for Community Solutions. During COVID, the federal government temporarily beefed up the amount residents received to spend on food. That expired in March 2023. Older adults who qualify for the lowest amount of SNAP benefits saw the steepest drop, falling from $281 to $23, according to the Food Research and Action Center.
For Brenda Lee, benefits she got from her insurance plan helped her pay for groceries in September.
The insurance “food cards” helping seniors buy groceries
Some seniors have found an unexpected source to help pay for their groceries and other basic necessities: their health insurance.
At least seven seniors told me they get more than a hundred dollars each month from CareSource, United HealthCare or another insurance company — money that can go toward groceries, rent and utilities. It typically comes in the mail on a preloaded card, which seniors often call over-the-counter cards because they originated to help patients buy items at the pharmacy.
“That’s what helps them get by,” Williams said.
In September, the benefit saved 73-year-old Brenda Lee after her SNAP card declined at the grocery store. She believes the county canceled her SNAP benefits because she couldn’t get recertified, a process to confirm residents still qualify for benefits. Lee said she called the county’s eligibility center to complete her interview but didn’t get through to a worker.
So she used her card from insurance at the grocery store, instead. She gets about $200 a month. Spending it at the grocery store meant she could make the healthy meals she likes to eat — salmon patties, grits and shrimp, baked chicken.
“I’m a diabetic, and I don’t want to eat something that’s going to make me sick,” Lee said.
But it put her in a tricky spot with her other bills. While Lee doesn’t pay rent since she owns her home, she typically uses the insurance card to pay for electricity, gas, water and sewer utilities.
Another senior, Mary Morris, also said her “food card” from insurance keeps her afloat. A few years ago, she received more than $200 in SNAP benefits. Now, they’ve dwindled to $50. So she started going to the food pantry and relied on donated groceries from her apartment complex.
Then, she found out about a benefit through her Medicare Advantage plan: $392 a month. She still goes to the food pantry but is now typically able to put it off until the end of the month.
The challenge? To get an over-the-counter card that can be spent on groceries, residents need the right kind of insurance. Only Medicare Advantage plans — instead of traditional Medicare — offer these cards. And not all of them do, said Becky Hayward, an outreach and education supervisor through Ohio’s Senior Health Insurance Information Program. Plus, seniors need to qualify as chronically ill to get the benefit.
Are you eligible for a grocery benefit through your health insurance? Signal Cleveland has a guide here to learn more. The Ohio Senior Health Insurance Information Program can also help seniors determine which Medicare plan is best for you. This service offers free, objective one-on-one counseling. The program can be reached by phone at 800-686-1578.
Mario Esquivel at home in his Kingsbury Tower apartment this July. He hung a homemade sign on the front door.
Mobility challenges? Try home-delivered meals – or Crock-Pots
On most nights, 71-year-old Mario Esquivel heats up leftover “Crock-Pot special” in his microwave — chicken he stewed alongside whatever veggies, beans and rice he has on hand. He even added papaya once, after his building got a free delivery of it.
Esquivel spent years working as a chef but was laid off after COVID. After that, he needed back surgery. He can still walk, but he typically uses a rolling walker to get around. The Crock-Pot is his solution.
“If I put it in a Crock-Pot, I’m not over the stove all day,” Esquivel said.
For some seniors, the ability to physically shop for and cook food is nearly as tough as rising prices.
Home-delivered meals eliminate most of these challenges — a “blessing,” said 70-year-old Ann Ferguson, who receives them from Catholic Charities St. Martin de Porres Family Center. She lives by herself and doesn’t cook much anymore. She is still mobile, but her hands are not functioning like they used to after working as a seamstress for over 40 years, she said.
Michael Beasley at Wade Oval in July.
Sixty-seven-year-old Michael Beasley, who uses a walker, also relies on them. While he is able to get to the grocery store on the bus, the meals mean he doesn’t have to make the trek all the time. On a summer Wednesday, he planned to reheat a Salisbury steak meal for dinner.
St. Martin de Porres is able to deliver meals in part from federal funding distributed by the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging. The meals through this program are free — though donations are accepted — and there’s no income limit, said Joey Tomsick, the agency’s director of the program development and planning department. Instead, residents qualify by showing they are physically unable to make their own meals or shop for groceries.
The home-delivery program at St. Martin de Porres has a waitlist, though, said Karnese McKenzie, the organization’s director. There’s not enough funding to keep up with the growing demand from seniors, she said, which she attributes to rising grocery prices.
Other agencies that offer affordable or free meal deliveries are also seeing demand outstrip supply.
The Benjamin Rose Institute’s Meals on Wheels program has a waitlist, wrote Julie Hayes, the organization’s marketing manager. So does Cuyahoga County, which delivers seniors 20 meals a month for $5 through its Options for Independent Living program. The number of meals per senior it’s able to pass out each month also shrank this year due to county budget cuts, said Natasha Pietrocola, the director of Cuyahoga County’s Division of Senior and Adult Services.
At Kingsbury Tower, resident Leonard Marshall drops senior food boxes off at tenants’ doors.
Neighbors who close the last mile
Even with the bevy of nonprofits and government programs in place to help senior residents stock their pantries, family members, neighbors and social service workers often close the final mile.
At Kingsbury Tower, Williams, the service coordinator, works with the food bank to get food boxes and produce dropped off on-site, so residents don’t need to travel. After it arrives, Leonard Marshall, a resident, helps deliver the food boxes door-to-door.
“That way they don’t gotta come down,” he said. “Cause a lot of ladies is on the walkers.”
Patricia Henderson Elam passes out pre-prepared meals to her neighbors at University Tower in September.
Patricia Henderson Elam, 75, lives at University Tower near Wade Park Avenue and E. 105, and volunteers to coordinate the distribution of home-delivered meals from St. Martin de Porres to her neighbors. Elam sets up a table on the first floor, calling the 23 residents who are signed up to come down the elevator to pick up the bags. She’s able to shuffle the meals around according to her neighbors’ tastes, so that less food will be wasted. For example, some residents like milk, and others hate it. She saves the milk from the ones likely to throw it away and shares it with those who will drink it.
Early on, Elam — who often goes by Miss Pat — thought about quitting. An older gentleman discouraged her from doing so.
“He said, ‘Miss Pat, honestly, if you don’t do it, I won’t eat,’” Elam said.
Victoria Williams, Rita Harris and Leonard Marshall grill ribs for a tenant council fundraiser.
Other residents – like Rita Harris and Victoria Williams at Kingsbury – cook and share hot meals. One Friday in August, the two friends grilled ribs that they planned to sell the next night at a fundraiser for the tenant council. The money helps them make soup to give away to neighbors when they host a ‘soup kitchen’ a couple times a month. They take the meal door-to-door because some residents who are blind or can’t cook don’t leave their apartments.
These informal networks are not perfect solutions, though. Especially in environments of scarcity, neighbors putting in extra work sometimes feel underappreciated and overburdened.
Kennedy — the woman who shared groceries from the food bank with her neighbors — lamented how many don’t take her up on offers to try using senior transportation services so they can go themselves. She often feels frustrated that she, a 74-year-old living barely above the poverty level, is who her neighbors turn to for assistance. After all, Kennedy has a challenging set of circumstances herself. She has to keep a close watch on her health to make sure her cancer doesn’t return. She can’t drive because of her fading eyesight. She’s pre-diabetic.
“It’s tiring, you know,” Kennedy said. “… I’m going through enough with this body. And I keep going every day.”
Mary Kennedy, left, and Youvaughnda Hunter, center, outside Kingsbury Tower on a September morning.
