Food banks and hunger relief organizations are seeing an increase in the number of people lining up for food packages and calling helplines since Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were halted on Nov. 1.
Nearly 42 million Americans have lost benefits meant to help low-income and vulnerable households pay for groceries.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that no SNAP benefits will go out to Americans until after the government reopens -- a day after the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in court it would make partial payments to recipients.
A USDA official told a federal judge on Monday that using emergency funds for the program could take "a few weeks to up to several months."
Meanwhile, food relief workers say calls from people asking for help are spiking and food banks may run out of supplies in a few weeks unless drastic action is taken or the government reopens.
Joel Berg, CEO of the nonprofit Hunger Free America, which works to end domestic hunger, told ABC News that calls to the organization's hunger hotline are higher than they were during the last week of October.
In September, the organization received 1,420 calls; in October, it received 1,691 calls. Berg expects the number of calls for all of November to be higher than the previous two months.
"We're certainly starting to hear anecdotal evidence of the massive spike," he told ABC News. "One agency in California, where we have someone based, said their number of people literally doubled over the previous distribution."
He continued, "And so, we're really seeing just a tremendous spike in people needing food and concern and fear, and to some degree, you know, panic and despair over the nation's largest source of food aid going away literally overnight."
Eric Cooper, president and CEO of San Antonio Food Bank, which serves 29 counties in southwest Texas, said the number of families seeking help has increased since it was first announced that there would be a disruption in SNAP benefits should the government shutdown continue.
Cooper said San Antonio Food Bank, which is part of the nonprofit organization Feeding America, typically feeds 105,000 to 120,000 people per week but is now seeing close to 170,000 people per week.