We often say that homelessness doesn’t begin the night someone walks through our doors. It begins months earlier for some, at the kitchen table, with a calculator, a stack of bills, and a grocery receipt that keeps getting longer.

In 2026, that grocery receipt is doing more damage than ever.

Food Prices Are Still Climbing

In our community and for Hoosiers across the state who are living paycheck to paycheck, rising food prices are at a breaking point, forcing tough decisions that only deepen instability.

  • According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ June 2026 report, grocery prices rose another 2.7% over the past year, and overall food prices are up 3.1%.
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows grocery prices have climbed roughly 25% since 2020, meaning the average household now spends $1,200 to $1,400 more per year on groceries than it did just six years ago.
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics data for the Midwest region show that all types of uncooked ground beef averaged a record $7.28 per pound in April 2026 — a 76% increase since January 2020 and the highest price ever recorded in the nearly 30 years the data has been tracked.
  • According to the USDA Economic Research Service, fresh vegetables cost 11.9% more than a year ago,  with fresh tomatoes up a staggering 32%.

Prices never went back down after the 2022 spikes. Every year of “moderate” inflation gets stacked on top of already painful prices.

Beef: A Symbol of the Squeeze

Nothing captures the pressure on family food budgets quite like beef. Once the centerpiece of an affordable family dinner, and often ground beef being the most affordable cut of meat, this is no longer the case:

  • Ground beef hit a record $6.90 per pound this spring,  up 77% since January 2020, when it cost $3.89.
  • USDA Economic Research Service data shows average retail beef prices reached a record $9.64 per pound in April, up 13% in a single year.
  • The USDA’s Food Price Outlook projects beef prices will climb another 10.1% in 2026, and the American Farm Bureau Federation reports the U.S. cattle herd is at its smallest in 75 years.
  • Agricultural economists interviewed by national outlets this spring warn prices may not meaningfully drop until 2030 or later.

Ground beef was once one of the most economical cuts of beef to feed a family. When a basic protein becomes a luxury, families don’t just change recipes. The rise in meat prices is not unique to beef; we’ve seen Chicken prices rise 36% and pork rise 30% since 2020. They start skipping meals or shortchanging other bills, such as rent, car payments, or utilities, to put food on the table. 

The Safety Net Is Shrinking at the Worst Possible Time

Just as food prices squeeze harder, federal food assistance is pulling back. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, made the largest cuts to SNAP (food stamps) in the program’s history:

  • An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that more than 3.5 million Americans lost SNAP benefits between July 2025 and February 2026, nearly 9% of everyone in the program.
  • According to the Congressional Budget Office, the law cuts about $187 billion in federal SNAP funding over the next decade, roughly 20%.
  • As reported by the Washington Post in July 2026, work requirements now extend to adults up to age 64, and exemptions were removed for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young adults leaving foster care, some of the most vulnerable populations.
  • The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also found that SNAP enrollment has dropped in every state, even though unemployment hasn’t improved.
  • The Congressional Budget Office projects that when states must begin paying a share of benefit costs on October 1, 2026, another 300,000 people will lose benefits each month, and 96,000 children will lose automatic free school meals.

Rising Costs and Funding Cuts Mean Hunger Is Worse Now Than During the Pandemic

This is not an exaggeration. This fact is directly from a survey of American households published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in May 2026:

  • The New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations found that 10% of families reported missing meals because they couldn’t afford food, up from 4% in 2020.
  • The same survey found nearly 16% of households relied on food donations.
  • Researchers at Purdue University’s Consumer Food Insights survey reported that nationally, food insecurity among SNAP participants surged to 46% in November 2025, a 10-point jump in a single year.
  • According to the USDA’s most recent count, 47.9 million people, including 7.3 million children, lived in food-insecure households nationwide.

Americans are having to prioritize rent or food in order to remain housed, and often this happens unsuccessfully, especially for families and older adults, and those who fall under ALICE (asset-limited, income-constrained employed). These are working adults who do not qualify for assistance because they do not fall below the federal poverty line, at which point assistance is available. 

For those who do qualify for assistance, that lifeline has been reduced and is harder to obtain and keep, leaving both groups with impossible choices. 

How a Grocery Bill Becomes an Eviction Notice

When food and rent compete for the same dollars, this can and often is a direct path to becoming unhoused

Housing costs remain the biggest driver of homelessness. But when groceries eat up hundreds of extra dollars a month, and SNAP benefits disappear, something has to give. For a household already spending half its income on rent, rising food costs are the push that sends them over the edge. The national data shows that rising costs have a true impact. In HUD’s most recent Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, they documented a record 771,480 people experiencing homelessness on a single night, an 18% increase in one year, the largest jump ever recorded.

What This Means for Our Community and How You Can Help

At Nest, we see the human side of these statistics every day: the senior choosing between medication and meals, the working parent whose SNAP paperwork got lost in the backlog, the family sleeping in their car with full-time jobs and an empty pantry.

Rising food costs are an unhoused issue. Which means food assistance, prevention services, and emergency shelter are all part of the same solution.

No one in our community should have to choose between dinner tonight and a roof over their head next month.

 

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