Natasha McClendon keeps a cabinet in her Englewood home stocked with possible sides, like potatoes and macaroni pasta, to feed her two school-age daughters and disabled husband. But the family has no meat and just ran out of frozen vegetables to make a meal.

The family was due to get about $1,100 next week for groceries through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But they are among the nearly 2 million Illinois residents who will likely have to find another way to buy food or go without as the federal government shutdown stretches into its fourth week.

The SNAP funding cutoff, which will begin Nov. 1 unless Congress or the White House takes action, couldn’t have come at a worse time for McClendon and her husband who were trying to slowly save up to rent a new apartment or even

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