State of emergency in Virginia caused by historic shutdown ends

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Nearly a month after it was declared, the state of emergency in Virginia prompted by the historic government shutdown has ended.

On Thursday, Oct. 23, when faced with the threat of Virginians not receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in November due to the ongoing government shutdown, Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency in an effort to prevent the Commonwealth from going hungry.

Youngkin also announced the deployment of a new Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance (VENA) program, which backfilled SNAP benefits in early November while the shutdown persisted.

"Ultimately, the [VENA] initiative covered the equivalent of a week of the November benefit for SNAP-eligible Virginians who had been enrolled prior to the shutdown," the governor's office said in a press release. "Virginia was the only state in the nation able to establish such a response to provide replacement benefit[s] to those in need."

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The 43-day shutdown -- the longest in American history -- finally ended on Wednesday, Nov. 12. A week later, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, Youngkin rescinded the executive order that put Virginia's state of emergency in place.

In the release, Youngkin shared the following comments:

“Today, we close this chapter of an extraordinary emergency response in Virginia. We said we would protect the vulnerable and make sure hungry Virginians in need were not used as leverage, and we kept that promise. Virginia’s robust job growth and record business investment have delivered significant budget surpluses that enabled us to replace SNAP benefits with this parallel system and avoid major interruptions to these essential services.

“I offer my highest commendation to the public servants at the state and local Virginia Departments of Social Services, the Department of Accounts, and Department of Planning and Budget, as well as the Secretary of Finance Steve Cummings and Secretary of Health and Human Resources Janet V. Kelly and their teams for their round-the-clock effort to do what no other state was truly able to do to protect their most needy.”