BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Department of Health said that federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds will be distributed to eligible recipients starting Nov. 7 following funds from earlier this week being withdrawn.

The withdrawn funds had already been sent to elderly and disabled SNAP recipients between Nov. 1 and Nov. 4, officials said.

Recipients will receive approximately 50% of their usual SNAP benefits, depending on household size. The LDH said they also ended staff furloughs and re-opened offices.

The state-funded program was suspended following the USDA’s guidance and White House announcement that it would partially fund SNAP during the shutdown using contingency funding after being ordered to do so by two separate judges, an LDH spokesperson said.

The state suspension was done so that the state "could pay out federal benefits for the entire SNAP population, including able-bodied adults, the elderly and the disabled," the spokesperson added.

WBRZ received multiple calls from SNAP recipients concerned about their funds being withdrawn, leaving their balances at zero. 

"Those benefits were pulled back so we could give recipients a higher amount either later (Wednesday) or by Friday," LDH said about the withdrawn funds.

Gov. Jeff Landry previously said that cutting spending to other programs over the last 20 months allowed the state to provide food stamps in the event of a crisis.