Dressed in heels to run errands, or surrounded by tasteful art in her chicly decorated apartment, Delcina Williams maintains a public facade that defies her reality. She is by many measures destitute, reliant on food stamps and an $1,100 monthly Social Security check that she said leaves her with only a handful of dollars a day for food after rent, utilities and caring for her twin sister, who has Alzheimer’s.

Ms. Williams, 75, said she was once an editor for a fashion magazine and a doo-wop singer. She and her twin, Doreena Davidson, are breast cancer survivors. But now Ms. Williams spends her days going from food bank to food bank, seeking navy beans and split peas for soup — a meal that can stretch after she inevitably runs out of money each month.

It is, she said, a demoralizing experience. And recent moves in Washington to cut federal funding for food benefits have filled many New Yorkers like Ms. Williams with mounting panic.

“It’s tearing me up already,” Ms. Williams said as she carted home 16 ounces of frozen ground beef, four cans of tuna fish, scallions and oranges from the Food Bank for NYC Community Kitchen and Pantry on West 116th Street in Harlem. “Every month I’m praying to my bank account.”

A new bill championed by President Trump calls for cutting $295 billion in federal spending over the next decade from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP or food stamps, according to the Congressional Budget Office. “What are we supposed to do?” Ms. Williams said. “I know he doesn’t need it, but the rest of us do.”