Suzanne Potter, producer, California News Service, a bureau of Public News Service.
Food banks across California are seeing a big surge in demand and are tapping emergency supplies as the government shutdown continues.
The shutdown threatens future funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is distributed through CalFresh in the Golden State.
Debbie Espinosa, president and CEO of FIND Food Bank in Indio, said they are gearing up quickly.
“We have moved into emergency disaster response mode, because the scale of the disaster is going to be equivalent to what happened during the time of COVID,” Espinosa explained. “All of our sites have grown over 30% on average.”
CalFresh was able to pay out full benefits for November late Thursday but funding is uncertain going forward. Although a judge ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to tap emergency funds to pay full benefits on Nov. 7, the Trump administration immediately appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, pausing the order. The shutdown persists as Democrats push to extend health care subsidies, something Republicans refuse to discuss until the government is reopened.
Espinosa noted many food banks were already seeing a surge in food insecurity because of the administration’s wave of immigration deportations and mass layoffs at federal agencies.
“We’ve got federal employees here that are hurting as well,” Espinosa pointed out. “We’re layering the SNAP effect on top of the government shutdown effect with the federal employees. So we were already seeing a spike.”
California receives more than $1 billion a month in federal funding for CalFresh. More than 5-million Californians depend on CalFresh, including almost 2 million children.
