Senate Standing Committee on Human Services

Good morning. I'd like to call this meeting of the Senate Committee on Human Services to order. And good morning. Thank you to our panelists and Members of the public for joining us this morning for this informational hearing on the State of Hunger in California.

I am Senator Jesse Arreguin, the newly appointed chair of the Senate Committee on Human Services. I'm joined by my colleague, Senator Josh Becker, and I believe we have other Members who may be joining us this morning for this discussion. I'd like to provide some introductory remarks before we go to our first panel.

We convened this meeting to focus on the impacts of food insecurity and hunger in California and the role our state government plays in mitigating those impacts with nutrition programs and food aid. And just want to recognize that since the pandemic, the issues of food security have gotten even more acute in California.

We saw an increase of hunger and food insecurity during the pandemic. And I just want to lift up and thank the many partners who are here today who worked to keep our food banks going, our food security programs going to provide meals and groceries for needy Californians who are struggling during that unprecedented time.

But we know that the challenges of food insecurity continue to persist with the rising cost of living in our state. So during this hearing, we will hear from advocates, counties and people with lived experience about the realities of food insecurity, the tools we have to combat it, and the challenges that we face on the horizon, particularly lifting up proposed cuts to the federal SNAP program and the impact that will have on CalFresh.

And I hope we'll be able to have a brief discussion about the impacts of that and how our state can ensure the continuation of these critical services in light of threats from the Federal Government. I look forward to hearing testimony in how California is serving vulnerable populations and what we can do to support and improve those efforts.

And we have a full agenda this morning with a series of great panels. And in order to allow everyone adequate time to present to the Committee, I'd like to ask that we have the presenters keep your remarks to roughly seven minutes. So we want to ensure that we have some opportunity for questions and discussion. Before we do that, want to ask Senator Becker if you have any opening comments. If not, we can go to the first panel.

I just want to thank the chair. Thank you for this opportunity and for this hearing today. I'll keep my comments as we go forward. I just want to say that I'm really looking forward to the hearing of this is my starting my second term and proud of a lot of the actions we've taken, but obviously a long way to go. So looking forward to the hearing and talk about solutions. Thank you.

With that, we'll go to our first panel on federal and state nutrition programs and food insecurity trends. And I'd like to call up the Members of the first panel. We have Alexis Fernandez Garcia, Deputy Director of Family Engagement and the Empowerment Division, California Department of Social Services. Monique Micenheimer Meisenheimer.

Program Manager for the Human Services Agency Eligibility Services Bureau for the County of San Joaquin and Tess Thorman, Research Associate at the Public Policy Institute of California. And so will go first to Alexis Fernandez Garcia. If you can please state your name and affiliation and after we hear from all the panelists, we'll open up for discussion. Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Alexis Fernandez Garcia and I am the Deputy Director of the Family Engagement and Empowerment Division at the California Department of Social Services. In this role, I oversee the Administration of several safety net programs including CalFresh, CA Works, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, Sunbucks, and several other federal and state nutrition programs.

Today I will focus my remarks on CalFresh and the California Food Assistance Program, which together make up the largest anti hunger program in California and which has been proven to support Low income Californians with greater economic mobility opportunities.

And because CalFresh frees up limited income for other purposes, increases their likelihood of being able to manage unexpected financial losses. The California Food Assistance Program, or cfap, provides state funded food benefits for non citizens who do not qualify for federally funded CalFresh.

The experience of getting CFAP aligns with that of getting CalFresh as the administrative processes of getting and keeping CFAP is integrated and benefits are delivered on an EBT card just like CalFresh.

In 2022, the Governor and the Legislature worked together to pass a budget that included funding to expand CFAP to serve all Californians Age 55 years of age or older, regardless of immigration status. This is scheduled to go into effect October 1st of 2027. I'll provide more details on that in just a bit.

Several CalFresh affiliated programs offer additional services and support to eligible populations including Disaster CalFresh, CalFresh Outreach, CalFresh Employment and Training, and CalFresh Healthy Living, which is our nutrition education program.

CalFresh improves the health and well being of eligible individuals and families, including older adults, college students, people with disabilities, working people, really many Californians by providing them a way to stretch their existing food budget and better meet their nutritional needs.

You will likely hear this echoed by my fellow panelists, but I'd be remiss not to start my remarks by noting that CalFresh is largely regarded as one of the most effective tools to combat poverty and food insecurity and routinely reduces food insecurity by 20 to 30%, with particular significant impacts for Black households.

In 2023 alone, CalFresh pulled 1.1 million Californians out of poverty, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which we'll hear from in just a minute. In 2023, about 3.2 million more Californians would have been in poverty without safety net programs like CalFresh and CalWORKS.

Let me talk a little bit about eligibility and then some of the topics that were on the agenda for today. CalFresh is California's version of the Supplemental Nutrition assistance program, or SNP. SNAP. CalFresh provides between 23 and $291 per person in monthly food benefits.

A household's benefit amount depends on various factors such as income, expenses and the household size.

Generally, households must have a gross Income below 200% of the federal poverty level, which is currently about $4,440 a month for a family of four, and net income after deductions below 100% of poverty, which is about $2,680 a month for a family of four.

SNAP eligibility rules are established at the federal level, with some limited flexibility to select certain options at the state level. Historically, CalFresh has had the potential to reach more eligible Californians than the program has served. Recent caseload trends indicate that we are narrowing the participation gap. This is in part because of historic investments in improving participation.

Earlier this month, USDA released the newest federal participation rate for fiscal year 2022, and California's rate has increased to 81%, up from 67% in fiscal year 2020, the most recent year for which data is available. That is a 20% increase in two years, according to the federal measure. The USDA's methodology is somewhat lagged.

It's primarily designed to produce national and state level estimates and uses data only available to the feds. The Department has historically produced the Program Reach Index, which is available on our website to generate more timely estimates, including county estimates, and we are continuing to refine our methodology to better understand how we can close that participation grant.

Regardless of the methodology you use, all estimates show a large upward trend in closing the participation gap in the last decade, a trend that continues, as you mentioned, through and after the pandemic.

CDSS estimates that in 2017, the state since 2017, excuse me, the state has closed the participation gap by nearly 50% and you're seeing that in the federal numbers. Where is more work needed? CalFresh participation gaps mirror those we have identified and are working to address in other safety net programs as well.

So, as a couple of examples, the participation rate is higher for children than adults, though California has closed some of that gap for adults in the last five years, especially amongst older adults. Speakers of Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese have lower participation rates than the statewide average.

Californians who identify as Asian American have lower participation rates than the statewide average. And in General, not surprisingly, the lower the household income, the higher the participation rate. While there is variation by county, we have not observed explicit patterns by region or geography.

So let me now provide a few key updates on key investments as requested by the Committee, including the CFAP expansion, the Fruit and Veggie Pilot, the Drinking Water Pilot, and the Minimum Nutrition Benefit Pilot.

I mentioned earlier that California will be the first in the nation to provide food benefits to all Californians who are income eligible and age 55 years or older, regardless of their immigration status. This funded expansion is on track for October 2027.

In terms of progress toward implementation, we released General policy guidance in 2023 and we are on track to publish all the remaining guidance by the end of January this year 25 to meet the automation timeline, so the policy guidance informs the automation design.

Due to the extension of the implementation date, automation efforts were paused as of June 2025 but are set to resume again in June 2026. The Department also continues to host all stakeholder meetings, advisory group meetings. We provide written updates and will soon release a request for application for the outreach contract related to the expansion.

So we are on Track for that October 1, 2027 effective date in terms of the Fruit and Veggie Pilot the California Fruit and Veggie Pilot is a healthy incentive program that was launched in February 2023 to provide supplemental food benefits to CalFresh households upon the purchase of fruits and vegetables at retailers and farmers markets that are participating in the pilot program.

The Pilot provides an incentive at a one to one ratio for the purchase of fruits and veggies up to $60 per calendar month. Incentives can be earned when CalFresh benefits are used to purchase these qualifying items.

$10 million was allocated in the 24-25 Budget act to continue the pilot, which resumed in October 2024 and has resulted in an additional 88,765 households receiving a total of over $7.3 million. Due to the rapid burn down rates, it's a very popular program. The Department wound down the pilot again in January 2025.

A total of four farmers markets and 92 retail locations across the state participate and we contract with grantees to coordinate retailer and farmers market participation. Okay onto the Drinking Water Pilot. The Drinking Water Pilot provides Additional state funded CalFresh benefits to households in Kern County with water systems that don't meet safety standards.

The pilot helps participants buy safer drinking water. The Department launched the pilot in March 2022, which provides $50 per month to CalFresh households in select zip codes. The pilot is in place until program funding expires. So. So the original funding amount was about $5 million in the 1718 budget and we're currently spending down that allocation.

The pilot is currently serving 1,673 households and the monthly issuance is about $83,000 a month. So we have about $1.5 million remaining and anticipate that that will keep the pilot running through August 2026.

The minimum nutrition Benefit Pilot will test the state's ability to provide a state funded supplement to increase the minimum benefit for a subset of CalFresh recipients. I mentioned that that's $23. Currently.

The pilot is expected to launch January 1st of 2026 and will provide up to 12 months of food benefits that when combined with the regular CalFresh allotment, brings the total minimum to no less than 60. Households eligible for the pilot will be those who are considered eligible for the Elderly Simplified Application Project.

And so those are households with only older adults or people with disabilities and no earned income. We expect that the anticipated statewide caseload of eligible households will be about 36,000, and the benefit will vary from $1 to $59. We anticipate the most common benefit amount will be about $37 and the average will be about 32.

And then finally, to answer the Committee's questions about potential changes to SNAP at the federal level, and I'm sure you'll hear more about this from other panelists. There is a high level of uncertainty related to changes the new Administration may pursue.

We continue to monitor the situation very carefully and are committed to ensuring access and mitigating harm to the extent we can. And so we'll continue to keep an eye on that. With that, I'll end my remarks and of course, available to answer questions.

Thank you very much. We'll go to our next panelist, Monique Micenheimer from the County of San Joaquin. Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Monique Micenheimer. I'm an intake program manager from San Joaquin County. Today is my 23rd anniversary of being in Human Services and I am so happy to be here.

You know, the thing is, is in my county we, we strive to make sure that anybody walking through those doors leave our building, hopefully within three days with a loaded EBT card. Usually varying, of course the ranges can vary, but up to $292, you know, food insecurity is something that we are all facing.

You know, it's not just the people who are on benefits, but as we go to the grocery store store we can see, you know, everything has gone up. Eggs are like ridiculous right now. They're at the price of parking, which is absolutely crazy.

But in San Joaquin county we are working together not only just with issuing the benefit of EBT and CalFresh benefits, but we have so many resources.

We have a food for you program that works with the churches, that works with the stock emergency food bank that works with, you know, that both give commodities as well as non perishable and perishable foods which were all funded by the usda. We have eight community centers and volunteer sites that give out, that distribute food every Thursday.

Not to say that that's, you know, enough, but we're trying to do more and more for our community. I am a Member of the hunger task force in my county which works with the Stockton Emergency Food Bank.

And just listening and going through those meetings, just hearing just the severity of it from 2022, there was not that many people coming through right in 2020-2022. But now there's so many people that it's hard for them to monitor and give out as much food as they need.

You know, I think we're not sure what's going to happen with the Administration, of course, but we're sure that in San Joaquin county as far as our resources and just what we do on a day in and day basis out basis is issue these benefits to eligible families.

You know, it's hard to see people just without, without the benefits that they need. The stock and food bank, again, like I stated, play a huge part in the community. They've distributed over 7 million pounds of food in 2024. And they're looking to expand, expand their building so that they can go ahead and get more.

Because there's always somebody out there that does not have that, that, that food. And we're seeing people who are driving up in, you know, binses, you know, and just different, just different class of people driving up that need this benefit. So the work that we do in San Joaquin, San Joaquin county is vital.

It's vital to everything that we do, you know, we had a whole. Excuse me, my apologies. We're very proactive in the EBT fraud prevention because that was a huge thing.

You know, when people are taking, people are taking people's benefits and they're coming back in and they have to wait for these benefits to be added back to their cart. So that just increases that food insecurity.

You know, we have somebody who's in our office who literally is behind the scenes and checking all these EBT cards to make sure that they're not compromised. And if they are, we're reaching out to these participants to share with them. Hey, let's go ahead and cancel that card.

Let's go ahead and we recommend that everybody has a repins their card monthly so they're able to make sure that they have that benefit ready on their date. Excuse me. We have Meals on Wheels in our area still. We're still delivering home delivered meals to seniors and we have congregate and nutrition services.

We recommend that of course if you cannot get into our building and apply for CalFresh benefits, we have a benefits Cal which is benefitscow.com and anybody can apply. It's open 24 hours a day so it's available to all of our citizens.

The thing is that this is that in our county we just want to make sure that we make, we let our community know that we're here for them. You know, over this 23 years it seems like that food insecurity has heightened, you know, but just within these last three or four years it's gotten so bad that people don't just have the essentials.

And in our county, again, we are striving to do any and everything we can to make sure that we are hopefully ending the food insecurities and ensuring that our clients and our participants get what they need when they go to the grocery store. Again, food insecurity is a community problem being tackled at every level in our community.

From applying to CalFresh to receiving the congregate meals and commodities. We are all vested in this endeavor and will continue our fight.

Okay, we'll go to our last panelist, Tess Thorman from the Public Policy Institute of California.

Good morning. My name is Tess Thorman. I'm a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute dedicated to informing and improving public policy in California. Thank you for inviting me to provide testimony today.

Households meet the USDA's definition of food insecurity when they lack the resources to ensure that all members have enough to eat to support active, healthy lives. This can involve stretches of time during which some or all household members skip or cut down the size of meals, shift to lower quality or more limited diet, or both.

The frequency and duration of these periods can and do vary, and research finds that while food insecurity is harmful to health for people of all ages, it's particularly damaging to children's health and development.

In this testimony, I will discuss the prevalence of food insecurity in California, the impact of nutrition safety net programs on food insecurity and poverty, and tee up some of the big picture challenges that make it harder for these programs to achieve their goals.

Based on PPIC research and my assessment of the broader research landscape. In California, 1.8 million households, about 13%, experienced food insecurity at some point in 2023, according to the most recent data. More than half, 1.1 million, or 9% of all households, had to make changes to their diet but did not necessarily cut back on meals.

The remaining 700,000, 4% of all households, cut back on food. This group experienced very low food security. An additional 10%, or 1.1 million households, were technically able to afford enough food but were only marginally food secure because they couldn't afford balanced meals or worried that food would run out.

California's rate of food insecurity is near the national rate of almost 14%. Across states, the share of households experiencing food insecurity over the past year ranges from about 7% to 19%. Some other large states, including New York, Florida, and Illinois, have rates that are close to California's.

Annual rates of food insecurity in California are up, but they do remain below the Great Recession peak of more than 15%. The rate declined between 2011 and about 2017, when it reached a low of around 10%, and that held steady through the start of the pandemic.

Monthly experiences of food insecurity may even have declined in 2021amid rising employment and wages as well as prices and a surge of temporary assistance, including Calfresh benefit increases, stimulus, expanded unemployment insurance, and advanced child tax credit payments. Food insecurity rates ticked up in 2022 and 2023 as inflation continued and safety net expansions expired.

Households with children are more likely than those without to experience food insecurity at some point during the year, so about 1 in 6 or 17% of households with children experience food hardship, compared to about 1 in 10 or 11% of those without children.

It's important to note that adults often shield children from the effects of food insecurity, so nearly half of children in California households that were experiencing food insecurity did not necessarily experience it themselves. White and Asian households are less likely than Californians overall to be food insecure, about 7%.

While 18%, or nearly 1 in 5, of Latino, black, and other households experience food insecurity. Available data allow us to examine food insecurity across these racial ethnic categories, but they are broad. Economic well being also varies across smaller racial and ethnic groups.

More than 15 public programs in California aim to help individuals and families afford nutritious food, and research on the largest, CalFresh, known federally as SNAP, School Meals and WIC, indicates that they reduce food insecurity using different approaches.

These programs are designed to improve food security for different groups, so School Meals target children enrolled in K-12 education, and WIC enrolls new or expecting parents and young children. CalFresh reduces food insecurity more broadly because its primary requirement for eligibility is having a low income. Several nutrition program expansions enacted during the pandemic have become permanent.

So after federal funding that expanded free school meals expired, California's Universal Meals Program began ensuring that two meals a day at school were free for all students.

SUN Bucks, a summer EBT program that helps cover meals for students when school is out, replaced summer pandemic EBT benefits, and WIC's cash value benefit increase has been made permanent. For some families, these permanent expansions may have lessened the impact of the expiration of the largest pandemic increase in the nutrition safety net, federal boost of CalFresh benefits.

Boosting CalFresh reduced food hardship during the pandemic. Nationwide, the expiration of enhanced benefits in spring 2023 was associated with increased food insufficiency, a metric that overlaps with but is less detailed than food insecurity. The data that USDA uses each year to measure food insecurity are not yet available past 2023.

The best estimates on changes since then rely on other data sources. They generate different values, but they suggest that food insecurity in California has not changed substantially. The state's nutrition safety net also reduces poverty by making it easier to meet basic needs.

Poverty and food insecurity again overlap but are not fully aligned, so being unable to afford food is one manifestation of poverty.

But some households that struggle with poverty may not experience food insecurity for a variety of reasons, including having limited income but drawing on savings, including covering food costs by not addressing other needs such as housing or medical care.

The PPIC and Stanford California Poverty measure calculates poverty rates after accounting for taxes and safety net resources, as well as variation in the state's cost of living. So according to this measure, about 5 million Californians, or 13.2% of the population, lived in poverty at the beginning of 2023.

Absent CalFresh, School Meals and WIC, that group would have increased by 1.5 million. Without just CalFresh, 1.1 million more people would have been in poverty. Absent School Meals, the number would have increased by about 240,000, and without WIC food benefits, the number would be 50,000 higher.

Some pandemic CalFresh benefit increases were still in place during the period covered by these poverty estimates, so CalFresh's impact on poverty may now be smaller than what we estimate for early 2023, since the increases were large enough to lift a substantial number of people out of poverty. When they ended in February 2023, monthly food assistance was cut by at least $95 per household.

Notably, these cuts were larger for those with higher incomes since their temporary benefit increases were proportionately larger than increases for participants with the lowest incomes.

Effective safety net support provides sufficient benefits, extends eligibility to those in need, and reaches eligible people. Since California primarily implements national nutrition programs, many decisions about support and eligibility happen at the federal level. However, the state can make the most of federal funding by taking steps to maximize participation among eligible Californians.

It can also supplement and or seek modifications to programs. Still, federal funding is a cornerstone of California's nutrition safety net. Reductions to federal funding for nutrition programs would likely make it difficult to continue reducing poverty and food insecurity at current levels without new state investments. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Thank you very much to all of our panelists for joining us this morning. I just want to note for the record, due to technical difficulties, we are having this hearing in Capitol Room 112. So I wanted to open up to discussion from Committee. Senator Becker.

Thank you for all the testimony. I particularly was interested in the CalFresh subscription rates because it's something we've been tracking for a while and one of the pieces I know of our low rate before-- First of all it really is remarkable and kudos to everyone to increase it to 81% and close the gap 50%. I know that--

And last year I had a bill that was signed by the Governor that was to make sure that people coming out of our incarceration system are all signed up in advance of leaving. So that's one less worry as people get back on their feet. One of the big issues was technical barriers.

And Matthew Desmond, who wrote Evicted and he had another book about poverty. When he came to speak in San Mateo county, he talked 12 times about our former 112 question form to get people to sign up. I know a lot of work was done on that to simplify it.

Also, we didn't have-- it was not easy for people with mobile phones for a while and I know Scott Wiener had a bill on that for about three years, I think eventually got through.

So I know a lot of work was done and there was some, I forget the exact name for it for the sort of the simplified form. But then I heard that maybe, partly that's going away.

And so, anyway, I know that we had a lot of technological advancements which I'm sure have been helpful in some of that sign-up in addition to all the outreach. But where are we on the technical aspects of sign up?

So I will start by emphasizing, of course, there's no wrong door. We want to make sure that people who are eligible can be served in person, by phone. And of course, technology plays a key role. We recently transitioned to a new single statewide eligibility system. You'll hear people reference it as CalSAWS.

And as part of that transition, we also launched a new statewide application portal called BenefitsCal. And so the benefits of BenefitsCal are not only that it's available statewide, but that it has a lot of features that our previous systems did not.

So clients are able to establish accounts and do more self service than they were able to do before. So you can not only apply, but you can engage in like benefit maintenance requirements, submit reports, submit changes that will impact your benefits, and so on.

So we've had a very successful launch in that the systems are up and running, they're statewide. And we're now transitioning along with our county partners, CalSAWS, the advocates and clients to what I would call like the continuous improvement stage.

How do we maximize uptake of the tool, ensure people are aware that it's available available to them? Monique mentioned that it has a lot of features, and counties are encouraging clients to sign up at application and as they're submitting reports and then also to continue improving based on what we hear from from clients.

You mentioned that we are transitioning away from a tool called Get CalFresh which was a CalFresh only application. And that is correct. We are in the process of doing that. BenefitsCal is a multi-program application. So there are some significant benefits to using that tool. It has all the benefit maintenance features that Get CalFresh doesn't.

And so really the key in the spirit of continuous improvement is how do we take what we learned there and transition that into BenefitsCal. We're looking at the state level at other options as well, like digital outreach campaigns, other targeted messages to really increase uptake.

I do think that will make a big difference in terms of the technology that's available to folks.

Yeah, great. But if I'm just say, I just want CalFresh and not-- oh, I'm probably one of the people who's eligible who's not signed up. How long will it take me to sign up if I just go to my phone now and try to do it.

On BenefitsCal?

Whichever, whatever that you direct me to. Yeah.

So if you choose to use BenefitsCal, again multi-program, but if you are single application, I believe--and this, I'm going to say this and it's for CalSAWS to confirm my time quote--it could be anywhere between half an hour and 60 minutes, depending on how many programs you're applying for.

But, just Get CalFresh itself was simplified, correct?

Yes, it's CalFresh only, a shorter version of the application and the average time to apply there was about 12 minutes.

So is there a way to kind of bridge that? So I guess the, you know, the philosophy I get is that hey, you want people to sign up for more things, right. Rather than just have one here, one here, one here. So I get that.

But still concerned that 30-60 minutes could be a barrier for someone who starts and then just never finished and you know, they're working two jobs or whatever it is. Are you trying to do anything to mitigate that gap?

Is there a way to sort of say, I mean, could you still just do CalFresh but then that information feeds into the broader form or--

Yeah, I mean this is a hot topic, right? We do think that the time to apply is key part of not the only determining factor of whether someone is able to complete an application, but part of what makes them more likely to be able to complete an application.

And so I think we continue these discussions and really there is a tension between some of the policy requirements that are both federal and state. There are certain things that have to be included on our application at both the state and federal level and marrying that with the consumer experience and kind of balancing those two.

And so that is a conversation that continues.

Yeah, I would just be concerned. I was reading recently about a, I think it was a lawsuit around one of the phone companies had--or might have been another company--that had concluded that 20 minutes, they were going to make everyone basically wait 20 minutes whole time because that was the number where 90% of people would give up.

That was scientifically, whatever, concluded that number. Anything over 20 minutes, I would be concerned about because despite the benefits, I just think we should really look at anything that's taking more than 20 minutes.

You know, if you could accomplish something in 20 minutes and then accomplish something else, you know, in a second stage, then that would be good. But I'm just concerned about anything that would take that long. Okay, we'd love to report back on that and if we could follow up with that. Chair, would that be okay?

But I do appreciate the update on the rates. The other part is the CNIP program. When I chaired the budget subcommittee, Budget Sub 2, we protected some money last year that I think was going to get cut for the market. You know what people call Market Match, right, which is using CalFresh at farmers markets.

What is the status of that program?

So I don't have the details on that. Market Match is overseen by the Department of Agriculture. So I will have to defer. I don't have the latest on that.

Okay, great. And I did meet recently with a whole bunch of advocates really across the state who are big supporters of that program, and had gotten to know some of them on my Budget Sub 2. So yeah, I mean to me that's just sort of like a win-win-win program.

And I think it does require continuous appropriations that I think wasn't in there and, and I think is not in there this year from my understanding. So maybe that's a joint conversation with Budget Sub 2.

But I do think again, that's a win-win-win for people to get fresh food for local farmers to get the revenue and good for communities all around. So I just, you know, it's one of those programs, I think it's $20-30 million that in funding that's necessary.

So I'd love to just kind of follow up on that, to look into that program. I have one more question or not--

Keep going.

Okay. The School Lunch program, which is kind of alluded to here, I don't know if it's directly part of this, but there's been efforts to kind of connect up local farms with local fresh food with these programs. Do you have any updates on that or is it at all in your any purview here?

So we, in my purview, we have a farm-to-child care initiative related to the child and adult care food program to increase local childcare providers connections with locally grown foods and then integrate them into their meal patterns along with the nutrition education aspect.

Things like both the lunch being served with local foods and a classroom activity related to a school garden, for example. But the local school foods initiatives that align with school meals are run out of the Department of Education.

And so we often partner with them very similar programs across childcare and Department of Education school meals, but they oversee those.

Okay, thank you.

Following up on Senator Becker's sort of comment about the Market Match program, that's through Department of Agriculture, but the fruit and vegetable pilot's through CDSS. And that is additional money per month to buy fruits and vegetables at grocers really. And I think both are essential.

You know, the Market Match program supports our small farmers and is another way to increase access to fresh produce in our communities. I met with our local nonprofit, the ecology center in Berkeley that runs our farmers markets and I think is very involved in a lot of the work statewide.

And I just want to lift up the importance of continuing to support that program but also continue to augment the resources so that the CalFresh fruit and vegetable pilot can continue on a note that you say that it was more successful and popular than anticipated as funds allocated went up twice. I think that's great.

I think that's something we want to continue to invest in. So my question is one, the 20% increase in two years, that's excellent.

And following up on Senator Becker's comments, the more we can do to streamline the process and increase outreach, especially those populations where we have under enrollment, on the API community students, there are particular stakeholder groups who we really want to increase awareness of and participation in the program.

So the more we can try to streamline that process, the better. But given that, you know, I think we're still below the national average enrollment. Wondering from your perspective, Ms. Fernandez Garcia, what can be done to further increase those numbers.

And then a secondary question, just going back on all these pilot programs that we've launched, which I think have been great and have augmented the benefits. Given the budget outlook that we're facing: the potential cuts to SNAP, the overall impact of the federal administration on the state budget, the fires in LA, how that's going to impact resources available.

Given the condition of the budget, I'm wondering what expected impacts you anticipate, your Department anticipates to these pilots or programs and what can the Legislature do to continue to support these investments?

Okay, let me start with your first question just broadly about increasing participation. I think the gains that you've seen over the last few years are reflective of a really multi-pronged approach. So thinking through strategies like outreach, it is key. People do need to be aware of the program.

We made some significant investments in terms of media and community outreach and client education during the pandemic and coming out of that so critical. As well as policy, right, so to the extent that the state has certain flexibilities and options available to them, maximizing those.

So I mentioned we have something called the Elderly Simplified Application Project that is focused on older adult participation is also higher than it's ever been in the history of the program. We have waivers currently for waiving the time limit for able-bodied adults without dependents and we have just reapplied and were approved for an extension through 2027.

And that is due to the economic conditions in the state. We qualify, and so we will be continuing those waiver options. Innovations like the pre-release waiver, which we're just launching due to the legislation, our work group process to make sure that we can operationalize that.

So to the extent that there are policy flexibilities and options that increase access, maximizing those.

And then operations. So things like the use of technology, the in-office service that Monique spoke to, we are in deep partnership with our counties, we engage in technical assistance with them, we're out in community and hearing from them about the challenges to make sure that we're equipped to provide service at the local level.

So I think that multi-pronged approach is what makes a difference. It's not one single thing alone. In terms of the pilots that I spoke about in my comments, those are all at this point funded and so we are going to work to carry those forward.

The exception, the fruit and veggie pilot which you mentioned, at this point, we have wound down those operations. But the Minimum Nutrition Benefit pilot, we do have to get better names, and the water pilot are all funded. So we at this point plan to see those through completion.

Thank you very much. Ms. Micenheimer, could you maybe talk about what has been a successful strategy in San Joaquin county to increase enrollment, and is there something that other counties can learn from your approach.

I think with-- I'm sorry. With San Joaquin county, it is the outreach, it is going to the schools. You know, it is going to our welfare to work services if people don't have benefits there. It's just reaching out to everybody. You know, like I stated, I'm part of the hunger task force.

So when I'm on that call, I make sure that people are getting people to apply. We have these little BenefitsCal cards, they're just similar to like, you know, regular business cards that we give out to people. I give them out when I'm in the store.

My husband works for the farmers market, so I see the people coming, you know, to get the food and I encourage them and I give out the cards there too, because I want people to make sure that they're getting those good, nutritious, healthy vegetables, especially from the farmer's market. Like I said, in our county, pretty much we are going to the schools.

I noticed that when children are applying for school, right, when just school starts back up, our applications go up. So I know that there's an application of CalFresh benefits in there some kind of way. When people are applying and they only have Medi-Cal only, what we do is we send out an application for CalFresh benefits.

So that way people are able to go ahead and just complete this quick little application. We already have their information, so why not go ahead and capture them while we have them there?

As far as I was telling you about the three-day where we get our people in for expedited services, if they're in the building, and typically it's our homeless population, they don't have the phones, right?

And so we're able to do phone interviews, but when we have them captive and-- I don't want to say captive, but we have their attention and they're right there in the building. We go ahead and we make sure that we're seeing these people right here, right then and we're trying to give them benefits as they're there.

I think in our county, like I said it, we're just trying every avenue, whatever it takes to get people enrolled in CalFresh benefits and constantly increase that enrollment because, I mean, everybody needs food.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions for the panel? Okay. Well, thank you very much for joining the Committee this morning and for your testimony. We really appreciate your participation. And we're going to shift gears to panel two, and the subject matter is hunger, food insecurity and vulnerable groups.

We have four panelists who will be joining us. And once again, in the interest of time to keep us moving, if panelists can limit their comments to roughly 7 minutes, we greatly appreciate. I know, that we could talk about this all day. So our panelists for panel two are.

Gio Das Dinoso, Mobile Distribution Program Coordinator for the Food Bank of Contra Costa Solano. Becky Silva, Director of Government Relations for the California Association of Food Banks. Yami. Leith Maldonado, Government Relations Vice Chair for the California University of California Student Association. Hi. Good to see you. And Brent Wakefield, President CEO of Meals on Wheels, San Diego.

So why don't we start with Gio Dazdinoso and. Good morning.

Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. My name is Gio Dazdinoso, Mobile Distributions Program Coordinator for the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. And thank you for this opportunity. I'm here today not just as an advocate, but as someone who has lived through the suffocating fear of hunger.

I know what it's like to go to bed with anxiety gnawing at you, wondering how to make ends meet. I know the exhaustion of just surviving and how it can steal away your hope from a better future. When I went to college, I thought I was building a path toward opportunity, but in reality, it was a struggle.

I relied on grants. I worked full time. I took home food from my job. Yet no matter how hard I worked, it never felt like enough. I found a food pantry and I waited in hours, long lines.

I carried home 50 pounds of food on the train because it was the only way to make sure I had food to eat at home. The weight of that food was nothing compared to the weight of the fear that I carried every day. This fear, this fear of hunger is paralyzing.

It follows you into your classrooms, into your workplace, into your home, and into your relationships. It steals your focus. It limits your opportunities and keeps you from reaching your potential. Instead of living, you're merely surviving.

And unless you've personally stood in line hoping that there's enough food for you as well, it's hard to imagine the fear that hunger creates. Let me ask you, what would you do if you didn't know where your next meal was coming from? How would your life change if your every decision Was filtered through the lens of survival.

My story is not unique. According to the CAFB hunger data report, there are about 8.8 million Californians struggling with food insecurity right now. Seniors who fear their Social Security checks won't last. College students balancing studies, work and that ever present threat of hunger. People with disabilities who cannot work full time, struggling to maintain stability.

Working class families who are one unexpected expense away from an empty fridge or eviction. Children going hungry every day with no power to change their situation. The ever changing economy has made this fear even more widespread. Rising costs for rent, groceries and other essentials are pushing hardworking people to make impossible choices.

Choosing between the decision to keep the lights on or keep food on the table. And what about these unforeseen hardships? An economic downturn, A sudden job loss, the death of a family provider? These events turn lives upside down and push families into a constant State of fear. They are not thriving. They are barely surviving. Consider this.

Many college students are not just college students. They are parents. They are trying to build a better future for their families while shouldering the immense burden of food insecurity. Imagine what it does to a person's spirit to not know if they can feed their children tomorrow.

Programs like CalFresh and food banks are not a permanent solution to every problem. They are a safety net. They are the first line of defense against hunger, designed to keep hunger in the background, not as a constant overwhelming presence. Defunding these programs does not erase the hunger.

It leaves families, kids with empty stomachs and worry on their mind. CalFresh benefits are a critical safety net, allowing individuals and families to focus on building a better life Instead of being trapped by the fear of hunger. They provide the breathing room needed to prioritize education, employment and family without the crushing weight of food insecurity.

But this safety net needs your support. You, our policymakers, you hold the power to create lasting change. By passing bills that strengthen CalFresh and other food aid organizations, you can directly combat the fear of hunger. You can transform lives and uplift entire communities. I've personally benefited from these programs and experienced the relief they provide.

Because this is not just about providing food. It's about preserving dignity. It's about opening doors to opportunity. It's about giving people the freedom to live, to grow and to contribute to society without the paralyzing fear of hunger.

Your decisions matter, your votes matter and your support can make the difference between a life spent surviving and a life spent truly living. Thank you for listening, for caring and for taking action. Let's ensure that no one in our community has to live with the fear of hunger. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll go next to Becky Silva, Director of Government relations for the California Association of Food Banks. Good morning. Good morning, Senator Ochoa Bogh.

Good morning. My name is Becky Silva, again with the California Association of Food Banks. Thank you to Gio for sharing his story. I hope that for Committee Members and staff today when you go home from this hearing, that that is the story that you remember from this hearing.

We represent 41 food banks that partner with 6,000 agencies across the state. And our mission at CAFB is to end hunger in Californ, California. You've heard from several people about various hunger related statistics at cafb.

We often use data from the Census Household Pulse survey, which is a little bit different from the data that you were hearing earlier that comes out of the USDA.

The Census Household Pulse Survey shows that more than 1 in 5 households in California are currently experiencing food insecurity, while more than one in four households with children are food insecure. And that is data that we feel better reflects the reality of people that are actually visiting food banks and seeking out additional resources to stay fed.

The simple top line message there with the data is that the rates are similar to the peak pandemic levels that we were seeing in 2022. So hunger is on the rise. Another telling indicator is that Currently an estimated 10% of Californians are reporting getting free groceries from a food distribution in the last seven days.

And just one last point on data which you heard about from Ms. Fernandez Garcia earlier. We are thrilled to see that the CalFresh enrollment rate in California is now an 81%. I was actually just talking about this new statistic with a colleague of mine who has been doing work in the CalFresh world for many years.

And when she started in her role over 10 years ago, that rate was 47%. So just tremendous growth. Of course, I think it speaks to the level of need and more people are seeking out that resource because it's needed. But also just tremendous work by CDSS and counties to make the program as accessible as possible.

And ask any food bank across the state to kind of corroborate what data we're talking about here. Community Food Bank of San Benito recently shared that In August of 2024, they saw a 114% in families served since two years prior.

The Community Action Partnership of Kern county recently told us that they're seeing a 150% increase in the lines at their food distributions compared to two years ago.

And at the LA Regional Food Bank, where of course, they just have been dealing with tremendous need as a result of the fires and families being displaced, Their food distributions have increased by 35% since the same time last year. So this experience is being felt across the whole state.

And now I want to turn your attention to a really core program that food banks rely on called Cal Food, which enables food banks to feed their communities consistently with a wide variety of nourishing, fresh and shelf, Stable Food. In 2024.

So in last year, Cal Food allowed food banks to purchase 80 million pounds of food or about 940 million meals. This represents 37% of the network's food purchasing budget. And food banks are able to spend their dollars depending on what their community needs or depending on what has or has not been donated that particular week or month.

For example, the Community Food Bank of San Benito uses their cow food to purchase tortillas from a local bakery in their area, While the Redwood Empire Food Bank uses their funding exclusively to purchase eggs, which is a healthy, versatile protein source that I would say used to be considered affordable, but is no longer.

At the end of this fiscal year, Cal Food funding will drop to just 8 million per year, a 90% cut from the current average annual funding over the last three years of a little over $60 million per year. We recently asked food banks what their plan is if Cal Food isn't maintained at $60 million ongoing annually.

And we found that most food banks would have to limit or reduce the amount and variety of food offered per household. A third of food banks said that they would have to reduce their paid workforce and one fifth of food banks would have to close existing food distribution sites.

So in short, I would say there is no plan B. If that Cal Food funding is not sustained at current levels, that means that less people will get less food from their local food banks. We are really thankful for leadership from Senator Laird. He is our Cal Food budget champion on the Senate side.

And I hope that if you can come away from this hearing with one action that you can take to support your food banks would be to sign on to that to a sign on letter that his office will be leading in the coming weeks.

Ensuring that our food bank network remains a trusted, consistent and reliable source of food is also critical as the frequency and severity of natural disasters continues to threaten vulnerable communities. We are really grateful for the emergency Food Bank Reserve which was codified in state law last year.

But we know from past disasters that it can take years for full recovery, long after temporary emergency aid has ended. And lastly, the federal threats and uncertainties that we're reading about in the news on a daily, almost hourly basis are not theoretical for food banks.

A couple of weeks ago we learned that the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which provides federal funding to about 28 of our food bank Members, has been paused indefinitely.

And about a week ago we were told that federal funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, a federally funded program that allows over 500 small and socially disadvantaged farmers in California to sell their products to food banks and community partners, was frozen, forcing us to shut down the program overnight, only to be told a week later that actually the funding was not frozen.

And so now we are in the process of restarting this program that we were forced to shut down overnight. And another program that food banks rely on, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, or tfap, has had part of its funding through the Commodity Credit Corporation. Frozen food banks were notified about that on Friday.

So lastly, while CalFresh is our state's biggest anti hunger program that provides vital benefits to over 5 million people in California, currently CalFresh benefits average just $6.22 per day.

We were proud to work with Senator Menjivar in 2023 to increase the CalFresh minimum benefit and I'm really excited to share, and it was shared earlier on the earlier panel too that with quick planning and implementation work by CDSS, the pilot will launch early next year, increasing the minimum benefit for elderly and disabled households from just $23 per month up to $60 per month.

But we don't want to stop there. Some other states have increased their minimum benefit to $100 per month. We want to see all CalFresh recipients receiving a more meaningful benefit so that families can actually afford groceries on their benefits.

Benefit increases are also proven to increase purchases of healthy foods as families can finally afford fresh produce and other items people want to purchase but are often the greatest cost and they're perishable, raising risks on very limited food budgets.

That is the best way to improve access while supporting health and nutrition, especially as every dollar in CalFresh drives as much as $1.80 in economic activity. So tying these threads together, I've talked about the importance of both food banks and CalFresh in addressing hunger, and the reality is that people who are experiencing hunger often need both.

These programs complement each other, and national data shows that over One third of CalFresh recipients also visit food banks because their benefits just do not last through to the end of the month. And not to mention for people who don't qualify for CalFresh food banks are even more critical resource.

So thank you again for the opportunity to join you and present to you today.

Thank you very much. We'll go to our next panelist, Yamileth Maldonado from the University of California Student Association. Good morning.

Good morning Chair Arreguin, Members of the Committee and Members of the Gallery, thank you for having me. My name is Yamileth Maldonado and I am currently a fourth year undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in social welfare and benefiting from CalFresh for food assistance and grocery access.

I am originally from the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, a Low income, predominantly Latino community where I struggled with growing up with food and public services that were often inaccessible to immigrant communities.

I want to thank you Chair Arreguin and the Committee for organizing this informational hearing to garner insights on the scale of the issue that food insecurity presents to so many students across the state.

I, along with thousands of students across UC Berkeley, the UC system and California higher education systems, are burdened with affording food and groceries while pursuing our degrees due to a multitude of factors and I'm grateful for the opportunity to shine a light on this critical issue.

CalFresh has played a significant role in my educational journey at UC Berkeley. I am a student with a Low income background, therefore I receive financial aid to help me cover my tuition costs and most of my housing. However, outside of these expenses stands one of the most important necessities which is food.

As I finished my freshman year of college, I had to think about food expenses as I was not going to be under a meal plan. And for context, the dorms required students to obtain a meal plan as part of our housing contract.

And although students do have the option to purchase a meal plan after they've gotten out of the dorms, it is extremely expensive and forces us to pay out of pocket costs with our financial aid.

However, as I was entering my sophomore year, a friend of mine told me about how a lot of college students are actually able to qualify for CalFresh. I previously had experience receiving WIC during my childhood and PEBT through the pandemic, but I had never known about CalFresh being an option for students to pay for groceries.

At UC Berkeley, the closest grocery stores are Trader Joe's, Safeway and a Whole Foods Market, and while the proximity is convenient of these places, the prices are definitely not.

I currently work a job where I get paid bi weekly and my weekly hours could range anywhere from 5 to 15 hours a week depending on the availability of shifts. If it were not for CalFresh, my checks would mainly go to groceries.

As I see the astronomical prices for simple groceries and without this program I would be sacrificing my academics to pick up extra shifts or having to find another job to pay for my next grocery run.

CalFresh is a crucial resource that not only goes to assisting me in affording groceries, but also ensures that I have access to quality food that is nourishing. This means being able to afford fruits and vegetables and other fruits that have quality ingredients.

These nourishing meals allow me to focus on my studies and provide me with the energy needed to think and participate in my courses.

Additionally, as someone who has had a genetic family history of diabetes, it is imperative that I am making sure that the food I purchase and consume is nutritious and balanced to help prevent future health complications and CalFresh allows me to make healthier choices without the financial stress of sacrificing quality for affordability and throughout the UC, 43% of undergraduate students and 35% of graduate students experience food insecurity.

This is more than 120,000 students throughout the state in the UC system alone. This number is even greater at campuses in the California State University and more so in the California community colleges. At CSU, over 50% of undergraduate students suffer from food insecurity and at the community colleges the population encompasses over 70% of students.

Over 16,000 of the 40,000 undergraduates at UC Berkeley alone identified some level of basic needs and security in the 2020 UC Undergraduate Experience Survey, and those numbers fall heavily on students from underrepresented backgrounds.

The current demographics of students in higher education has grown to serve a new majority first generation, low income adult learners, students with dependents, veterans, foster youth, students with disability, and students of color.

When over half of the students at our institutions face some level of food insecurity, we exacerbate the alarming quality inequities that have existed for generations in this country. The disproportionate barriers faced by underrepresented student communities have deep roots and therefore require transformative solutions.

My fellow board Member, a student at UC Riverside who manages our Acquire Campaign, shared her experience about her struggles of qualifying for CalFresh while maintaining her medical and navigating the bureaucratic challenges of being a student in Riverside County while accessing medical health coverage in Los Angeles County.

She essentially had to choose to keep her health care or get access to food assistance, something that no one, let alone a young person trying to navigate the world on their own for the first time should have to experience this has also been my case and it's the reality for thousands of students who move away from home to go to school.

There needs to be a better system that accommodates to these types of situations. Each of the 10 UC campuses operates a food pantry and over 27,000 students use those pantries each year.

Evaluations of the effectiveness of our campus food pantries have demonstrated that students who use food pantries eat more fruits and vegetables, get better sleep, and report fewer depressive symptoms after accessing their campus pantries. The Aggie Fresh program at UC Davis, for example, has been a prominent example of targeted food assistance support.

With a funding allocation made by the UC Regents, UC Davis BasicNeeds was able to successfully launch a program to enroll and support CADIA recipients who are overwhelmingly students from undocumented student from undocumented backgrounds who do not qualify for CalFresh.

With institutional support and grocery assistance, we urge state and campus leaders to scale into this program system wide and across the state, especially amid the attacks being made on immigrant communities who need us now more than ever. The University of California Student Association has spent years advocating for basic needs and food support services.

In 2019, we successfully acquired a $20 million state ongoing Fund for Basic Needs Centers and we continue to champion bold policies and investments for students facing these challenges with food access.

I want to close with three recommendations for the Legislature to consider, the first one being support the appropriation of ongoing minimum funding of $60 million from the General Fund to support the Cal Food program starting in 2025 and 2026.

Secondly, when it reaches the Senate, support AB79, which if implemented, will help increase student enrollment in CalFresh and other social services. Thirdly, scale programs like Aggie Fresh to target our most underserved and vulnerable communities like CATER recipients and undocumented students, such as how CFAP does.

And lastly, I welcome the opportunity for Members of this Committee and the Legislature to visit any of our campuses, tour our basic needs centers and food pantries and listen to students and staff who are on the front lines of these challenges with food insecurity, many of whom are already short staffed and under resourced.

As a student leader with the UC Student Association, a first generation Latina from Pacoima with my own lived experiences, navigating barriers to food and grocery access, and a beneficiary of CalFresh, I am proud to be graduating with my Bachelor's in social welfare this semester, the first in my family to earn a degree.

And I and if it weren't for that friend that informed me of CalFresh, I credit food assistance and resources like my basic needs for making this a reality. I thank you for your time and urge your support to secure statewide solutions to address food insecurity.

Thank you so very much. We're going to go to our last panelist, Brent Wakefield from San Diego, Meals on Wheels, and then we'll open up for questions.

Great. Thank you so much for having us here. It's an honor to be here to present to you all. I'm here today wearing two hats. So I'm President and CEO of Meals on Wheels San Diego County, which is a direct service provider. And I'm also President of the board of Meals on Wheels California State Association.

So we represent 60 senior food delivery programs across the state out of more than 300. And so first I'll tell you about the clients that we serve. So we're serving people that are 60 and above. We serve disabled veterans of any age. And we can provide home delivered meals for the caregivers as well.

We're doing this in San Diego six days a week and you can provide food also for Sunday. You can deliver that on Saturday. We're doing about 700,000 home delivered meals a year in San Diego. County. So our specific operation that equates to more than 400,000 touches to homebound seniors a year.

What I think is unique about these nutrition programs is that in addition to the food, there's isolation, interruption because of there's a conversation, there's a wellness check. And if there's a change of condition, it's noted on the app by our volunteers when they deliver the meal. And then we have other programs like free pet food.

We have the oldest animals program in the world created over 40 years ago with a nonprofit who saw our clients sharing their meals with their pet and thought, well, we can do better than that. So we deliver in addition to the meals, also free pet food every week.

So we have about 750 pets at any given moment on this program. And what's been important for us since the pandemic is, you know, pulling back the curtain, seeing the need that we decided that we were going to in San Diego reach out for that government contract we called it, right.

The AAA that gets a large part of its funding from Older Americans Act. And in addition, we've been able to, through the increased budget in California, significant funding from the state as well. So we used to have about $100,000 a year contract. Now it's about 1.2 million.

A lot of programs around the state and country though are much more reliant on those older American Act Dollars and state dollars, in fact, up to 8090% of their budget. And for us it's about 15% of our budget. So we thought, well, okay, the pandemic was the height of need. And since the pandemic, what's happened? Right?

And actually as of the last month, we are delivering more now than we were during the height of the pandemic. So we see that this is tracking with what everybody else is saying in here, that there's more hunger right now, inflation, et cetera.

And of course coupled with the fact that a couple weeks ago we all received this letter that we were about to have that funding shut off. And then the next day we got that just kidding letter. And so we were all. It was a whiplash.

But it's important to note that of the funding we get, 45% of it is coming from those state dollars. That's $37.2 million that's going to senior nutrition. Without those funds, there are 810 clients of ours that are getting meals every day. And that equates for us it equates to $570,000 a year.

And it's a significant number of meals. It's 81,500 home delivered meals that that's covering. So if those fundings were to be a State Fund, were to be diminished, taken away, that would impact 810 people.

Now these meals we get subsidized for about $7 a meal in San Diego and then we fundraise the rest and we have alternative revenue streams, et cetera, so we're able to make that cost up. That meal is actually closer to $14 to have it delivered because you have a care navigation team, the clients are enrolled, et cetera.

But through our partnerships as well, it's also made a lot more affordable. We work with Feeding San Diego, which is one of our local food banks and they enroll our clients who are not in CalFresh and qualify into the CalFresh program.

So it's one of the questions that we ask all of our clients and, and they've been doing that now for a few years and it's been very successful. And that supplement is also a lifeline for our clients in addition to what we're providing.

But also what's terrific about our model at Meals on Wheels and in San Diego, I think we are more emblematic than a lot is 90% of our meals are delivered by volunteers. So my $11 million a year budget would be $14.8 million a year budget. So we track all the miles with the app, et cetera.

And with a minim rate and Low reimbursement rate for mileage, I would be spending $3.8 million more a year to deliver that. So what I'm saying is that the investment in these nonprofits, that $37.2 million that's being given goes a lot farther. We double and triple that by our partnerships and by fundraising.

My agency, out of an $11.0 million budget, is fundraising more than $4.0 million a year. And that's citizens who donate money to offset the cost of our labor. And all of that money stays locally in our economies.

And so this is the impact that we are having in San Diego now, Meals on Wheels, Orange County, putting on my representative of the State Association. They, they're one of the most innovative programs and they've had a different evolution than we have. And they, they're, they have 31,400 congregate meals that are paid for by the California budget.

And then they also have 300,000 home delivered meals, about 2.5 million. That comes from that state budget as well. And these are for the clientele that they're dealing with that is particularly marginalized and underserved. And they have been on the cutting edge in the nation in developing culturally appropriate, medically sensitive diets.

So they can make basically medically tailored meals in a Hispanic diet, an Asian diet. They have the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam and Orange County. And they've been able to adapt their meals to that. And so these funds have been critical in enabling them to go the extra mile and develop these meals.

Because it's one thing to take a meal, any meal to a household and expect that it be consumed, but when it is culturally appropriate, recognized as food as well, there's a much higher likelihood that that nutrition is going to be put to good use.

And finally, nonprofits like Meals on Wheels, San Diego, county, we've been around 65 years and a lot of for profit agencies move into these types of services thinking that there's profit to be had. Right? We're efficient, we're businesses, we can do it better than you can.

And they've done this in long term care facilities as well in different parts of the country. They kind of displace everybody from the market. They run out the not for profit, so to speak. And they're new at it. And then they learn about 345 years into it.

Serving vulnerable seniors is very hard and there is no profit. We have developed expertise as grassroots organizations. We've been doing it for decades. We are good at it. We know it's hard. And even if there's not a profit, we continue to do it. So we've been here 65 years, and we will be here another 65 years.

And so this funding, this investment of $37.2 million is a really critical piece. Organizations are stretch stretching that way beyond $37.2 million into 5080, $100,000 with partnerships, with fundraising, and they're covering a significant number. One out of four of our citizens are seniors.

In San Diego County alone, 200,000 senior citizens are at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. And so if you figure they're not spending any less than $20,000 a year on their rent, that's really leaving most people less than $10,000 a year for all of outside of rent.

And so being able to take that off the table, a nutritious meal, a culturally appropriate meal with a wellness check and other wraparound services that are provided is an extraordinarily great investment. And it also shows that we're respecting our golden demographic here in San Diego.

We don't like to say silver tsunami because tsunami sounds like it's a death threat, right? They're coming to get you. We think seniors are fantastic. So we just say it's a silver soiree. Right? And if you're not prepared for your party, if you're not prepared for your soiree, it's not a good party.

So we're just getting ready for the party. The party is coming. It's here. Last year was peak 6511,200 people in this country were turning 65 a day, and we're still over 10,000. So the time is here. So it's not time to pull back on the investment, but rather to increase.

And I want to thank all of my colleagues for the wonderful work that they're doing across the state. Food banks are essential, as are all the other service providers. So I'm in good company. So. So thank you for having us here.

Thank you so much. To all of our panelists. I want to open up for Committee discussion for assess Senator Ochoa Bogh, if you have any questions this time, you.

Know, I just want to commend the work that the food banks do.

Because I've had the privilege to tour some of them in my own district. And as a first generation, also Latina, graduating from UC Santa Barbara in this case, I know what it's like to get to mid-late month and not have enough money to make it. And I remember the days where I was on frozen vegetables and ramen mixed together with parmesan cheese and pepper and that was my meal. So I sympathize and empathize.

Especially right now, we're just discussing the cost of living in the State of California and how that is actually having a huge impact on many Californians and their need for assistance. And so I really do feel for our seniors, for our students, for those that are on fixed income.

And so having as we continue working in the Legislature this next year, my commitment is to hopefully assess and bring a light into anything that adds to the cost of living in California. But also in advocating to ensure that our food banks have and CalFresh has the funding that they need.

I was privileged to work with Senator Skinner in ensuring that we had meals in schools for our kiddos, especially during the pandemic, and, and hopefully, and it's sad that we continue to have these programs. And quite frankly, when it comes down to it, this is still a band aid. This is still a band aid, and it's not addressing the root of the problem at the core.

So I just wanted to highlight the fact that I'm very supportive of the efforts, acknowledging though that it is a band aid still and that we have to do more for Californians as a whole to help, that they can actually live with dignity and be able to afford to live here in this state. So thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you for coming here. So excited to see you and congratulations on your upcoming graduation. For those of you serving in this capacity, thank you for your heart of service.

Thank you so very much. I'll just say, as well, as a first generation college student at UC Berkeley, I didn't even know that I was eligible for CalFresh. And so I know there's many low income students who are struggling every single day to afford to live and to study.

And I appreciate the investment that the UC system has made to establish the food pantries. But it's not enough because the demand just keeps increasing, housing costs keep increasing, cost of education keeps increasing, and so students have to scrape by with what they have.

So I really appreciate you being here today to really lift up the experience of our students in California. And I think the importance of us to invest more in expanding food security programs in all of our higher education institutions in California. So you had talked about 60 million ongoing funding for CalFood, AB 79.

The more we can try to streamline eligibility and enrollment, I think that's going to expand access. But I'm just curious, from your own personal perspective and the perspective of the UC Student Association, you know, how easy was it to get enrolled? What can be done to increase the number of students who can get enrolled and access these benefits? And what are some additional things the state can do to increase the access to not just food, but healthy food on our campuses?

So currently, we also receive emails like every so often from, I'm not sure what the database is, but it's like it mentions that we could be eligible to receive CalFresh, but it doesn't really tell us how to apply. What I did was I went through our basic needs center to ask how we could apply, and they have an application that makes it way easier. The questions are more clear. They have a description of what each question should mean.

However, going through a different kind of website or going through a different application process is definitely a lot more difficult. Even then, following up with CalFresh is a pain. When I have to do my SAR 7s, before, I would get emails from the before it was the new base that they use.

I would just get it through the mail, and I would get it through the mail while I was on winter break. And so I would come back to see a letter saying that my SAR 7 was due. And when I would call and say like, oh, can I like finish and follow up my SAR 7 application.

They said we're actually going to discontinue your benefits for about a month until you can get us the application in. And then even then I still had to follow up with them to make sure that they were reviewing that, the application that I actually submitted.

So definitely having, you know, something that is more central to students, you know, more people who are helping us with those CalFresh applications. I know our basic needs centers, they have CalFresh workshops, but they are like every so often, maybe like a week or so. And then if you would like to get like a one on one appointment, you would have to seek that appointment. And then those spaces fill up really quickly as well.

So definitely getting more staff members in our basic needs center to help with those applications, more investment into, you know, those emails that let us know that we're actually eligible and actually, you know, sending us links to how we can apply, what these applications entail, the materials that we'll be needing for those applications.

And yeah, just having more outreach to students, you know, learning about, you know, what it means to be CalFresh eligible. And, you know, there are a lot of barriers to CalFresh eligibility, especially now. Mow that the pandemic is over, they went back to stricter requirements. So, you know, outlining what those requirements are and seeing if there's any way that we could even get around those requirements for special situations for students.

Yeah, I'll just, I mean, I don't know how much this is integrated in like the financial aid application process, but I would imagine that students who are applying for Cal Grants or other types of financial assistance, you know, that's a way to kind of better integrate in the outreach to make sure people are eligible of certain benefits.

And then as well, you know, the more we can invest in expanding the food pantry programs, the supplemental benefits for students without legal status to make sure that they're eligible because they may not be eligible for SNAP, I think is really important as well. Yes, Senator Ochoa Bogh.

You just made me think about, I believe it was San Bernardino County that was trying to streamline the process of getting the resources all connected, beginning with our students in high school that are about to graduate in high school, that people are, or the school district knows that they're aware that the families need financial assistance or they qualify for those financial assistance and coordinating with the county in order in the university to stream to just kind of transfer the information over automatically to in collaboration.

And I don't remember exactly the specifics, but they would collaborate with the county, collaborate with the local school in order so students like yourself were not applying every single time. And it was just literally just the systems were just intertwined.

So I'm going to have to look into how they were managing to be able to do that because I think it behooves the fact that it gets overwhelming when you're a student and you're graduating from high school, you're going to a new university. I mean, you're just flooded with information. Right. And that's one of the things that we have in every single level of government is just the overwhelming amount of information that you have to read and sort through but if there is a way that maybe systemically through the state.

We just could make it easy for high schools to kind of, once those students have enrolled in high school, I mean, in college, just transfer the information over so that you don't have to apply. And I think it does take collaboration with the local county. I'm not sure what level to the state, but it could be done. We have to look at it systemically and how we coordinate those offices. But I'll have to look into how San Bernardino did it and then we'll move forward on that end, see what we can do.

I have another question for Mr. Wakefield. So it's not a tsunami. What did you say? A soiree?

Soiree, Silver soiree, yes.

But the soiree's getting big?

Right, it's a big party.

And so as our senior population grows year by year, from your perspective and the food banks that you represent, what are some changes that could be implemented to congregate meal home delivery meal programs to accommodate that growing need, that growing population in California?

You know, the service delivery model is so fine tuned after decades that it's really about funding. So I think it's, you know, we've all grown up differently, right? So in San Diego, we're 65 years old. Other programs maybe started where they were memory care facilities and then evolved into home delivery.

So we all have different origins, and we were just fee for service predominantly up until a few years ago. And then we started with a government contract to do outreach for people that can afford to pay as well. Other people have started always on that government contract and so they've not developed the other legs to the financial stool as much like the donation side, the fee for service side. So instead of a three legged stool, it might be a one legged bar stool.

So I think that a lot of it is just over time having to pivot and evolve. But that's really challenging because they've started off serving the neediest in their communities. And that funding just needs to continue to be there. You know, Older Americans Act dollars have been around since 1965.

Historically, it's the most reliable source of funding for senior nutrition, much more than any foundation, anything that I know of. Yet right now, oddly enough, this is in question as well. Right. It's always also had bipartisan support. So I think just continuing to emphasize that because they're doing the right thing, they're all very efficient on their service delivery model because of volunteer and collaborations. So there aren't too many inefficiencies.

I think, you know, one of the things that we all do when we're creating our strategic plans with our boards is targeting operational excellence and sustainability. And so we are with expertise with our boards, et cetera, trying to refine our way of doing business if there are any efficiencies to be had that we aren't currently looking at. But I think it's just really important to emphasize the amount of money. It's growing, and we need those funds, and accessible too. I think one of the challenges for a lot of small organizations that don't have reserves is the reimbursement model.

So some people, I mean, for the one time, you know, for the one time only infrastructure dollars, you know, it was tough for people to go out and buy a van to deliver meals. That's $45,000, because they don't have $45,000 of reserve. So they have to borrow that money, go buy the van, and that can reimburse. So the reimbursement model is also challenge if you're a smaller organization. We can handle it because we have reserves, but the smaller organizations are often the ones serving the more remote parts of the state.

We happen to be a large agency going inland, but a lot of the inland areas and remote areas of the state are served by very small agencies that might have 30 to 50 clients, and that's all. So I think instead of reimbursement, anticipating the money and then having them present the receipts afterwards would be helpful for a lot of the smaller nonprofits.

Thank you, colleagues. Any additional questions for the panel? I guess, Ms. Silva, I guess how many of your clients are not just benefiting from food bank groceries and meals, but also who are also signed up for food assistance programs? Is there a lot of people that are accessing both resources?

Yeah, I appreciate the question. I can answer it in kind of the flip direction, which is that we know about a third of CalFresh recipients also visit food banks. So knowing that we have about 5.5 million people in California on CalFresh, about a third of those would be also visiting food banks.

And I'll also say that a lot of food banks also do CalFresh outreach work. So the California Association of Food Banks holds one of the state's largest CalFresh outreach contracts, and we subcontract with over 50 different partners locally. Many of them are food banks, but not all of them, to do CalFresh outreach work. And that is the real, you know, help to make sure that people understand how to navigate the program.

That can be so difficult to go through on your own, sifting through paperwork and making sure that you're approaching the interview and having your questions answered and helping you to communicate with the county about issues that might have popped up in your application. So I'll also say that that's one of the really great resources that a lot of food banks offer, too, is that one on one help with people to navigate applying for the program.

Great. Thank you very much. Yes, Senator Becker.

Thank you. And Ms. Maldonado, sorry, I don't want you to repeat since I've missed a lot of your testimony, but are you also in CSU or community college students? Are you in touch with sort of them as well? And do you feel like there are efforts to have all these different kinds of students learn about their eligibility and benefit?

The UC Student Association has a lot of contact with the California community colleges and the CSUs, so we can definitely get more information on those testimonies as well. I do have family that goes to CSUs and Triple C's, friends and family. And a lot of them are commuters, so they don't qualify for CalFresh. However, a lot of them are also kind of independent even though they are commuters, and there is still a need for those students to receive CalFresh as well.

Yeah. Well, thanks. I know. I think at San Jose State they've set up food banks at San Jose State and some other places as well. And I know my colleague Marc Berman in the Assembly has been just very focused on this issue as well. So whatever we can do to just kind of make sure we're paying attention there and make sure we're making sure the students can go to schools and that hunger is not one of the things we're dealing with, it would be great. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. I guess, unless there's any additional questions. Thank you all so very much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time and your testimony, this important discussion. And we're going to pivot to our last panel on innovative models in food access.

I'd like to invite Sam Greenlee, the executive director of the Alchemist Community Development Cooperative, Jennifer Grissom, executive director of Food Access Los Angeles, and Andrew Cheyne, managing director of public policy for GRACE End Child Poverty in California. And good morning. I'll turn over to Mr. Greenlee first and Senator Ochoa Bogh, I have to step up briefly for one minute, so I'll turn the chair over to you as the Vice Chair.

Good morning. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to address all of you and share with you. As I mentioned, I'm the executive director of the Alchemist Community Development Corporation, 501(c)(3) serving this greater Sacramento region. I also sit on the steering committees for the California Alliance of Farmers Markets and the Sacramento Food Policy Council.

Just to give a broader sense of the scope. I'm here this morning specifically to speak about the California Nutrition Incentive Program, also known as CNIP, which Senator Becker mentioned earlier, truly appreciate. As he mentioned, this program is a win, win, win. This is one of the few.

It's really the only food safety net program that is housed under CDFA. And CNIP brings nutrition incentives that combine with CalFresh when spent on California grown produce. So generally from small and mid sized farms. That includes incentives for WIC and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program.

But the bulk of it is distributed through Market Match, which primarily focuses on farmers markets and farm stands. So you have direct marketing from small farms. So it's a dollar for dollar match as people use their CalFresh that can receive up to $15 in additional benefits spend specifically on fresh fruits and vegetables.

It's a unique blend of supporting small farms while also addressing hunger. The impact is incredible. In 2023, Market Match facilitated $19.4 million in combined spending between Market Match incentives and CalFresh at farmers markets. That represented around 574,000 visits to farmers markets to spend those funds. Recent research has suggested a three to one economic impact when nutrition benefits are spent at a farmer's market because it goes to local farms who spend in their local communities.

Which means that in 2023 alone, this program facilitated 58.2 million in economic stimulus in California through small farms and resulted in an estimated 38.3 million servings of fruit and vegetables to Californians. It also drew down from 2017 to 2023. I apologize. 19, I'm sorry... $30 million in federal match.

So this is a program that is funded by California, but it does draw down from the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program through USDA. And so it also brings additional federal money to the state. This is incredibly impactful for customers who shop at farmers markets.

For those who have CalFresh benefits and are able to participate in their local farmers market to access fresh picked fruits and vegetables at peak nutrition, at peak flavor. It helps children to eat their fruits and vegetables when they're eating high quality fresh produce. But the program of course is facing general threats.

We're most concerned about cuts to SNAP at the federal level. It's hard to know exactly how that would play out if it came. You know, we have concerns that California would have to backfill funding for CalFresh, which of course could hurt the program overall.

At the same time, it will likely drive more people to participate in this program at farmers markets. If their benefits are being reduced, they'll have more need to double the impact of their spending. These incentive programs that help them to expand their purchasing power. At the same time, we're seeing threats to small farms.

It's hard for a small farm to stay in business anywhere. It's difficult in California. And as was mentioned, some of the push and pull lately from federal policy changes have gone one direction another. Small farms have become... They benefit greatly from a handful of programs, and some of those have been cut or are going to be cut.

So this is one of the few programs that really helps to also support our local food system that keeps California a resilient place for food production. And many of these small farms themselves are just on the verge of sustainability. We saw during COVID, many people expected when the pandemic came that farmers markets would, you know, kind of collapse, that this would be the end of farmers markets. It'd be the end of benefits programs at farmers markets as people were afraid to be around each other.

In fact, during COVID during the pandemic across the state, the Market Match program expanded by leaps and bounds. The people actually felt safer shopping outside, that people were more, were craving community alongside their food and that you get that at a farmer's market. And also that people needed those additional benefits to expand their CalFresh spending on food.

I think we're currently in a similar time just with economic forces, with policy changes. Obviously we have people facing similar crises trying to be able to afford enough food to put on the table. And I think the program, again, effectively responds to this need. I know there's been a lot of data.

I wanted to share a few quotes from customers who have been impacted by this program from around the state. Rosemary E. in Berkeley, California, shared, At 78 years old, I'm still working as a self-employed person. I hope to be able to work until 85. If not, it's going to be very difficult for me to pay my rent, let alone buy food. The Market Match is essential for me. Without it, I will find it difficult to buy enough food each month.

Sullam in Madera, who's a small farmer, sells at farmers markets, said, Market Match has helped my farm workers and community members who pick the fruits and veggies from the field but can't afford to buy it from the stores. This program ensures access to fresh fruit and veggies to our low income community.

Anna and Chico said, you have no idea that I have been able to get vegetables with Market Match and then if I wanted protein or bread with my CalFresh, I was able to purchase it. It has been insurmountable in my survival. James P. in Castro Valley said, as a farmer's market vendor, you may be surprised, but I'm on EBT. The Market Match program helps me keep myself fed in between market days. I'd be hungry without it. And finally, Naved in Los Angeles said, last year, my son said, what are those? And point at the strawberries I bought with Market Match.

He's four. And that's when I realized it's four years since I could afford strawberries. I found out about Market Match, and it changed that. There are many stories like this replicated far and wide across the state. And, you know, our ask, or what we're hoping to see in the future is twofold.

I think, you know, we all these programs we've heard this morning, they're all, they're all essential. They're all so important, we referred them as safety net programs. And I think people imagine each one being a net. I think really each one is a cord that together form the net when it comes to food security.

And if that's the case, SNAP is the anchor point for this net. SNAP is the key program. And I know that, that this is primarily impacted by federal policy, but I think I can speak for so many of us in this community that whatever any of us can do to fight for SNAP survival and eventually its expansion is key. That is the core program. It underlies CNIP, underlies Market Match.

Those programs don't exist without the CalFresh benefit. And beyond that, I would say that with CNIP, the program's been running for 15 years. It's proven its merit time and time again. And its current funding model requires a bundle of nonprofits with no money for advocacy to show up every two to three years and fight for funding again for an essential safety net program.

And, you know, our hope is just that we can find a way to get this permanently placed with funding so that it's not tenuous, you know, that we don't have to mobilize customers who are already in such tentative states, farmers who are already scraping by, that we can just bank on this program to be there and continue to serve the people of California. So, Senator Becker, I thank you so much for your comments about CNIP earlier. I appreciate this time.

Great. Thank you so very much. We'll go to Jennifer Grissom from Food Access Los Angeles. Thank you for joining us this morning.

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. I'm Jennifer Grissom. I'm the executive director of Food Access LA. We are a nonprofit who operate eight farmers markets in Los Angeles and a variety of programs to support many of the things that my colleagues have been speaking about this morning.

So while I could speak again about Market Match and CNIP, I want to talk a little bit about some of the programs we have that help create a foundation to enhance the those programs. Specifically, we're proud of our nutrition programs. We recognize that if you give people food, that's fantastic and wonderful, but we also have to show them what to do with it and why it's important and specifically why it's important to shop local and support our local farmers and what that does to the economy and the environment and all of the things that go into that.

So we take a very holistic approach in addressing food security. Our nutrition program that I'm specifically speaking about this morning is funded through a Specialty Crop Block Grant. It was a program that we developed ourselves. We took farmers and did a video series specifically geared to sixth through eighth graders.

It takes them through the entire life cycle of what it means to be a farmer, what it means to sell at the farmer's market, and what it means to eat that fruit. We're able to take those fruits and vegetables into the classroom so they can experience that in real time, whether it's a taste test or a recipe, whatever the classroom decides.

These programs and things that we can do as a small nonprofit organization bolster all of the Market Match and the CNIP and the SNAP benefits that are available to our participants. Of those participants, in 2024, we had a 20% increase of visits to their local farmers markets. That's both adults and children.

We had a 65% increase in the intention to consume more fruits and vegetables. We also specifically created this program to be a five part series so that they are repeatedly introduced to these. So it's not a one time thing. We had a 68% gain in knowledge about California grown produce and about the benefits.

And we had a 32% increase in confidence to prepare recipes with California grown produce. We are also very intentional to make sure that our recipes are culturally relevant so that our participants and families can make sure to have the comfort food that they're used to while also supporting our farmers.

In addition to that, I wanted to speak a little bit about the LFPA program, which I know my colleagues mentioned. In the last nine months we were able to move 24,000 boxes of produce, 324,000 meals were supported, and it was over a million dollars in sales for our farmers.

And that was not even the full 12 months of 2024. I speak about that program specifically because I wanted to talk about the response we were able to have when the wildfires happened. Because we had had that experience and developed this relationship with our farmers, and we were already supporting them. Those farmers were already growing farmers food.

They were prepared to pivot the next day to serve the chefs and restaurants and shelters that were handing out food to people who had lost their homes and to the firefighters. If we had not had that infrastructure in place, we would not have been able to do that.

So our farmers that were losing sales at the markets were supported. Then obviously, we were getting food to the people who needed it most. So with that, I just want to encourage you to support these funding initiatives that go beyond just the incentives that people are getting. Those are absolutely incredibly important.

But support that funding so that operations and organizations like mine can implement programs to really make sure we're building the foundation for success. These people, you know, people are getting the nutritional education that they need, and we can continue to build and not just have a band aid. So thank you very much for having me here today.

Thank you very much. We'll go next to Andrew Cheyne.

Thank you so much. Chair and Members Andrew Cheyne he/him with Grace End Child Poverty California proud to. It's okay. It's okay. From one, from one last name to another, you know. Yeah.

The last thing I want to do is butcher somebody's last name given how often my name gets butchered. So I apologize.

Well, I looked up how to say your name this morning. I probably still didn't say it correctly. So. Yeah, takes one to no one there. Anyway. Yeah.

As a constituent and advocate, really, really pleased that you're holding this hearing and glad to be here today and we'll do the best with my time to sort of tie some of these strands together. We've heard a lot of data today, but I have a couple data points that really highlight how successful the California model is working.

Again, this is using the USDA data and there's, you know, the census, but when you look at the USDA data, California's food insecurity rate in 2023 is 11.4% and the national rate is 12.2%. That doesn't seem like much, but that's a statistically significant difference that we are that much lower than the national hunger rate.

And when you look at a three year average from 2011 to 2013 and then from 2021 to 2023, there's a 3.6% reduction for California and an only 2.4% reduction for the national. So we've both had a larger reduction to a lower level.

And for someone who's done this for a long time, I just can't tell you how significant that is. These are highly stable numbers. They don't move much year to year, if at all.

And for so many years we were in the wilderness in the Great Recession where California had a far higher food insecurity rate than the national rate. And so I just want everyone to feel really good, from the Governor to the Legislature, for all the work that has gone into what has created that to happen.

That includes the School Meals for All program, California's first in the nation, the work to embrace the Sun Bucks program. We fought for a decade for that program. We finally have it and are really grateful for the work that DSS and CDE do to fulfill that California.

As you've already heard, when I started, we were barely at half and to see 81%, I mean just that is millions of people who are in the program. I'm talking about the work to do, but it just deserves to be celebrated.

In addition, something I don't think that's come up today is the ongoing rollout of the chip tap cards. We are the first state, thanks to the governor's proposal and the work by the Legislature to roll out the more secure chip tap cards. The theft, the skimming has just been horrendous across California.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen food and ca poorest residents. Right. We're finally going to be able to put a significant stop to that. California is the first state to do that. This is incredible work because it's really a nationwide transition.

All of the technology providers that are in between that card and that point of sale system, as that transaction goes to the Federal Reserve and back. It wasn't just something that California could do alone. It took a lot of state and federal partnership and California just like pushed through that. And here we are.

Really do appreciate that and there's clearly more to do and some highlights in that space. So as far as CalFresh goes, I just want to build on what Ms. Garcia said earlier. It's really primarily not a matter of policy, but it's about customer service.

How are we improving the access to the call centers, as was mentioned before, how are we improving that benefits Cal System? You know, I just want to commend the work that it. You know, I started when we had three systems, right.

And it was like, okay, by 2023 we have to get to one system and it just seemed daunting. But here we are. And other states have gone through these and they actually lost cases. Right. We actually were highly successful in having an intentional process where we did not have anyone lose access to the program.

Nevertheless, it was a major technology lift and there's a long backlog. When we're passing new policies in California. They're not getting fully implemented for up to a year or longer because of the technology systems.

And so we need to continue to, to put the shoulder to the wheel there and figure out how can we implement in a more efficient way. But there's a lot of work that needs to get done there.

Language access, again, as was spoken to, we're enrolling upwards of 95% of English speaking Californians who are likely eligible, but as little as half of some other language communities. There is a significant amount of work that needs to be done to improve equitable access there. Again, not through major policy changes, but through that customer service lens.

The CalFresh minimum benefit, you know, as was already testified, we've got a third of our CalFresh recipients going to food banks because the benefit's not lasting the month. What can you buy with $23, not very much. Right.

And when we do that, we're supporting access and healthy food for all, the entire caseload, not just those who are able to access certain programs when we look at school meals. Thank you so much, Senator Chobok, for your comments earlier and I was glad to be part of that initial push several years ago. But.

But we do need to continue the farm to school. I think that might have been said before you joined, but I appreciate the comments. We do need to continue to invest in scratch cooking so that we have California food going and our kids can help cook it. My kids are in the West Contra Costa schools.

When they are able to connect with their food, the light bulbs just go off and it's a totally different situation for them. So that's a place where we can continue to strengthen that program. Sun Bucks really want to thank Senator Perez who has legislation here.

As I mentioned, California is doing a great job, but it was the first year of a permanent federal entitlement last year. So we do have ways to improve it. Let me just give you a couple examples. We're about to have a unified form, but it's a static PDF.

What we need is a single web application so families can actually enter their information. The best analogy actually is the GetCalFresh website in the sense that GetCalFresh didn't determine eligibility. It was just an accessible website that would then take your application and send it to your county.

In this case, we got to get it to your school because we need to know, is the child enrolled? Are they eligible under NSLP? But having that front face is so much more impactful. Imagine you're a busy parent like myself, probably like some of you, having a PDF on a website. Okay, how do I download it?

Do I understand the questions? How do I get it to my school? Especially over the summer when schools are closed. So that's an important place to improve it as well as the boost ebt. Imagine if after the fires when we have Low income families, we can simply put an additional benefit on their card. Right?

That's the kind of thing that we need to get to where we can really close equitable access during crises as well during disaster response. I would want to flag for you that there's legislation on the Assembly side by Celeste Rodriguez that would build on work to improve our drawdown of the federal dollars.

What's called automatic mass replacement or the disaster calfresh. Some of these take different federal approvals, but there's often a lot of work that has to happen at the zip code level to determine was there power outage, was there evacuation, are we able to trigger and then draw down these federal benefits?

And that's a lot of work for the counties and dss. And so we want to strengthen that response. There was legislation AB 607 by Mr. Gloria, but it's been nearly 10 years and the climate crisis is simply at a scale that we didn't even imagine 7-8 years ago.

And so we need to make sure that there's liaisons memorandum of understanding. We don't want to leave any federal dollars on the table, especially following a disaster crisis. All right. In turning to the federal situation, as has been mentioned, it's highly dynamic and there are really dire cuts on the table, which I'm going to talk about.

But I would just start by mentioning that the first threat is the mass layoff of federal employees. When folks become unemployed, they are highly skilled workers who are now going to be turning to the very safety net programs like California CalFresh that are also being threatened with potential cuts.

They're also likely to be competing for jobs for those families who are trying to exit poverty through our CalWORKS program, which is also under this Committee's jurisdiction. So that's something that we need to be thinking about. So I just want to thank the chair for your comments and Ms. Ochoa Bogh for your comments earlier as well about making sure that we have the resources that we need for the CalFresh program. We're really grateful that your colleague, Senator Hurtado sent a letter to Mr. Valadao on the Medicaid side.

Side, I can provide a copy of that urging him to not support the budget resolution that would have such deep cuts. On the health care side. Right. He's got 500,000 people in his district that rely on Medicaid.

But I shared some letters with you on the SNAP side where you can see that there's a robust community of stakeholders from family and children and anti hunger advocates to our retailers, to the workforce in our retail settings, our SNAP workers, our county administrators, every stakeholder who touches the CalFresh program knows how valuable it is and is asking Congress to not support these deep cuts.

And we ask you to join us in that. I mean, I think the Californians and voters across the country have been very clear. They want more help affording groceries, not less. And as was spoken to earlier, you know, families don't aspire to be on aid. People want good jobs. They want jobs as living wages and benefits.

But until we get to that economy, we do need these forms of assistance programs to fill in the gaps. The solution is clearly not to slash these proven programs. So what's on the table in Congress, what we're looking at is a total of $230 billion nationally. That translates to about $30 billion in California.

So when you look at the ERS data, Economic Research Service from the USDA, what does that translate to? Well, every $1 in federal food assistance generates as much as $1.8 in total GDP. And that makes sense when you think about it, because this isn't just food assistance, this is grocery money.

We're helping families make ends meet at the grocery store or at the farmer's market, as we've spoken to. Right. And so those benefits are being spent. They're supporting our farmers, our farm workers. They're making sure there's loads on the trucks and they're making sure that there's shifts for the grocery workers. Right.

So when we're Talking about a $30 billion cut, that's as much as $54 billion in GDP across our food and farming economy and more than 406,000 lost jobs over the 10 year budget window. So what are the types of cuts that are on the table?

Well, the one that's getting the most headlines is what's called the Thrifty Food Plan. And so it would be to roll back the first increase in the foundational math of the food stamp benefit since 1973.

I believe there's been increases for inflation, but the actual math of how could you actually purchase groceries on the SNAP benefit and actually meet the US Dietary guidelines? So there is an estimate from before this increase that basically you needed to buy a sack of potatoes, gallons of orange juice.

Yes, you can meet your dietary needs, but this might not work for your culture preferences, this might not work for your dietary restrictions or diseases that you're having. And the time tax for how to buy in bulk at different stores and cobble these meals together, none of that was taken into account.

So we don't want to go backwards on that. There are also efforts to potentially expand the time limit. So we already have a significant time limit on food assistance. It was actually just raised to people up to 54 years old.

And all of the data, including a pilot in Fresno, California shows that these types of mandatory programs, they simply fail for folks. The primary benefit is that folks lose access to the program and they don't gain employment. Because the problem is no one is actually offered a job.

It's just if you are able to meet these requirements, if there aren't jobs in your area or other types of opportunities, then you lose your assistance. And some of the new proposals are to raise it up to 60 or maybe 65, as well as custodial parents with kids.

But I would point out that the United Ways of California found that 97% of California families struggling to make ends meet have at least one full time working adult. So it's not as if there are families who aren't working.

It's that they are unable to access jobs or that jobs aren't paying to end the broad based categorical eligibility. This is one of the things that actually reduces red tape and Streamlines access between CalFresh and school meals.

So this would increase red tape and enact a benefit cliff primarily on families who have some earnings but still qualify for CalFresh, because you can screen those up to 200%, but you still have to come under the net income test of 100%. And last, and I think not least, is a potential state cost shift.

There could be proposals that actually would make it look like Congress isn't making a cut, but would require states to. It would change the formula right where right now the administrative costs are 50/50 state and feds, but all the benefits are federally funded.

Well, if those ratios were to be changed, that really would be an unthinkable shift in the federal, state and county share of the cost to administer the program. And while it's not the focus of this testimony, there are similar cuts that are even larger to Medicaid. There are additional significant cuts to the school meals program as well as to the TANF block grant.

So we are asking the Legislature, which has a long history of bipartisan support for these programs, to continue to support them, as was discussed in this hearing, which really is wonderful to hear, and if necessary to backfill and maintain a focus on the core program, reinforcing the foundation even as we endeavor to build out the program that we envision and after we are successful working together to stop these cuts and take them off the table, to get back to the work of strengthening the programs, many of which are led by California Members of Congress.

And I'll just mention a couple and I'll be done. The student issue was brought up in a previous panel. This is primarily an issue of federal law that has an additional unjust exclusion and a requirement of work reporting for 20 hours a week for most students. California has really led the way.

It's been the model for most other states to identify and really make real the different exemptions that exist under federal law, such as anticipating work study. But as you heard from the yellow, those are often on a semester basis or short term, depending on it. And so students are coming back from breaks and losing access. Right.

They're not necessarily a long term exemption. And that is the Snap Eats act, which was HR 3183 in the prior Congress by Congressman Jimmy Gomez from California. Congresswoman Barbara Lee had legislation in the prior Congress before her retirement to end the time limit and follow the data.

That is simply cruel to take away food from people who are struggling to make ends meet. And finally, your alumnus Mr. Mullen has legislation that would finally update the federal poverty level. We don't just have the supplemental poverty level in Congress or in the census. Excuse me, we have the California poverty measure here. Right.

And thanks to our colleagues who testified earlier. So this wouldn't necessarily adopt that, but it would recognize that there's all this work to get around the federal poverty level and recognize the real level of hardship. And yet we're not using that when we are informing eligibility for these federal programs, which has a lot at stake.

When you see the numbers of people going to food banks. Right. The level of hunger and poverty related hardship goes far up the income scale. So thank you.

Thank you so much, all of our panelists. I want to bring it back to the Committee and ask if there are any questions for the panels. Senator Becker,

There's a lot there and I appreciate all of you. And again, I appreciate all the additional detail on market match and the importance of that and then the sort of bigger picture on a lot of our safety net programs that we just got. I'll think about. Let's turn it back over to you.

But I just want to recognize there's a lot there. I really appreciate it and I think it's going to be a big part of this Committee this year will be to look at these safety net programs, especially as they're being affected by the. I know you're focused on that.

As they're going to be affected by the Federal Government and what can we do here in California? So I just want to note that and I may have some more follow up.

Thank you. Mr. Cheyne.

Yes.

Okay. I'm wondering if there are any lessons that we can learn from the loss of pandemic era calfresh policies. I mean there were a lot more resources available during the pandemic era which helped address economic and food insecurity in California.

You talked about the various proposed cuts to federal programs which will impact federal and state programs to provide food security for Californians. I Wonder if there's anything, anything that we can learn from how we pivoted in that post pandemic era when some of the sort of emergency resources were went away that could inform.

I mean we have to, from my perspective, fight for the continuation of this funding every possible way we can. This is a bipartisan issue from my perspective and if there are cuts to look at how we can backfill those here in California. But I'm wondering, you know, are there any lessons learned that we can glean from about how we can sort of meet the moment?

Yeah. And I'll be glad to provide information, additional information. Thank you for the question. I would highlight a couple things. One is that Congress at least did the right thing on Sunbucks. One of the only permanent pieces we got out of COVID just across the Federal Government was in the nutrition space.

And we had for a decade been asking for a permanent, what we typically call summer EBT program. During the pandemic we got what was called pandemic EBT and the Department of Social Services has their outcomes report so you can read more about how effective it was. And then we thankfully got permanent authorization.

So it's the first federal entitlement in a generation and it's really significant. I would say that, you know, in terms of the lessons is that unfortunately that's the exception that proves the rule. Almost everything else that the Federal Government provided was turned off in addition to the child tax credit. Right. The enhanced child tax credit.

So the EAs were spoken to and that was extremely significant. As we've spoken to, the CalFresh benefit is not adequate. And the EAs went to a large part to address that. That partially took litigation by the Western Center. So California had a big hand and making sure that that was as effective as possible.

But what hasn't been talked about as much is that there were additional changes to eligibility, including to students. That was actually cleaned up a lot of those rules as well as to the three month time limit. And there were really important administrative flexibilities in the form of waivers that the USDA provided.

One of the challenges was that they provided them on a short term basis. So you can imagine it was actually tough for not just California, but lots of states to say, I would love to, you know, you heard about the Sar 7.

You know, I would love to change the rules for how certain forms are turned in or who has to turn them in or how long you have. But there are like, you know, forms and notices and automation in our IT systems that dictate all that right now and you just can't turn that on and off.

So I think one of the lessons is that we actually learned about how we can open up access to the program, but we would also want the Federal Government to make some of those available on a more permanent basis because it's hard for states to pivot.

And when it comes to backfilling, I would just point out that there are potential revenue opportunities if there is changes at the federal level that would skew to the wealthiest Californians. All the more reason to be looking at ways to ensure that we can continue to maintain supports for the lowest income Californians.

Thank you very much. Any other questions, comments from my fellow Committee Members? Thank you very much for joining us this morning and for your thoughtful testimony. Really appreciate it as part of this discussion and particularly framing what we may be facing in the coming months with the proposed cuts at the federal level. So thank you very much.

So I want to thank everyone, all of our panelists for your testimony. As we've heard today, hunger in California affects people's lives from childhood to older age, from malnutrition to increased stress. Hunger remains an important challenge that we must continue to work on as a state.

And I look forward to working on this issue with my colleagues on the Committee in the Legislature this year. So with that, I want to open up for public comment before we adjourn the hearing and invite any Members of the public who'd like to address the Committee. And we'll I think we'll get two minutes per speaker.

So if you would like to speak, please line up on this side of the room and yes, sir, Please go ahead.

My name is Steven Inrig. I'm Professor of health policy and political science at Mount St. Mary's University in Los Angeles. Food insecurity affects millions of college students, immigrants and foster youth. And too many students have to choose between tuition and groceries.

And at a Hispanic serving institution like mine, this disproportionately affects first generation students and communities of color. We've already heard about that this morning. Nationally, one in three college students struggles with food insecurity. 42% of UC students, 50% of CSU students and more than 70% of community college students experience hunger.

And half of the food insecure students don't use CalFresh because they don't know about it or believe that they're eligible for it. My University has made some progress in providing free and Low cost food options available to students. And we've made available at times peer navigators trained to Help students navigate the CalFresh eligibility obstacles that are there.

But we have a long way to go. Some of those things are about the community customer service experience that we've already talked about. We already know what works in a lot of ways. Campus food pantries, meal vouchers, farmers markets, service navigators, SNAP expansion, culturally competent food opportunities for people and partnerships with food organizations.

But with impending budget cuts, we have to strengthen these local partnerships. We've got to streamline some programs or at least the eligibility requirements to get in them, leverage some private funding and then find some other creative solutions.

California has been a leader in fighting hunger, so we have to innovate with evidence based interventions and pilot programs to sustain the efforts you already have started and championed. No student, no family, no young person, whether they're in or out of foster care, should, should go hungry.

And investing in food security isn't just a moral imperative, but it's also a smart long term investment in our state's future. I appreciate the opportunity to share that with you. Thank you very much.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Keely O'Brien with Western Center on Law and Poverty. Thank you so much for holding this important hearing. As you already heard today, CalFresh and Sunbucks are absolutely critical for the communities that we serve and they're under threat from potentially devastating federal budget cuts.

We need the Legislature to continue to protect and strengthen them, including by fighting summer hunger with a single statewide Sunbucks web application, funding caregiver meals at summer food sites and supporting CalFresh by raising the minimum CalFresh benefit to at least $100, supporting meaningful advocate engagement with CalSaws, strengthening disaster response as Andrew talked about, and protecting CalFresh and CalWORKS access for students who get scholarships, which Assemblymember Brian has a Bill on this year and then expanding food access by sustaining Cal food at $60 million ongoing, protecting the CFAP expansion and lastly supporting the ask by the diaper banks.

They have a really critical budget ask. We don't want families having to choose between putting food on the table and getting fresh diapers for their babies. Thank you so much.

Good morning Mr. Chair and Members. Raymond Contreras with Lighthouse Public affairs on behalf of Fullwell. Fullwell advocates for a safety net that both that is wider and stronger supported by state funding.

Specifically these include easier enrollment processes, efforts to reduce churn and food assistance program as well as expansion like Food for All, which help more Californians access critical food assistance. Current CalFresh benefits levels set by federal guidelines are often inadequate to meet basic needs. Folwell Supports programs to increase CalFresh benefits such as CalFresh fruit and vegetable EBT programs.

CalFresh Minimum Benefits Cal Fresh Water Pilot California has been a pioneer in using state resources to combat hunger which include medically supportive food and nutrition via Calaim Medical which includes programs like medically tailored meals, California's nutrition incentive programs at cdfa.

Cal Food, which supports food banks and universal sources school meals to ensure all students have access to healthy meals. Thank you for highlighting the importance of using state resources to addressing hunger in California. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Good morning Mr. Chair and Members. Nicole Wordelman on behalf of the Children's Partnership, echoing some of my colleagues comments, we are urging the Legislature to raise. The minimum CalFresh benefit to at least. $100 so that families can afford groceries as well as create a single statewide sandbucks web application to ensure equitable access.

For the 1.8 million kids, predominantly immigrant. Students who are not streamlined certified and need to apply. Thank you.

Good morning. Amanda Kirchner on behalf of the County Welfare Directors Association, I want to thank you chair and your staff for putting on this very important hearing on food security here in California.

Our counties administer our CalFresh program and we serve about 5.5 million individuals on CalFresh benefits and we also work with our community partners to make sure we're doing outreach and connecting them to needed services.

Part of the work that we are doing is also trying to be as innovative and unfortunately sometimes very manpower intensive tasks of fighting EBT theft. But as you heard earlier, we're very proud of the fact that we're about to roll out our Chip Tap program which is the first in the country.

So we are hopeful that that will continue to reduce the loss of benefits, especially as those may not continue to be backfilled from the Federal Government. And then finally, I just want to say that CalFresh is just one of the components of our social safety net.

And so we continue to urge the Legislature to continue to work with our state agencies and of course our federal partners to fight against any of the cuts that are currently being proposed as we know those impacts are so devastating to our communities. So thank you. Thank you Chair.

Members Kathy Mossburg, on behalf of a few clients here want to highlight and associate ourselves with the comments of our colleagues working on the CNIT program. Doing this on behalf of Roots of Change and the Public Health Institute, an incredibly important program that we call a triple win for California.

You have California shoppers getting access to more food, get a little bump on their EBT. We help local Farmers, local food banks, I'm sorry, local farmers markets and folks to get extra, extra meals. This is a program that, and as you've heard today, these are all patchwork programs that we've really pieced together.

And I think this is one where it would help, it would benefit to keep it on a consistent programming, meaning that the funding is stable year over year. This is one where we have one more additional year, but we will be looking at funding for the following year for sure.

Then also, on behalf of Nourish California, want to highlight what's already been mentioned here by the chair and Members on the supplemental fruit and veggie program. Incredibly popular program. Important again for a lot of the same reasons.

Give another access point for folks to get more, more bang for their buck on their CalFresh, but also help local communities and local farmers. So really is one of those, again, that helps a lot of folks locally in various ways. So really on this one, as you heard, funding has run out.

Like a lot of our pilot programs, funding has, has run out. We've had to end the program early. Any additional dollar here, there is a budget ask of 63 million. So any additional dollar here would be incredibly helpful to continue this program for those that are served.

And I think I'd want to just on that behalf of Nourish California, as the beginners and the initiators of the water pilot program want to note all of the help that the Department has been on that program, but really it serves one county because of a lack of funding.

There are a lot of places where access to fresh water is unavailable to folks and they are using their limited CalFresh money and dollars to purchase bottled water.

And so any additional dollar on that program, while it's true we've done everything we can with the Department to extend those benefits year over year, we really are only doing it because it serves a small amount of the population and we know it could serve more. So just to pitch on that one too, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Ana-Alicia Carr, Director of Policy and Coalitions with the Los Angeles Food Policy Council. Thank you all very much for your time and attention to this issue. I want to just reiterate the importance of this issue for us in Los Angeles.

A recent study by the University of Southern California in October of last year highlighted that 25% of all households within Los Angeles County experience food insecurity. This is over a million households.

Once we start to look at Low income communities of color, those numbers rise upwards of 440% so we are often known as having the largest food insecure population in the country. And of course these issues are even worse when we start to look at those households with children.

So we welcome all of the opportunity to expand, sustain and uplift, reduce the administrative burden that are associated with so many of these safety net programs, especially for communities that are so economically challenged as those living in Los Angeles.

So we support of course, the Cal Foods program, the expansion or continuation of market match, making that a permanent feature within the state to continue to offer additional purchasing power for folks with CalFresh being able to Fund the fruit and veggie pilot so that people have opportunities to get those incentives not just at farmers markets, but at brick and mortar stores as well. So that we're continuing to prioritize the farmer, the producer, the retailer and the consumer. Thank you.

Thank you.

Last but not least, I'm Beth Smoker. I'm the policy Director with the California Food and Farming Network. So we're a network of about 50 organizations across the State of California that really think about hunger from the intersection of anti hunger issues, farmer issues and farm worker issues.

So I just wanted to highlight two points that first being that there's a really sad irony that the workers who grow and deliver our food face that higher levels of food insecurity than the rest of the U.S. workforce. I think that was touched on a bit today.

But just to put emphasis that, you know, our grocery store workers who are literally stocking food on shelves, there was a study in recent years that over three quarters of Kroger grocery workers are food insecure, which is seven times higher than the US average. Similarly, in our agricultural fields, 72% of agricultural workers reported trouble paying for food.

Many of those are undocumented and not until 2027 will have access to CalFresh. Same for our small farmers. In a 2021 survey of 120 small farmers, 49% of the BIPOC farmers especially indicated experiencing food insecurity. So just highlighting that this is there's a really sad irony in our food system.

And when we think about food insecurity, we also need to be thinking about the whole chain of the food system. And secondly, to that point I think also highlighted today, this is a really multi sector issue.

And while the core of hunger is definitely housed at CDSS and all the wonderful programs talked about today, appreciate the mention of programs at CDC, CDFA like CNIP and Farm to School, CDE like Universal School Meals and Department of Public Health like medically supported Food and Nutrition. So encourage the Legislature to continue having these multi sector conversations. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any additional speakers? Okay. I want to thank everyone who participated in today's hearing. This, I think, has been a really informative and important discussion on the work we have to do to continue to address hunger and food insecurity in California.

I just want to acknowledge the progress that we've made, but we have challenges ahead. We have more work to do. And I just want to lift up the personal testimony and sort of lived experience that people shared.

I think it's really important to center the challenges that students and working people in our state go through on a daily basis. And despite all the. All the work we've done that, you know, people are still going hungry in California, the fifth largest economy in the world, the breadbasket of our country.

We can do better, including our farm laborers and people that work in the food service sector as well, as our last speaker attested to. So I know this will be an area of ongoing focus of this Committee in the coming year. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this, on this important issue. So with that, this concludes today's hearing of the Senate Human Services Committee. We are now adjourned. Thank you very much.