Assembly Select Committee on CalFresh Enrollment and Nutrition

Alright. Good morning. Wake up. Good morning. I'm like, I'm sleepy too.

We're gonna go ahead and get started. My cochair and other members are gonna be coming in shortly, and I just wanna be mindful of everyone's time as we continue to move forward. So, thank you all for joining us, and welcome to the second meeting of the select committee on CalFresh enrollment and nutrition. I am assembly member Dr. Lashae Sharp-Collins. Hi.

And I would like to thank my my cochair, Assemblymember Bonta, and our representative staff for all of their work, for all the work that they have done into advancing this critical conversation. Today's hearing builds on our last hearing, which served to be one of the first places the alarm bills were actually rang about the threat, posed by HR 1 across the state.

Now those threats are real, as we all know, and it is approximated that more than 665,000 able-bodied adults without dependents stand to lose their benefits starting in June. So let me say that again. Because of the deliberate choices made by the Federal Government, 665,000 Californians who are today deemed eligible for benefits will lose access to that life saving resource.

However, we also have some good news that we learned about yesterday that the 20,000,000 that was authorized in the 2025 budget to assist counties with their with their ABOD determinations will be allocated starting June 1 so that way we can have that available for the workloads. It has been a while since our very first hearing back in December. For those of you who were able to join us up in Oakland, we had a fabulous time.

But, originally, we did plan to hold another hearing much sooner down in San Diego to have our NorCal and our SoCal balance. But, of course, as you can see, schedules did not allow that to happen.

So we pushed the committee's hearing later, and we thought that now actually makes a lot more sense for us to hold this particular hearing here in Sacramento to both include more members and to be able to respond to the proposals in the governor's budget. I'm happy that we are joined by the legislative analyst office today to provide a review of the governor's proposals.

And added bonus of waiting until now is that we have a better picture, unfortunately, of what is to be expected, for these catastrophic cuts. I know we said better picture, but yeah. We have the Department of Social Services here to help us better understand what they are seeing and also bracing for.

We also have county employees, who administer the program to help us learn about what their increased workload looks like and also what what it's gonna mean for the consumers. And so that is really the purpose of today's hearing is just to try to get our arms around this issue and understand the the impacts that is gonna be expected throughout California. It's impacts that we may not have and expected at all.

We we haven't even actually contemplated this, but too often, we know that hunger is overlooked because many of us have been fortunate enough to have to not even experience the food insecurity situation. So those who those who have naturally tell us that this is something that is an all consuming process and that it impacts the the whole family.

It impacts the whole child. It impacts everything that we do. So what I would like to do today is I welcome today's today's discussion, and I would like to allow my cochair is not here, but any other members who would like to introduce themselves and provide a statement before we begin. I will turn it over to our majority leader.

We need to continue to open and lead in these areas that we can. So let's get it going. And thank you very much, Assemblymember Lashae Sharp-Collins

Thank you. Alright. So now I would like to begin with our very first panel. This panel was titled HR 1 threats to CalFresh and potential hunger crisis. We have all heard about HR 1, but what does it mean for California?

We will hear from LAO and DSS on the state impact and how we are preparing to deal with them. We will also hear from an individual with lived experience who has gone through the program. And finally, we will hear from the industries involved in making sure that CalFresh benefits gets to family and also addressing the agriculture but also grocers area as well. So up first is is Ryan Woolsey with the legislative analyst office. Alright. And you have about ten minutes.

Thank you, madam chair. Ryan Woolsey with the Legislative Analyst Office. I've been asked to provide a little bit of background and overview of changes in HR 1 and CalFresh. I'll be speaking from a handout that was just distributed to you. Starting on page one, CalFresh, as you know, is California's version of the SNAP.

It provides federally funded food assistance to about 5,400,000 low income Californians. The state also provides state funded food assistance to about 60,000 additional low income legally present noncitizens who don't qualify for federal CalFresh benefits. Total benefits across those two populations are estimated to be over $13,000,000,000 in 2025, twenty six with an additional $2,600,000,000 for program administration of which the state is covering a little over one third.

HR 1, also known as the one big beautiful bill act, was signed by the president in July 2025 and makes major changes to CalFresh and other programs. These changes are phased in over time.

Some of them have already taken effect. Others will happen in the near future. I'll discuss three main groups of those changes relating to work requirements, narrowed eligibility for legally present noncitizens, and program financing. On page two, the work requirement, is not in itself new. CalFresh, currently has a three month time limit for, a work requirement for certain enrollees, but until recently had a statewide waiver from this requirement.

HR 1 expands the requirement in terms of who it applies to, and it also effectively ended the statewide waiver. These changes are expected to begin implementation in California in June 2026. At a high level, the work requirement focuses on able-bodied working age adults, with some exemptions that are, in general, targeted to those that would have a difficult time meeting the requirement. The table on page two outlines what some of those exemptions are.

For example, pregnancy, receiving substance abuse treatment, caring for dependent children 14, living in a high unemployment county, and we actually do have, temporary waivers in seven counties under that exemption.

Notably, there are three exemptions that were available for the work requirement prior to HR 1 that have now been eliminated. These include a specific exemption for homeless individuals, former foster youth, and for veterans. So while previously those, groups would have been automatically exempt, they now, would have to see if they can be exempt under a different a different provision. Ultimately, the impact of this provision is is uncertain, but it's estimated that, about 845,000 individuals will not qualify for an exemption.

And of those, approximately 665,000 are at risk of being discontinued from from CalFresh assistance.

Excuse me. Alpine, Colusa, Imperial, the other counties. Why aren't all counties included?

And how new is that information? It says must be above 10%. Unemployment rate must be above 10%. I mean, what does what's that fact come from?

Yes. Please. I'll defer to my colleague from the Department of Social Services.

It just seems like more and more people are on unemployment. I'm thinking, how long do we have to wait for that information? I'm sorry to interrupt your presentation.

Good morning. Alexis Fernandez Garcia with the Department of Social Services. So under HR 1, the thresholds for a waiver were limited. Previously, there were two options, general unemployment data over a series of months and a lack of sufficient jobs. That option has been eliminated, and that is the option that we had previously used to be eligible for a statewide waiver.

The option that remains is an unemployment rate above 10%, and the, threshold for that is defined by, the USDA. It's a look back period of a minimum of three months up to twelve months, and that is based on data from the BLS. And so when we submit our waiver, we look at all counties and determine who is eligible. And if there is an eligible county, the state applies on their behalf. So for this last round, only seven counties were eligible per the federal requirement.

And what we'll do as we look ahead is reapply as we are eligible to determine if additional counties can be added.

That sounds like a lot of paperwork. Yes. Sorry. Truth. Thank you. I apologize for interrupting, but.

Not at all. That's that's that's perfectly fine. Turning to page three, the next major provision is a narrowing of eligibility for legally present noncitizen. So today, some legally present noncitizen do qualify for federal CalFresh assistance. To be clear, other groups such as undocumented immigrants are not eligible and do not receive benefits.

HR 1 disqualifies some legally present noncitizen groups from eligibility for federal assistance, primarily asylees and refugees. It's estimated that, approximately 72,000 individuals currently enrolled in CalFresh will lose benefits due to this change, and this began to be implemented this month, April 2026.

Turning to page four, for program financing changes, the most fiscally significant is that, while today, CalFresh benefits are completely funded by the Federal Government, Depending on a state's error rate, states may have as much as a 15% share of benefit costs beginning in October 2027. And the table on page four shows what the impacts to California could be depending on our our error rate.

Our most recent error rate was for the 2023-24 federal fiscal year, and it stood at nearly 11%, which is incidentally very close to the national average.

But at that rate, we would be liable for approximately $2,000,000,000 in annual ongoing CalFresh benefit costs. Turning to page five, there's also a shift of administrative costs from the Federal Government to the state. Currently, the Federal Government covers 50% of CalFresh admin costs, with the state and counties covering the remainder. But beginning October 2026, HR 1 reduces the Federal Government share to only 25%.

And under current law, that would mean the state share grows to 52.5% and the county share grows to 22.5%

This is equivalent to about $480,000,000 in additional annual general fund costs and about $190,000,000 in annual county costs. Turning to page six, we'll provide some some commentary on these changes and what that can mean for the state. As you likely know, the state is facing a structural budget deficit. Both our office and the Department of Finance have identified significant structural budget deficits starting in 2027-28, and addressing these will require difficult trade offs. HR 1 adds to these.

And in view of these fiscal challenges, it will not be possible for the state to backfill all of the losses related to HR 1, without identifying billions of dollars in increased revenues or programmatic reductions elsewhere in the state budget. HR 1 also puts significant strain on county finances.

Counties are taking on increased costs related to administrative costs in CalFresh, as I mentioned, but they also have increased pressures due to HR 1 provisions unrelated to CalFresh that will increase county costs related to indigent care, health care coverage, due to changes in MediCal. There are other sources of support for individuals that may lose CalFresh coverage due to HR 1. For example, food banks and other community organizations provide additional food assistance.

However, their capacity is limited by their infrastructure, but also by the amount of funding that they receive from the Federal Government, the state government, and private sources. Turning to page seven, we identify a few key issues for the legislature to consider as we're supporting implementation of HR 1. First, 1 of the greatest risks of HR 1 is that individuals who are in fact eligible for assistance will lose their assistance due to administrative burden associated in particular with verifying compliance with the work requirement.

Processes that are manual or require interaction with the the program beneficiaries increase complexity and and are, a risk point for people losing, their their benefits. As a result, linking to existing data sources and making verification automatic wherever possible is going to be important to minimize the risk of of disenrollment.

And this is something that the administration has spoken about as something that they are pursuing. Next, while the state oversees CalFresh, eligibility determination and enrollment functions for CalFresh are performed by the counties. Counties are on the front line of implementing HR 1 and will play a key role in in various aspects of HR 1 implementation, including efforts to reduce the payment error rate and limit the state's exposure to benefit costs, but also in working to limit administrative burdens on program enrollees.

The governor's budget provides some additional funding for counties to implement changes in HR 1, particularly the work requirement. However, because the caseload, isn't anticipated to decrease because of HR 1, those additional funds are offset by reductions so that overall, there's, minimal additional funding provided.

As it weighs its priorities in a constrained fiscal environment, the legislature could consider providing some additional funding to counties to try to, help them prepare for working with enrollees and avoid those disenrollments due to administrative burden. However, if additional funding is provided, we would recommend that any augmentations be temporary until the ongoing work code related to HR 1 is better understood.

And finally, clearly, there are large trade offs associated with HR 1, and we would recommend that the legislature take steps to ensure that key decisions are memorialized in statute where appropriate and also set up mechanisms to have ongoing engagement with the administration to see how the implementation proceeds. And that concludes my comments.

Thank you. Question to you really quick. When we talk about the A box what is qualified in a phase out of over 3 months. Is that the same case for the refugees and the asylees as well.

There's no 3-month limit for the refugees and asylees. However, there is a phase in of the disenrollment for both of those populations, but it's related to the twelve month recertification cycle. What that means is that, it's not the case that on 04/01/2026, all 72,000 of the, asylees and refugees and related noncitizens will lose coverage. Instead, what the state and the counties are doing is looking, at roughly 1/12 of that population every month as they come in for their annual recertification.

And if an individual falls into that population at that time, they would then be disenrolled.

The same thing happens with the ABOD population. It's tied to the twelve month cycle of recertification.

Okay. And that's the same thing for all of them, the parolees, better non citizens

Yes.

Thinking that's there. Okay. Okay. Any questions?

I have questions.

Okay. Good. Alright.

I have a few questions and, unfortunately, we have to go to another meeting, but I just wanna bring these up. I see a lot of navigation that my constituents are gonna need to go through the system. Is there a thought on navigators that the counties or the state might be able to help with? I know we're gonna have a workforce that's gonna be changing. We're gonna have to fill out some of these spots.

So I have some really wild ideas, like, there's a lot of people being laid off right now. United State's private industry would help supplement our navigation skills to make sure we get, the paperwork done for our, our constituents. And with that being said, I'm really concerned about losing access to food safety and assistance, and it's gonna extend farther than any kind of household. So it's gonna extend to my farmers, to my grocers, so on and so forth.

So we need to make sure our CalFresh money is spent locally.

Is there any way that we can help guide that that's done locally?

I'll start at allow my colleague from the department to add on if needed. But CalFresh is is a federal program.

And so there are regulations that govern where, where the funds can be spent. And the federal government, in fact, is responsible for working with food sellers to become locations where CalFresh benefits can be used. It's not something that the state really controls; and as far as I know, there's, there's not the ability for the state to control exactly where, where the benefits can be used.

Will that go away?

I think that would be in the purview of of Congress.

There are programs, however, that California has been supporting that ensure that local economies are better served. I think Alameda County is one of the districts that has participated in a match program—a dollar-for-dollar match program in local farmers markets and others. So, I just visited a couple Thursdays ago, I believe; I remember the day.

Our local farmers market in Oakland, where I was introduced to farmers from Fresno and Stanislaus County who wake up every single morning to be able to deliver food down to Oakland and participate in the market there. People get a coin to be able to have a match-for-match for healthy produce.

It represents, apparently, 80% of the business that those farmers do in the state of California; and it's an incredibly positive investment. To be able to draw down federal funds is pretty de minimis in terms of the cost to the state of California and supports our local economies. And I know that there's a budget request to be able to continue that, continue that program.

Thank you. We're going to now now we will hear from DSS. And, actually, before we kick off, Assemblymember Bonta, my co-chair, would you like to say anything else? Just continue to welcome. We're good to go. Alright. Alright.

I'm gonna turn it over to you, Alexis.

Again, Alexis Fernández Garcia, deputy director with the Department of Social Services. It has been said, but oh, we'll say it again: HR 1 makes very significant changes to federal funding and eligibility for CalFresh. And I want to emphasize again that CalFresh remains one of the most effective tools we have to combat poverty and food insecurity. To your comments, the power of CalFresh is those benefits are spent almost all in the month that they are received, and they are spent locally.

And more of our panels will speak to the power of of those benefits for individuals and local economies. Each month, the program serves over 5.3 low income individuals across California, helping them meet their basic needs, and free up limited resources for other essentials. Ryan spoke to some of the, specifics related to HR1, so I'm gonna adapt my comments a bit to focus on our implementation efforts, so bear with me just a bit as I go through this.

I'll briefly outline or focus on two significant policy provisions related to humanitarian immigrants and able-bodied adults without dependents, And then I'll talk a little bit about the cost shifts and how we're preparing to mitigate harm as as much as possible.

As we approach HR 1 implementation, we do so with three core commitments, mitigating harm whenever possible, including through timely decision making, clear guidance to our county and local partners, and, communication to clients, making evidence based data driven decisions, and maintaining transparency with our our partners, including counties, the legislature, those with lived experience, and more.

So beginning, with the changes to non citizen eligibility as was already articulated, beginning this month, CalFresh eligibility will be restricted to US citizens, lawful permanent residents, Cuban or Haitian entrance, and individuals present under what's called the compacts of free association or COFA. So that means that most lawfully present humanitarian immigrants, refugees, parolees, and others will no longer be eligible. As we discussed, these changes will apply at recertification for ongoing households so that distributes the change across roughly twelve months. And for new applicants, it will apply beginning April 1.

It was mentioned that we do offer a state funded food benefit program through the California Food Assistance Program or CFAP. That is in place for certain noncitizens who are ineligible for CalFresh due to the 1996 welfare reform law. HR 1 does not change CFAP eligibility, including the federal option under which we operate it. And so most, people losing CalFresh under HR 1 will not qualify for CFAP as it is structured today unless their immigration status, later changes.

To support implementation, we've, of course, issued guidance to our county partners, but we've also been providing extensive technical assistance.

We just hosted statewide trainings and had more participants that our Zoom account could handle. So we'll be looking at sharing that information again more broadly, and template communication materials are now also available. I will next discuss, changes to the CalFresh time limit.

We mentioned already that HR 1 keeps the basic framework of the time limit, but major changes include expanding the age range, from 18 to 54 to 18 to 64, lowering the dependent child exemption from under 18 to under 14, eliminate exemptions for people that are experiencing homelessness, veterans, and former foster youth, and limiting waivers.

And so what this means practically is that the rule is now in place for many more people than it would have been prior to HR 1 and at a much larger scale, practically statewide versus under previous rules where we had a waiver for the entire state.

I wanna talk a little bit about some of our estimates to give you a sense of who will be impacted. So currently, we have about 2,700,000 adults ages 16 or excuse me, 18 to 64 receiving CalFresh. We estimate that about 1,800,000 or two thirds of those people are likely already exempt, and that is based on, information that we already have available to us in the system, the eligibility system.

So that leaves roughly 955,000 adults who may be subject to the time limit or who don't, have an exemption that we know of today. And so, as we roll out and implement, we will screen them for exemptions, and these numbers may change.

But as of right now, we don't know whether they would be exempt. Based on early estimates of those 955,000 individuals, about 110,000 are expected to be exempt based on that additional screening. About 179,000 are anticipated to meet the work or community engagement requirement through a qualifying activity, and an estimated 665,000 may be, at risk of losing their benefits or they are anticipated to lose their benefits. And you've heard that number earlier today. We will begin implementation on 06/01/2026.

As with the changes to non citizen eligibility, existing recipients will be screened at their next recertification over roughly a twelve month period. There are some exemptions, 24 and 36 months. Our implementation approach emphasizes three steps. First, accurately identify that someone is actually an ABOD, then, screen thoroughly for exemptions. And we have, built that into the recertification process when there is an interview and an opportunity to have a conversation with someone about that. Assist nonexempt individuals with connecting to qualifying work or community engagement activities. So employment and training, volunteer work, work fair, and other options. To support counties and clients, we have, undertaken some of the following: maximizing exemptions using available data and automation so that there is less need for screening, less workload for counties, less burden for clients, provide statewide training.

We've had, office hours, partner engagement sessions. We're meeting a couple times each month, and we'll continue to do that. We're developing outreach toolkits and, county resource kits in coordination with DHCS who's implementing the MediCal work requirements, expanding our employment and training poor program. Additional, options are being explored such as workfare, and strengthening cross system workforce partnerships to maximize what's already available through things like the WIOA programs, the local workforce boards, and whatnot.

Even with these efforts, many Californians will lose CalFresh and will face increased food insecurity and difficulty meeting their basic needs.

Now I will transition, to the significant cost shift to states under HR 1. As I've mentioned, administrative costs have been split fifty-fifty between the Federal Government and states historically. In California, the state pays 70% of the state share and the counties pay the remaining 30%. Historically as well, food benefits have been 100% federally funded. Beginning 10/01/2026, the federal share of administrative costs will drop to 25%, leaving California responsible for 75% of every dollar spent on administration.

The budget does include nearly $532 million in additional funding for this purpose, but you can imagine that the challenge that the state and the counties will face given this change. Even more consequential is a new benefit cost sharing structure. We talked about this a little bit. For the first time, states may be required to pay up to 15% of food benefits based on what is called our payment error rate.

In California, total benefits are about $13,000,000,000 annually, so this shift poses a significant federal, excuse me, fiscal risk.

To prepare, we've engaged in a multiyear accuracy improvement initiative grounded in data and informed by counties and our partners. For example, some of our early analysis shows that unreported income changes account for about 25% of the dollar value of payment errors. So we're linking the analysis of what is driving the errors to the solutions that we are prioritizing as a state.

So to continue in this example where income is a primary driver, we are supporting, implementation of new consent based income verification tools that will be available to recipients, expanded use of verification sources for real time, hours and wages, again, to help workers but clients improving less documentation, automating some of our back end matches. This is very wonky, but there's a match called the pyramid verification system.

It's data from the Social Security Administration. We're automating action on that income information, to become more timely and accurate. These tools are set to launch throughout 2026 and just some of the examples of what we're working on.

We're also piloting things like proactive communication strategies to prompt clients when reporting or action on their part is needed, and we're tying that to data so that the timing of those messages are just right, right when you owe us a report, right when you should report a change in income, to remind folks of their, responsibilities. And then future investments could include additional system automation, training tools, enhanced quality assurance practices so that we catch errors before they become part of our payment error rate.

So we continue these discussions matching our data analysis to prioritize solutions. But in summary, these changes are profound, and millions of Californians we serve are relying on us collectively to minimize harm and to continually improve our operations. And we are, as committed as you all are to to doing that. Thank you for holding this hearing on this important topic.

Thank you.

That was a lot. That was a lot. But before I ask any questions, does anyone have any questions?

This might have been said. I just wanna clarify: so folks who are undocumented are no longer eligible for CalFresh; some may be eligible under CFAP.

So prior to HR 1, certain lawfully present humanitarian immigrants were eligible for federal CalFresh. There was another group who was eligible for the state funded program, and the difference had to do not so much with their immigration status, but the length of time they had been in that status. So people prior to a five year threshold were on the state funded program, and after that threshold, they were on the federal program. HR 1 eliminates eligibility for federal CalFresh, but those were lawfully present humanitarian immigrants.

And then I just wanna get clear on when you say 2,700,000 people 18 to 64 are receiving CalFresh that is prior to HR 1?

That is current.

That's current.

And so what we've done in our estimates is we've looked at the total number of CalFresh recipients just based on age who might be an able-bodied adult without a dependent. And then looking at our data, we've eliminated people from that group by applying exemptions based on data we have. So we may already know you're receiving a disability payment and therefore would be exempt, or we may already know that you are self identified as American Indian and therefore exempt.

And so we eliminate those people from the pool of 2,700,000, and we're left with about 955,000.

Right so for the 1,800,000 who are likely already exempt: What are the kind of friction or points or transactional barriers to making sure that those people are actually considered exempt?

So the state eligibility system will actually identify them as exempt. And so at the time of the that person's recertification, the worker will look at that case and see that the person has already been determined exempt. They will not show up as a potential ABOD in in the system. And so the worker will know, they can proceed with determining eligibility without applying the time limit to that individual.

So that's the automated one aspect of the automated process that you're talking about?

Yes.

Okay. And so back down to this 665,000 people who are at risk of losing their benefits. I heard you talk about the ways in which you are going to try to keep them on their benefits. I wanted to speak, get a little bit more information about this assistance with connecting people to qualified activities.

That is not a function that has been performed at the scale that we are asking our counties to perform right now and other community based organizations and others who will be involved in that.

Can you speak a little bit more to what you anticipate being both barriers and opportunities for ease of that in the process?

Yeah. And I will answer your question. Let me just take one step back. So the 955,000 are the people who are not exempt based on what we know today. And so in the governor's budget, there are certain assumptions applied to that 955,000.

110,000 are expected to be exempt.

So 110,000 additional expected to be exempt and another group expected to already be either working or connected to a qualifying activity.

Can you do a double click down on the assumption for that number?

Let me go back.

Well, I know the number, but you know what we say about assumptions.

So on the 110,000, that assumption was informed by research from other states that have implemented the time limit. And we looked for states with somewhat similar policy interpretation, to California. And so we found in those states that they had been successful at exempting, I think it's about 11.5% of their population.

Now, of course, things could be different in California. This is an assumption for budgeting methodology. We have continued to have conversations with the counties heading into May revision about what those numbers might look like given their preparation to implement. The 179,000 number is based on, a set of data from our quality control sample where we looked at the number of people who were already engaging in paid employment.

We did some math on that wage and determined that they would could have been working twenty hours or more, and we applied that percentage to our entire caseload.

And so, again, it's an assumption based on the data we have available about people who are working. It does not include people who might go to community college, engage in a a community service activity like at their food bank or or something like that. So these are just based on best available information, and we continue to refine them.

So your budget assumptions are based on these projections? Right. So you're using research from other states for the 11.5%.

Correct.

And then you are using some kind of algorithm around who's employed.

A sample of cases from California.

Okay. For the 179,000. What percentage is that?

I have to go back to my notes. I believe it's about 18%.

Are you 18.8%.

Are what kind of variance are you adjusting for in whatever budget proposals the state puts forward?

Well, I I don't have a specific, like, variance number available right now, but we continue to have conversations with the counties about their assumptions, how they are similar or different than ours, and where we may make some adjustments.

Based on the conversations you've had with counties What is the differential between the state's assumptions and the county's assumptions?

I don't know. Carlos wants to speak to CWDA's, assumptions, but there are, differences related to how many people, may be determined exempt. There are differences related to time and how much time would be needed for each activity, but, we each have kind of a unique methodology.

Yep. Good morning. Carlos Marquez, on behalf of County Welfare Directors Association. So Alexis is correct that at this point, we still have, a disagreement about whether or not the base methodology for, for, the, the CalFresh, allocations that we currently rely on pre HR 1 is sufficient or accounting for the workload associated with exemption screenings in particular post HR 1.

The workload is based on the caseload, obviously. Right?

It's yes. The workload But remember, with entitlement programs, those caseload driven true ups are they happen retrospectively. So if we need to hire a fleet of new eligibility workers to actually prepare folks, for, retaining benefits in the first place. Those investments need to be made on the front end in our view. We think if they are essentially relegated to the the true the the true up process, those folks will have already fallen off the caseload, and then the caseload will adjust accordingly.

And if you're relying on retro retrospective true ups, but we've already established that we are engaging in new activity for that 665,000 people who are at risk of losing benefits. The specific number who need to essentially kinda get put towards in assistance programs for connecting to qualifying activities. How are you all navigating the fact that this is new activity and you use retrospective information?

Well, so there are generally two components to how we build a budget estimate for CalFresh. One is the cost per case. Right? So we have a methodology established via what we call the triannual assessment where we look at this every three years. We have a methodology, that assumes the average cost to process, a CalFresh case.

Our methodology does have some consideration for, the time limits that was established prior to HR 1, but that is the methodology that we applied in governor's budget. And so there's an average cost per case, and then there's a caseload estimate. And so those two things are combined. Right? The cost per case and the anticipated number of ABOD cases expected to be kept looking forward.

That is where some of the numbers we were just walking through come into play. Those are about our our caseload and what we anticipate, and then there's the cost per case. So to to Carlos' point, right, as real data comes in in in the out years, the caseload, is trued up because we have real caseload data versus some of the projections, but they're two separate components. The caseload projections and the cost per case that is built off of a methodology.

Do you have a different average cost per case depending on the profile of the beneficiary?

Yes. We do. Yeah.

And so at this point, our we believe that a worker will need up to an additional four hours to conduct the multilayered screening process per CDSS's guidance that was distributed to counties in December in order to ensure that anyone and everyone who actually qualifies for an exemption like like medically unfit for work or obviously unfit for work actually has that that exemption properly certified by the worker.

And Just so I'm clear. So so the average cost per case for somebody who is expected to be exempt will be different than the average cost per case for somebody who has a profile of being at risk of losing benefits?

In your We in in our methodology, we believe that

In your methodology? In the state's methodology? It's an average.

We apply so we look at cases we look at the average time needed for a mix of cases that would require additional work and a mix of cases that would not. And so when we conducted our survey, and again, this was pre HR 1, it looks at the average amount of time needed across those different, case types.

And we were, of course, CWDA and, CDSS work jointly together when we engage in rebase efforts, primarily through administering a survey to county. And in that survey, which was d1 pre HR 1, there weren't questions present about exemptions. So I think that's key. And then the second piece that's key is that the stakes were very different. So you heard, a little bit about I heard it.

Some of the waivers that were available, pre HR 1, to the to the time limit that are that are no longer available. And the stakes also change worker behavior and county behavior. So for those reasons, we really think that the rebase, is inadequate for estimating what additional work hours will be required for those exemption screenings.

Okay. My last question. Apologies. Actually, I'm not gonna apologize. Are is the methodology that DSS uses determined by the agency or through legislative intent or intent or by statute?

So statute requires what we call the tri annual reassessment or rebase as as Carlos mentioned. So we, every three years, with the department, the Department of Finance, the counties, CWD is very engaged, go through a process of primarily serving counties and assessing the time it takes to process cases based on policy at that time. We bring that information in together in partnership, kind of discuss what we received and and come to some conclusions together about what the current cost per case is at that time.

And then there's a process to determine through the administration and the legislature whether that methodology will be reflected in future budgets.

So the statutory requirement is that the rebase is conducted. And what, Carlos, you are saying from CWDA's perspective is that there are there were questions that were not included in that survey or contextual

Well, there was no time limit at that time. Right? So it was it was a different era. Unfortunately, before HR 1, our survey asked questions relevant to the time limit for the three counties that had been implementing at that time, but it's different. You know? Correct.

And you all are not planning to do another?

We are. So the the next reassessment is going to occur in the the cycle between this budget and the next budget. So we'll start in the fall, potentially. It's on a three year cycle.

It's on a so you're you're not doing a kind of sky has fallen interim reassessments?

We don't have another reassessment planned right now.

So you're just going with the you did one three years ago or when when was it? Approximately. Three years ago, you're gonna be doing another one

Just in short order.

In short order. But in the meantime, we have, obviously Yeah.

A lot of mitigating. So and and I we continue to talk about what some of these similarities and differences are. I will, just name that one of the challenges related to moving, at this scale is that we do not have counties that have implemented the time limit. And so even if we were to do a survey right now, there's very limited California data. We're all kind of working from best available information and and the assumptions, similar activities, and and data from other states.

Right? The time limit has been suspended since prior to the pandemic. And so there just isn't real California data at this time.

So wouldn't it be prudent of us here to figure out how to do something that provides greater flexibility given the fact that we're using other states' data for a portion of this? We don't have the information from the counties around the time limits that were set. We are operating on reassessment that was d1 prior to HR 1 implementation. It seems to be a lot of factors that Would indicate that we need to promote the greatest amount of flexibility for the truing up process.

Yeah. I I hear that, and we continue to have those discussions going into May revision.

But, again, the rebate the reassessment, it was statutorily required?

That is it's statutorily required. Yes.

So it could also be statutorily required that from this legislature that we promote something that is somehow an intermediate step to allow for there to be more clarity.

I think that would be up to the legislature. Thank you.

Okay. Assembly member, majority leader, I I would encourage you to she had to step out, but there were a couple of questions from her as well. And what I do want to say is going back to the conversation about providing additional funding to the counties for CalFresh, you know, the admin portion of it. I did put a a budget ask for that. So we are we're gonna keep our fingers crossed in regards to that aspect.

But, you know, her, myself, and others, we wanna highlight the importance of navigating this process and working with our community partners and just trying to make sure that the outreach you're doing is in collaboration with with our community partners just to make sure that we help people, people who are applying for and those who work on to continue to keep their CalFresh benefits. For many families, seniors, and others facing the barriers, that support can make the difference between getting help but also going without.

And so the main question for that particular statement is how can the state best support your outreach process in working with the community partners so that way, those that that are eligible once again can remain eligible and then keep these particular benefits. And then when we had a lose a little smaller brief hearing well, not hearing, but just a dialogue, we kinda dove into that in regards to the cost of what that would be and different partners that are already doing that work.

But there's parts of these states or different counties that are not able to do that work right now.

If you can dive in a little bit more on how we can help support, I would appreciate that.

Sure. So, in addition to the work that the counties do day in and day out, we have a formal CalFresh outreach network. That network of over a 160 community based organizations across the state participates in the federal outreach program. Traditionally, that program is eligible for 50% reimbursement. So providers would receive a percentage of their costs reimbursed from the Federal Government.

Because of HR 1, that reimbursement has been decreased to 25%. And so while our network stands very ready and able to help and they've been working with us quite closely, they have expressed to us the challenges of the declining reimbursement. The way the program works is they receive the reimbursement and they would typically reinvest it in order to sustain their operations for the year ahead. And so as that reimbursement declines each year out, they will have less to reinvest and, to sustain their operations.

So many of them expect they may have to cut staff or kind of limit their activities.

And though I I do think that is the primary challenge facing that network is the reduced reimbursement. And then as for all of us, in in community, right, there are other pressures coming their way. And so these are organizations that don't just do CalFresh outreach exclusively. These are food banks and, college campuses with basic needs centers, and so they're facing other, pressures as well given the federal, landscape. But I I would say that's the primary challenge for that network.

Thank you. Because I from what I remember, the food banks and I know that that they're here, and they'll be able to talk a little bit more about it, and we're going to go into the second panel, about being able to overall to really sustain as they're moving forward with that funding declining over the years. And then it was a question about the county support. I know that, as you mentioned, a number of counties have been able to obviously address the timeline and so forth.

But can you talk a little bit more about from what you're hearing dealing with the counties trying to implement this process and their staffing issues.

I know you talked about caseload, but their staffing concerns and helping us understand what they or what their financial need is going to be.

Yeah. I can start and I can hand it over to to Carlos as well. So I I think what is significant about, what is happening is not just the impact to the people that we serve, but the, scale at which we are expected to implement the rule and, the timing based on the federal provisions under HR 1. And so much of our workforce has not, previously implemented the time limit in their careers.

In some cases, the time limit has not been implemented since before the February depending on the the county because of their eligibility for waivers.

And so from much of our workforce, this is new. So it is complex and burdensome, but it is also new. And so we have tried to support counties in, putting out guidance as soon as possible. We have a few, additional pieces of guidance that are coming their way, hosted, trainings at the state level that then kind of inform local, staff development. But, for certain, one of the the challenges is just at the speed at which we're expected to move under the federal provisions.

And, Carlos, I don't know if you wanna talk about, like, vacancies and things like that.

Sure. So you all, have been probably aware of some of the headlines that we're reading about layoffs, that are either going before boards of supervisors for consideration or those that have already been approved. And we're even seeing, you know, those types of developments in resource rich counties, because they're also preparing for the compounding cost shifts and additional workload associated with other parts of HR 1 on the health side, and, of course, the the looming CalFresh administrative cost shift that you heard a little bit about earlier.

So at the time when we're really imploring county leadership to really hold the line and and push back some of those cost cutting measures until the state can act. Some feel such level of desperation that they have to move forward now.

Other counties, as you have heard, are also putting revenue raising measures on the ballot. But even in counties like Santa Clara County, they're only even able to meet a third or just shy of a third of, the delta that's being created by HR 1 cuts and cost shifts after even accounting for some of the revenue that they're raising.

I would just say for the partnership that we have ongoing with with with CDSS, you know, for for their part, we are grateful that they've used time, ultimately, and the design of the implementation as their levers for advancing harm reduction. They could have certainly, implemented, or, told counties we need to implement upon enactment like the statute, said. And, ultimately, I think we're we're grateful for the design of the implementation and the timeline of the implementation.

But now what we're insisting upon is that we fund the implementation. And the final thing I would say is we still have some way to go in terms of what we believe is maximally achievable on the automated side when it comes to reducing the administrative burden on workers and clients alike. We know that when you use automated solutions, like when work requirements have been tried in other states, you can dramatically reduce discontinuance rates. And so we embrace those solutions.

But we also have a fair degree of skepticism about how much of the caseload is gonna be able to benefit from those interventions and how much will be left behind for the county eligibility workforce, which we believe will inherit the most complex of cases for those who actually don't have much of a data footprint at all.

Thank you so much for that robust that robust conversation. Did did anyone else from the dias like to have that? Okay. Alright. Thank you guys so much for that.

I really appreciate that. We're going to go ahead and move to our community members, so Lauren Keltz. And then then if we can have Leticia Garcia and also Paul Towers please make their way as well. Thank you. Leticia? Hi. Hi. How are you?

Okay. So we're gonna have Lauren, community members who who will share your lived experience in regards to CalFresh. And then immediately following Lauren, we will go right into the our grocers and then our agricultural impact. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Hi. Good morning, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Lauren Kelts, and I'm a mother. I'm a small business owner, and I'm an advocate with the Contra Costa and Solano County speaker series. And I have lived experience navigating the public assistance systems.

I wanna begin by sharing a piece of that experience with you. Several years ago, my daughter was going through a major medical crisis that required our family to travel back and forth from Vallejo to Palo Alto while caring for three young children. During that time, we relied on CalFresh to make sure that our family had food while we focused on getting through.

Do you mind pulling the mic a little bit closer for me? Yeah. Thank you.

During that time, we relied on CalFresh to make sure that our family had food while we focused on getting through. CalFresh was not just extra support. It was essential. Many nights, CalFresh was the thin line between our family eating or not. While staying at the Ronald McDonald House, we were able to use their kitchens to cook healthy and nutritious meals for our family.

It allowed us to feed our family and children and maintain some sense of stability during an incredibly difficult time. We also relied on cash aid to help cover bills and the cost of traveling back and forth to Palo Alto. These supports work together to help us stay afloat. Due to a clerical error within the system, our entire family lost access to all of our benefits at once. We lost our medical coverage.

We lost our CalFresh benefits. We lost our cash aid. Losing CalFresh did not just mean losing assistance. It meant losing access to food during one of the most critical moments of our lives. It also meant my daughter being temporarily removed from a transplant waiting list.

She was five months old. When you're already under stress, and you're already trying to survive, losing access to food, it just adds another layer of instability that families should not have to carry. For many families, there is no backup plan. There is no cushion, and there is no room or margin for error. In communities like mine, where rent alone can take up most of a family's income, there's very little left for food once you factor in the everyday costs of raising a family.

A delay, a mistake, a disruption of benefits. It doesn't just create inconvenience. It creates real consequences. It means empty refrigerators, parents skipping meals so that their children can eat. It means families falling behind in ways that are so hard to recover from.

In our case, the loss of that stability contributed to us falling behind and eventually us experiencing three years of homelessness. We stayed in shelters. We stayed in other people's garages. We stayed in tents. We did everything in our power to stay afloat.

We and then we reapplied for assistance. What was not factored into the requirements at the time was that we had one shared family vehicle that was constantly breaking down. We had a medically fragile infant who required constant care and multiple appointments each week when she was not being hospitalized. And we also had two other ill children under the age of five. And because of that, we were deemed ineligible.

It forced my husband to and I to go days at a time without food, waiting for food banks to open, or ration just enough to get by. Thank you. That is what happens when systems that families rely on are not reliable. As of April 1, more than 70,000 Californians are at risk of losing CalFresh. In my community, food banks in Contra Costa and Solano Counties alone have already seen demand increase by more than 50,000 people in just the last several months.

That kind of increase reflects on how many families are struggling to maintain consistent access food right now. With HR 1 and ongoing changes, many families feel like the requirements keep shifting. It's making it harder to stay enrolled in or to even qualify for benefits. I have spoken with other parents in my community who rely on CalFresh also, and their experiences reflect this reality. One mother shared that even with CalFresh, her benefits only cover about half of what her family needs for the month.

She describes she stretches every dollar, shopping very carefully, and still relies on food banks to get by. And when those benefits were delayed, even briefly, she found herself driving from place to place just to find enough food for her children. This is the reality families are living in right now today. I sit here today not only as someone who has lived through this, but now as someone who serves her community and continues to see these challenges in real time. Families are doing their parts.

They are applying. They're submitting documents, and they're trying to follow all of the rules. But when the system breaks down, they are the 1s who carry the consequences. So we must ask, how do we ensure that public assistance is truly assisting our communities rather than creating barriers that push families further into crisis? As changes under HR 1 are already taking effect and more are expected in the coming months, the impacts are already visible.

Families are already losing access to food. Food banks are already seeing increase in demand. And in moments like this, the decisions made here carry more policy weight more than policy weight. They reflect what we value. They reflect how we respond when families are struggling.

As policy makers and as our state agencies, you have the ability to ensure that these systems function in a way that protects dignity, stability, and access to basic needs. So I ask you directly, what steps are being taken now to prevent disruption and benefit access for families across California to ensure continuity of coverage and to put safeguards in place so that delays, errors, and administrative barriers do not result in families losing access to food and health care because prevention does matter.

Systems should be strong enough to hold families steady, especially in their most vulnerable moments. And I believe that choices made here can reflect the kind of care, responsibility, and integrity that our communities are counting on. Because families like mine and families like the one I shared with you today, this is not about policy.

This is about whether or not there's food in the kitchen, and that is something that no family should have to wonder about. I thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you. Stories stories such as that definitely sheds lights on just how important it is that we do everything we can to get this right. We always talk about how folks should not just be surviving, they should be thriving. And we have to do everything we can to make sure that the people living in California are truly thriving and have everything that they need.

So I just wanna thank you so much for sharing your story. I do hope that you'll come back to continue to put a face to this story, but we are here. We're gonna do everything we can to address these barriers, make sure that you continue to move forward with dignity and us providing stability and supporting the needs of all of our communities across the entire state. Once again, thank you.

At this time, I'll turn it over to the, to Leticia Garcia, with the grocers to talk about the importance of CalFresh customers, and then immediately following, we'll go right into Paul to Paul Towers and the agricultural impacts of the federal policy decisions that we have.

Thank you so much. You guys have ten minutes. Thank you, chair and members.

Leticia Garcia with the California Retailers Association here representing grocery stores all throughout California. You know, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this critical role that CalFresh plays, not only in supporting food access for millions of Californians, but also in sustaining a stable and resilient grocery retail sector across the state. CalFresh serves approximately 5,200,000 individuals and 3,100,000 households generating more than 13,000,000,000 annually in economic activity in California.

Whether benefits are redeemed at restaurants, convenience stores, or grocery stores, CalFresh is a is a significant driver of the state's food economy. CalFresh represents one of the most effective public private partnership in our food system.

Grocery retailers serve as a primary access point for food, for food benefits for families, seniors, children, and unhoused individuals. In doing so, retail grocery's function as an essential infrastructure in the success and this is in the successful delivery and impact of this program. From the retail perspective, CalFresh provides three key benefits. The first one is economic stability for communities and local businesses. CalFresh benefits are spent locally, generating consistent economic activity in neighborhoods across California.

For many grocery stores, particularly particularly independent in neighborhood markets, CalFresh transactions represent a meaningful share of overall sales. That steady demand helps retailers maintain operations, keep store open in underserved areas, and retain and helps retain employees. In rural and low income and low income urban communities, this can be the difference between a local grocery store or becoming a food desert. The second key benefit of CalFresh is the operational predictability in a volatile market.

The grocery store industry operates on thin margins and faces consistent volatility from supply chain disruptions to inflate inflationary, pressures.

CalFresh provides a reliable revenue stream that helps offset fluctuations in cons in consumer spending. This predictability route allows retailers to better manage inventory, invest in workforce, and continue offering fresh and healthy food options even during economic downturns. And the final and most important benefit of CalFresh is the food access. Retail grocers care about the communities they operate in. Many of them sponsor local sports clubs, are active members in local philanthropic efforts, and support their local food banks and other charitable food providers.

I would really love to highlight the independent grocers and their participation in the food access programs like the CalFresh fruit and vegetable EBT pilot project. Through this program, CalFresh recipients can receive a dollar for dollar match up to $60 to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables from participating independent grocers. These three key benefits of the CalFresh programs have made grocery stores an integral part of the communities they serve.

As ascent as essential as CalFresh benefits are to the food economy, any disruption and benefits has an significant impact on the grocery store. The retail grocery community experienced the impacts of benefit reductions firsthand following following the expiration of the COVID nineteen supplemental snap benefits allotments in early twenty twenty three.

Customers who had previously relied on enhanced benefits were faced with significantly reduced purchasing power. In California, households saw an average reduction of $163 per month, while individuals experienced an average decrease of $84 When these benefits decline, CalFresh recipients turned often often turned to alternative sources to meet their needs, including food banks and other charitable food providers. Similarly, during the most recent federal shutdown, disruptions in benefit issuance further highlighted the importance of program stability.

Retailers observed notable shifts in consumer behavior as many customers began stretching their benefits over long periods. Moving away from consistently weekly shopping patterns to more in intermittent purchasing.

This began disrupting inventory planning and reducing the predictability that retailers depend on to stock fresh, perishable, and nutritious foods. At the same time, reliance on charitable food networks increase, prompting retailers to expand donations and deepen partnerships with their local food banks and community food access organizations to help address growing demand. For these reasons, efforts to increase CalFresh enrollment and ensure continue continuity of benefits are essential.

Stream streamline streamlining enrollment, reducing administrative barriers, and preparing for federal disruptions through contingency planning all contribute to a stronger, more reliable system for both families and retailers. And I'll wrap up by saying CalFresh is not only a nutrition program, it's a cornerstone of California's food economy.

Grocery retailers are proud to partner in its delivery and stand ready to support policies to strengthen participation, protect access, and ensure long term program stability. Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning, chairs and and member. My name is Paul Towers, and I'm the executive director of CAF, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. We represent some 8,000 small and midsize farmers all across California, including in all of your districts. You know, at a time when federal officials are promoting the consumption of more fruits and vegetables, sort of more whole foods, and buying from more American farmers and producers.

They're actually making it these foods further out of reach. And, you know, that's the the kind of conversation that we wanna have with you today. For over fifty years, we've worked with small farmers to make sure that they have the tools to succeed in the California marketplace. There are over 400 different crops grown in California, fruits, nuts, vegetables, including some grown by the majority leader. But we're we're really at a a threatened point here in California.

We're losing over four farms per day, some 7,500 small and mid sized farmers in just the last five years on record. And when you look at it, the majority of our farmers are actually operating at a loss. And so we expect these trend lines to continue. Now the federal administration has continued to advance policies that harm California farmers and food systems. We see these as, you know, a death by a thousand cuts with HR 1 is a gaping wound.

We see tariffs that are making farming equipment and inputs more expensive, fuel prices that are driving up the cost for transporting goods and to marketplaces more expensive, immigration raids that terrorize our farm workers and communities, and a lack of a federal farm bill that actually provides the necessary resources for our conservation programs to keep farming. And in addition to those, we saw very significant cuts in just the past year to many of our local purchasing and and support programs.

Some that that chair Cochair Bonta spoke to. We saw a $100,000,000 in cuts

for schools, daycares, and food banks. And so just day cares, and food banks. And so just building on top of those cuts, we see very little in terms of relief and support for the state's majority of small and mid sized farmers. We do see support reaching many farmers outside of California. These commodity growers, corn and soybean growers, but very little reaching the folks here.

just last year to food purchases

Now we come to the impacts of HR 1 in particular. The cuts of SNAP to our family scale farmers are significant. We see that one in every four SNAP dollars spent on food eaten at home actually go to farmers. And research suggests that when families have fewer dollars to spend, they end up resorting to more processed foods, less fresh fruits and vegetables, more purchasing for farmers outside of California, and particularly less purchasing of small organic and sustainable farmers. They're hit hardest.

And that economic impact as you've heard from my colleague is quite significant. For every dollar we spend with local farmers, there's a multiplier effect of nearly double in our local economies. That goes to hardware stores, employee wages, machinery, veterinarians, compost, that list goes on and on. This multiplier effect ripples through the agricultural regions in the state. So how do we see these impacts in particular on farmers in these and impacts on hunger efforts, anti hunger efforts.

Well we already heard about grocery stores. We estimate that about 30 to 70% of produce you see at most grocery stores comes from California producers. You look at an initiative like Saba in in Oakland, a really impressive corner store initiative, where in just the past five years, they've distributed over a $100,000 in purchasing from local farmers into a 120 different corner stores. These are all directly from CalFresh recipients.

We look at the impacts on farmers, farmers markets, and farm stands that the, that the co chairs spoke to earlier.

These are incredibly significant. We look at, just here, just down the street, Alchemist Community Development Corporation. I spoke to the executive director yesterday. They operate nine farmers markets in this county with just, they they average about $1,000,000 a year in purchasing of just CalFresh dollars and with those market match dollars that you spoke to earlier, it's almost double. So nearly $2,000,000.

It's $14,000,000 in CalFresh purchasing at local farmers markets all across the state. For farmers I talked to, this is the difference between being able to afford a vehicle to act for their family, to actually support their farm, to actually drive their produce to marketplaces. I talked to a a farm stand owner just yesterday. He said while the number is small, 5% of sales from his farm stand are just to CalFresh recipients, That's the difference in his ability to buy new shoes for his kids.

We you'll hear more from my my food bank colleagues and other about other anti hunger efforts.

I think one program to to speak to in particular that we've seen cuts as I mentioned earlier in this past year is the local food purchase assistance or farms together program, that operates in in both your districts. Since its inception in 2023, it is sourced from over a 100 830 farms serving 53 counties with help of partners like Food Shed in San Diego and Fresno Fresno BIPOC produce in Fresno.

We're working with over 40 food banks and community food partners and providing 16,000,000 meals with over $60,000,000 in purchasing of local food. Again, think about that multiplier, not double that. Many small farmers don't benefit from any other forms of assistance And so looking at CalFresh, looking at these assistance programs is truly essential for their long term stability, the planning, this ability to think forward by the seeds, by the amendments, be able to plan for the future.

These things are essential. So onto the solutions, we know we can do better. We can marshal critical investments as we have in recent years in the face of these cuts. California can and should make these investments in the short term to make sure that we support our farming economy and our farmers. One opportunity is is creating a bridge with a local food assistance program championed by assembly member Pellerin and Senator Hurtado.

This would advance that farm to food bank efforts to complement that bridge as we get the federal programs ideally back online. It's actually one of the few bipartisan programs that we've seen in Congress and we hope to see it reinstituted. We also look at the opportunity to expedite the prompt for climate bond investments. Several of those efforts actually will create farmers market infrastructure, groundwater support, land support for underserved farmers. This is that safety net for farmers in the wake of other challenges that we face.

In addition, we need to ensure that a significant share of those dollars are meant to reach community food hub infrastructure, this distribution infrastructure that's essential for our farmers as was intended. And finally, two more.

The governor's farm to school budget request that provides modest assistance through the farm to school program to farmers to provide assistance to k 12 schools in terms of purchasing, remains essential to support hungry families, hungry children in the face of CalFresh cuts, and the market match program that Assemblymember Bonta spoke to championed by Assemblymember Connolly and Senator Becker. This extended the purchasing power of those met those CalFresh dollars for those that still have access to them at our farmers markets.

In the long term, California should continue to invest public dollars in California producers to strengthen our state's food system.

CalFresh isn't just an anti hunger program, it's an economic engine for agriculture. Thank you.

I just wanted to I think we were all thank you for being able to speak to the testimony from Lauren Kites or Couts, sorry, earlier today. I think we heard very clearly from her that one of the things that we needed to focus on was ensuring that we have follow the mandate of ensuring that we are providing dignity, stability, and access to basic needs through continuity of coverage and through supporting innovative solutions.

I appreciate the fact that we then were able to hear from our local farmers and our retailers about, the ways in which we should be better optimizing every single food nutrition program to be able to support our local economies and the economy of of of the state. So that we're actually having all of those dollars retained and amplified here in the state of California for our growers or farmers and others. So I just wanted to rename the program that was referenced, the California Nutrition Incentive Program, CNIP.

I believe Oakland is Incentive Program, CNIP. I believe Oakland is the second largest site of of success for that program and works with farmers throughout the state of California, particularly in the Central Valley. So I'm very supportive of that and and just appreciate that we already had these opportunities to maximize every single dollar, and we don't need we didn't need HR 1 to help us do that, but we should certainly be thinking more strategically about how we do that moving forward. And thank you for your testimony.

Thank you so much. We're now gonna move move to our panel number two. This panel will be led under the direction of my cochair, Assembly member Bonta.

Thank you very much. Thank you, doctor Sharp Collins. We will now move on to the second panel. In this panel, we will be talking about the critical role of CalFresh to prevent the costs and consequences of hunger. In this panel, we have Veniamin Chow, health and public benefits campaign coordinator at the California Immigrant Policy Center, Renee Scott, who is an HSA eligibility worker for the city and county of San Francisco.

Chun Fan, who is director of the state income security at justice in aging. Albert Banuelos, who is the self sufficiency services director for the county of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency, and Amy Eitz IELTS, forgive me, director of programs at the Jacob and Cushman San Diego Food Bank. We will start with Benjamin to take us off.

Good morning, chair. Thank you for the opportunity to join this panel and discuss the critical role of CalFresh and our state's food food programs. My name is Benjamin Chow. I'm the supervising health and public benefits policy manager at the California Immigrant Policy Center, and I'm also here on behalf of the Food for All Coalition. Since CIPC was founded over thirty, nearly thirty years ago, we have advocated for policies that uphold the humanity of every human being regardless of where they're born.

Therefore, we reject all of the policies recently that increase the exclusions that allow us to deny someone access to food because of their immigration status. You already know what CalFresh is. It's a means tested program that is designed to provide support when someone has demonstrated a need based on their income. For those of us born outside of The US, your immigration status may be used as a reason to deny you CalFresh when you have that need.

CAC is a cosponsor of the food for all campaign with Nourish, California and have united with diverse stakeholders, in the food for all coalition from San Diego to Humboldt, from LA to The Bay to advocate for the end of exclusions within our safety net based on immigration status.

We are grassroots organizations, service providers, and immigrants rights leaders that believe that everyone should in California should have access to programs like CalFresh. No exceptions, no exclusions, and no delays. As you heard earlier, the Federal Government has unleashed an assault on CalFresh access, placing particular attention on ways to limit eligibility for immigrants, and also discourage eligible families from enrolling and increase administrative barriers to enrollment.

Benefits of benefit cuts, threats of sensitive enrollment data being shared with ICE, and the unmitigated hostility towards immigrants we are seeing have has resulted in immigrants increasingly being locked out of pathways to stability like CalFresh or choosing not to participate over fears of their own safety. I would like to focus primarily on one of these pillars of anti immigrant policy, which is tying eligibility to immigration status.

Immigration based exclusions effectively create two tiers of food assistance access for Californians, where Californians who are immigrants are less able to tap in. The most recent exclusions went to effect exactly 1 week ago. As a result of HR 1, nearly 72,000 Californians will no longer be eligible for CalFresh because of their immigration status, and HR 1 stripped eligibility away from, the humanitarian immigrants, that other speakers have touched on.

These are people who have arrived, in our state and were promised safety and are now being denied the most basic support, which is food. These are people who have assisted the US government abroad.

They have fled countries impacted by war like Ukraine and Afghanistan and have resettled in our state and whose families will contribute to the future fabric of California. According to data from the California budget and policy center, which we available in a forthcoming publication, 36% of the impacted population of these humanitarian immigrants are children, and ten percent are seniors or adults with a disability. These changes will also have a significant impact on US citizen and permanent residents who share a home with these newly excluded individuals.

For example, a four person family where two of the parents have been granted asylum and two of their children are US citizens could see their monthly food assistance drop from $994 on average to $546 on average, nearly cut in half. This analysis found using samples of SNAP enrollment data that about 29,000 US citizen children and 13,000 other family members who are US citizens or permanent residents will be indirectly impacted by this cut.

If we don't backfill these benefits, that means about a 114,000 Californians and CalFresh households will feel the impact in some way and be at higher risk of hunger. We believe state action is essential. California has a powerful tool in the California food assistance program, otherwise known as CFEP. This program was created nearly thirty years ago to respond to a similar federally induced crisis when a well federal welfare reform laws created new eligibility restrictions for immigrants.

Three decades ago, elected leaders and similar shoes as yours created the program to protect the integrity of our food safety net and prevent a hunger crisis.

We've we've worked to modernize this program. And in 2021, the state of California began, planning to modernize CFAP so that it can deliver state funded and state administered EBT benefits to any income eligible Californian regardless of their immigration status. In 2023, we established a timeline, for those ages 55 and over, and this original plan was, set to be completed by October 2025, but it was unfortunately delayed to October 2027.

And I I want to bring this up because if the CFAP expansion was kept to its original timeline, we would be in a much better position today to respond to HR 1 because the same system changes that would have allowed us to administer these benefits at a 100% by the state would allow us today to respond to these new solutions put in place against humanitarian immigrants.

And so with renewed urgency, we continue to advocate for food for all in order to, prevent, the cost and consequences of hunger induced by HR 1.

And as part of this platform, we've requested led the legislature to protect and implement the plan CFAP expansion for adults age 55 and older and do that no later than October 2027, expand CFAP to include those those newly excluded under HR 1 and move towards a full expansion for all Californians. And we're asking for this because the data is clear.

California produces nearly half of the nation's fruits, nuts, and vegetables, yet half of Californians who are excluded from food assistance due to their immigration status report experiencing food insecurity. 64% of immigrant Californians without legal permanent resident status are living in or near poverty. This is according to the California poverty measure.

So 64% compared to 35% statewide. The data tells us what we already know, that exclusion causes hunger. I would, like to comment on, 1 other provision of HR 1 that will limit CalFresh access for Californians who are immigrants, and that is, the implementation of work and time work time limits beginning in June year.

About 665,000 people, we estimate, will lose federal food assistance simply because they cannot meet the work or community engagement reporting rules because counties lack sufficient resources to process these exemptions or because their exemption was eliminated by the Federal Government. These new harsher time limits for CalFresh recipients deepen existing inequities for people who already face discriminations and barriers to full time employment, and and this would include immigrants.

I'm looking at the data while foreign born Californians have a lower unemployment rate than their US born counterparts. Their disparities exist in educational attainment and language ability that can make it challenging to secure employment. According to US census data from 2024, 18% of foreign born Californians who are college educated are either unemployed or employed in a low skilled job, which is higher than those who are US born.

We are aligned with other anti hunger advocates in modernizing CFAP even further so that we have the ability to deliver state funded benefits to households impacted by the death limits. At the California Ambriant Policy Center, we believe that no Californian, no human being should have to face hunger.

These cuts were designed to fuel other federal priorities. This includes tax breaks that disproportionately benefit the wealthy and, increased funding for immigration enforcement. These cuts pull resources away from CalFresh, our survival, and funnel our tax dollars into systems that inflict violence immigrant communities. We all just want to live without fear, and that includes the fear of, going hungry. California must protect its progress, restore the harmful HR 1 cuts, and move forward with expanding food access to CFAP because we need to feed families, not fear.

We need to feed children and not separate their families, and we need to feed our neighbors and not turn our backs on them. Thank you.

Thank you. We can move on to Renee.

Good morning. My name is Renee Scott. I'm a proud member of the SEIU ten twenty one and a senior eligibility worker for San Francisco County. I've been in this field for nine years. I'm one of the 13,455 eligibility workers represented by SEIU across California.

We help people apply for and keep benefits that help them keep their families, keep their dignity, keep their life opportunities, and in many ways, stay alive. Today, I'll be talking about the impact of HR 1 on our communities and across the state. They proudly serve in the leadership we need from this assembly members along as the governor Newsom's administration. In my job, I handle intakes of new clients, for CalFresh and Medicaid, as well as renewals of benefits.

I typically work with 50 to a 100 clients per day, both in person and on the phone.

We have really been overloaded with new clients and our existing clients in South San Francisco. We do our best to meet the need. But, unfortunately, a few days ago, the mayor of San Francisco handed out over a 100 pink slits, so we're already losing our coworkers to HR 1. This is gonna make it so much harder for us to do our job. And along with the restrictions that have not been imposed on our clients yet, but are yet to come.

The hurdles that HR 1 puts in front of people who are in desperate need will add more work for us and create more bottlenecks if we don't act now to build up our capacity. I am scared of what will happen when the restrictions do come and access truly becomes impossible for our clients. Many of the clients I serve are Californians experiencing homelessness. They have substance abuse problems, behavior health issues, and dealing with disabilities. I also work with families of small children in the household.

Lately, our clients have been coming in to share with us the terror about HR 1 and how it will impact impact them and their children. I became a eligibility worker because I was a recipient of CalFresh and Medicaid when I was younger. We relied on these programs to survive while my mom put herself through school. And there were days when I remember eating hot cereal three meals a day, but I didn't go hungry.

That experience has made me made it clear to me that no child should ever go hungry in America.

That's why I'm so proud to play a part in giving families access to CalFresh. CalFresh is a great program. It meets the needs of a lot of people. I don't see how any leader can decide to to cause harm by taking the food away from a home, reach out, and they can sleep at night. When I'm talking to the clients that live out in the streets and are homeless, they have no stove, they have no kitchen, CalFresh is a literal lifeline to them.

As someone who is very familiar with all the angles of this issue, my biggest fear is what losing CalFresh would do to our communities. I'm I'm old enough to remember or to have at least heard about the old days when many people were so desperate that they felt they had to resort to the extreme measures like stealing or eating out the trash can just to survive.

I'm terrified of how HR 1 will hurt my clients and neighbors, especially during this time of food inflation caused by the war in Iran because it doesn't have to be this way. How can tax cuts for the ultra wealthy be worth all this suffering? Their wealth should not come at the price of our health.

And any other food services, food banks that they are trying to put in place, we need our CalFresh to collaborate with them so we can meet the need of the people. I love my job. I love my clients, and it hurts to know how they will negatively be impacted by HR 1.

And any other food services, food banks that they are trying to put in place, we need our CalFresh to collaborate with them so we can meet the need of the people. I love my job. I love my clients, and it hurts to know how they will negatively be impacted by HR 1.

Excuse me. I'm blessed that I get to make a difference every day.

But with your with your leadership together, we can make a bigger difference for people whose well-being has been disregarded by federal lawmakers in this dark time. Thank you for your opportunity to let me share. I'm looking forward to finding solutions for Californians who need them now. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Scott, and thank you for making sure that we keep at the center and hold the reality that those who are serving people are also struggling with the reality of these impacts as well, and thank you for your incredible work. We will move on now to Albert Banuelos for additional conversation.

Good morning, chairs. I am Albert Banuelos, interim director of the Self-Community Services for the County of San Diego. My department administers CalFresh eligibility, and our local CalFresh employment and training program among other social services programs including Medi-Cal and CalWORKs. San Diego County is the second most populous of California's 58 counties and the fifth largest county in the United States. We are extremely diverse.

46% of residents under 18 years of age are Hispanic, and the Hispanic population is expected to continue to grow at a rapid rate. Approximately 23% of the county's populations are immigrants, including refugees who speak 68 different languages and have a variety of needs as they live and adjust to a new environment. Currently, San Diego region is home to over 800,000 medical recipients, 24% of the county's population.

And my team serves as the entry point of nearly 530,000 San Diego CalFresh recipient annually or 16% of our county's population. My agency is responsible for determining eligibility, providing employment and training referrals, and ensuring households maintain consistent access to nutrition assistance.

Our eligibility workforce plays a critical role in improving food security and reducing disparities and access to nutrition. I come before you today to underscore the urgency and stakes of what comes before us in just fifty four days. Beginning June 1, this very same workforce will have to support over 93,000 CalFresh adults in my county alone as part of nearly 1,000,000 California statewide to navigate the increasingly challenging SNAP work requirements in order to maintain access to essential food assistance beyond three months.

We estimate that per impacted client, this could require up to four additional eligibility worker hours per year above our current funding level and depending on the client's need. These hours are absolutely essential to engage into direct client-worker conversations that could allow workers to build trust and engage in these sensitive details necessary to identify exemptions.

Therefore, ensuring clients aren't at risk of losing their food benefit to begin with. Moreover, eligibility workers need the time to conduct outreach, educate clients, and help distangle the complexity that comes up with similar but different work requirements between both CalFresh and Medi-Cal.

And for those vulnerable clients who may not need any exemption criteria, yet struggle to maintain consistent employment, our workers need the time to connect them to employment opportunities in our community so that they can maintain their food benefit. Partnership from State is vital support to county workers in managing this extraordinary workload in order to minimize the harms of HR 1 and to support those in our community who rely on these critical services.

A part of policy is complex as individuals may be meeting several different types of exemptions that must be screened.

Some exemptions such as unfit for work are not straightforward. A box may also be working or engaged in an activity, but not at the required eighty hours per month. So staff may need to work with some individuals to help them find additional activities to meet these hours. Updated CalSAS automation in both the system and benefits cal portal are critical for staff to properly assist customers and work these cases.

In addition, automated services such as truth that that the administration is working on implementing, are critical to have in place and integrated into CalSA as soon as possible.

Automation is necessary, but on its own won't fully mitigate the risk. Investing in our county eligibility workers offer a proven client-centered and cost-effective path to mitigate the worst of the harms from HR 1's attacks on our social safety net. Historically, when the state has adequately funded California with well-trained, time-tested, county-eligible workers, and county human service agencies, California's county run safety net have delivered for our most vulnerable, making significant progress in reducing hunger and poverty.

For example, as investments in our CalFresh administrative allocation increased to meet demands over time, statewide counties were able to increase CalFresh take up rate from 66% in 2014 to 81% in 2022. For example, when SSI cash out was implemented, the administration included extra funding for counties, and San Diego County currently has nearly 100,000 seniors enrolled in CalFresh, an increase of over 340% since implementation of the policy in June 2019.

This underscores the critical importance of worker led approach to build trust in and engaging thoughtfully with clients to prevent benefit losses. As menti1d in San Diego, we estimate that over 93,000 adults currently receiving CalFresh benefits will be impacted by HR 1's work requirements. San Diego County serves many college and universities since 2020. College student enrollment has increased by over 270% and currently nearly 17,000 college students are receiving CalFresh.

That is another example of funding being made available to, for counties to solicit and retain our college liaisons so that we can target this population.

In addition to CalFresh work requirements, San Diego County currently serves over 320,000 adults who may be impacted by Medicare work requirements, including nearly 18,000 adults who are over the age of 50. Without direct engagement and trust built by an eligibility worker, individuals may not know whether to report certain exemption factors that could help them maintain coverage or may not be aware that certain life circumstances such as caring for an ill family member may provide them with temporary relief from the work requirements.

Moreover, the evidence is robust that when the that even for those clients who are working sufficient hours, they are likely to face significant barriers in dealing with the documentation and paperwork requirements and still and still meet at risk of losing their benefits. For example, San Diego County is a large metropolitan area and serves many individuals encountering unstable housing or homelessness that may be unfit for work. Currently, nearly 17,000 individuals could be potentially impacted by the APOD rules.

Individuals who are employed part time, gig workers, and students may need to be further engaged by staff to maintain their eligibility. Hiring staff for this demand work takes time under the best circumstances. Now we are trying to hire and retain people at high stakes when at times when many people will be under the stress and trauma of keeping their critical benefits. Typically, it takes approximately six to nine months to recruit, hire, and fully train new staff in my county.

This means that the the the time for state investment was months ago.

In addition, it takes new staff anywhere between nine to twelve months from initial onboarding to be able to manage full caseload. Yet fully aware of the ramifications of our most vulnerable residents, my county is moving forward with HR 1 implementation with both urgency and careful attention. With only weeks on to roll out, we are working diligently to be ready.

We are currently hiring and training new staff and providing HR 1 training to 16 staff, working with our agency, board, and our community based organizations to educate the public and with food banks and two zero one San Diego to provide information on food resources for individuals who who may lose eligibility. The ABOD handbook is critical for staff training and customer education.

Often often times, individuals may assume they are no longer eligible to the program and fail to apply for their fail to apply or renew their benefits. Eligibility staff hiring and training is complex. It's a complex process that requires new staff to be trained in multiple programs, policy rules, system and data entry, customer service skills, and caseload management skills. Not having enough staff who are properly trained and onboarded can result in workload backlogs, increased appeals, incorrect eligibility, and higher error rates.

Investing in county capacity to implement CalFresh work requirements is essential to prevent disruption in food assistance by funding, training, worker time, and outreach.

The state can help vulnerable Californians maintain access to critical nutrition and reduce the risk of hunger. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you so much. And we'll move on to our last panelist.

Hi. Good morning. Trinh Phan with Justice in Aging. And as you've been hearing, CalFresh is important for all Californians, and this includes older adults. Cal CalFresh helps with food costs, which for older adults and people with disabilities can include things like special diets due to a medical condition, and it is our first line of defense against senior hunger.

In addition and in a broader context, CalFresh is one part of how people manage their household budgets, balancing between housing, food, and especially for older adults and individuals with disabilities, health care costs. For older adults with low income, CalFresh is part of that part of that broader network of support that keeps people housed, Fed, and well. We still have a ways to go to get to that goal for everyone. Fifteen percent of California seniors today live in poverty. Hunger remains high among older adults.

Food banks are seeing a lot more people than even during the height of the pandemic, including many seniors and people with disabilities. For, low income older adults and individuals with disabilities who also depend on SSISSP grants, Those grants continue to trail significantly behind housing costs. The fair market rent for a studio apartment for is is more than half of the individual SSI grant in every single county. And in 30 counties, that fair market rent for a studio is higher than the entire grant.

Things like hunger and homelessness are multifaceted problems, and we already know many of solutions.

One of which is making sure that CalFresh and other public benefits are strong. In the everyday life of low income older adults across the state, CalFresh is closely linked to other benefits like Medi Cal and SSISSP because all of these benefits work together at the same time to support their well-being.

And so along with the other public benefits, CalFresh has a role as part of that public benefits lever for reducing hunger, poverty, and homelessness. Every bit of forward progress we make on CalFresh access helps shift the window for more people, moving them away from hunger and other forms of crisis and into a stability that can last. And for the state, this helps stabilize our safety net to protect older adults and people with disabilities.

In doing this work, we need to plan for an aging and diverse population in the context of the master plan for aging that is planned for the state's changing demographics and guiding us toward taking better care of older Californians.

California's population is aging, and along with the rest of the state, our older adults are also becoming more ethnically and racially diverse. In the coming decades, one in four Californians will be 65 years or older. When you add in older adults who are slightly younger, nearly four in ten Californians will be 55 years or older. Age 65 or older are white. This will shift in the coming years, and white, non Hispanic older adults will no longer represent the majority of older adults in the state.

CalFresh helps helps prevent hunger among older adults, including for seniors who disproportionately experience the toxic stress of hunger, homelessness, and poverty. This includes older adults with low income, also older adults who are people of color, individuals with disabilities, women, immigrants, formerly incarcerated individuals, and LGBTQ individuals who often experience multiple layers of disadvantage and discrimination across their lifespan.

Understanding where people have not been treated equally up to now helps us to reduce the harms of that inequitable treatment and to change how we move forward and ensure that CalFresh is really there for all older adults who need it. With CalFresh and other public benefits, the goal is to reach people in need. And so the state has worked to increase CalFresh access for older adults, including in recent years.

As you heard a little bit earlier, in 2019, the expansion of CalFresh to people receiving SSI brought many low income older adults and people with disabilities who had up to that point been excluded from CalFresh into the program finally. As of 2024, sixty four percent of California's SSI older adults and individuals with disabilities were enrolled in CalFresh. That's more than 725,000 people. This is making a huge difference in older adults being able to afford the food they need.

Now the national average for enrollment of SSI individuals into SNAP is sixty eight percent, so we are a little behind at sixty four percent from the national average.

Public benefits programs like CalFresh exist to help people in need, and how completely the programs reach everyone who qualifies is an important measure of their quality and of quality improvement. We want to make sure no one is missing out on CalFresh benefits, and outreach work is one important way to get there, such as the CalFresh outreach network of area agencies on aging and other local organizations, which support older adults and people with disabilities in enrolling in CalFresh.

This network will is seeing federal cuts, and there's a $14,000,000 budget asked to protect it. If we can get to the national average through outreach and enrollment work and from there into being a top 10 state for SSI SNAP enrollment, then more older adults here older older adults here will be able to afford the food they need without sacrificing other basic needs like medicine or rent. We can do more to continue the work to expand access and make CalFresh easier to navigate.

This will further reduce hunger and help with the affordability crisis that many older adults and people with disabilities are facing, and at the same time, provide more economic stimulus in local communities, which is where low income older adults spend their money.

This work includes the CalFresh minimum nutrition benefit pilot program that is in effect now and helping older adults and individuals with disabilities who live on fixed incomes to receive at least $60 in CalFresh benefits, and that's providing a minimum benefit that is more helpful for seniors who are struggling to afford food right now.

Also, the work to increase access to CalFresh for people leaving California jails and prisons, which will help move the state toward a transition process that makes sense, and that gives people who are returning to the community, including older adults, the resources they need to buy food starting on day one.

Also, the work to, as mentioned earlier, to expand eligibility for the California Food Assistance Program to income eligible older adults regardless of immigration status and efforts to bridge the gap for immigrants who will lose eligibility for SNAP because of cuts in HR 1. Planning for automatic enrollment where we can while protecting data privacy can help streamline enrollment and outreach.

These types of efforts also reduce unneeded complexity, they help reduce stigma, and they help combat misinformation and fear. And that all helps to get food assistance to more older adults who need it. Hunger and poverty are not distributed equally, and seniors who experience challenges across their lifespan can face greater hunger and poverty in their older age. By understanding that history, we can change how we respond today and in the future to better care for older Californians.

And for CalFresh, that means making sure that all seniors who need help with food have that help.

With the current threats to CalFresh, making sure that seniors get the help they need also means supporting the administrative work that gets CalFresh to people. This back end work sometimes feels invisible to the public, but it is vital for administering public benefits that serve everyone in need on the front end. And this is especially critical in this moment where HR 1 is creating paperwork barriers that put people at risk of their CalFresh being discontinued because they can't make it through the paperwork.

This administrative support increases the ability of CalFresh to be there for all Californians, including older adults to meet their needs. All of this work to strengthen CalFresh and increase access makes California more livable for low income older adults and people with disabilities, and it provides greater stability and resilience for the communities we all live in.

Thank you.

A final panelist that we'd like to hear from, Amy Eilts. Apologize. Director of Programs at the Jacob and Cushman San Diego Food Bank. Oh, you all should stay as many of you can, or who want to, if you have questions.

Good morning. Thank you, Chair Bonta and Chair Sharp-Collins. My name is Amy Eilts, and I'm the Director of Programs at the Jacob and Cushman San Diego Food Bank. The San Diego Food Bank is the largest hunger relief organization in San Diego County. Each month, we serve more than 400,000 people via direct distributions and through a network of more than 450 nonprofit partners.

This efficient system enabled us to distribute over 52,000,000 pounds of food, or about 44,000,000 meals last year, to help San Diegans make ends meet and keep food on the table. The Food Bank has a commitment to nutrition, and last year, 44% of all food distributed was fresh fruits and vegetables. The San Diego Food Bank administers federal food programs, such as the Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, also known as CSFP or the Senior Food Program.

The Food Bank also serves as San Diego's diaper bank, sponsors multiple school-based programs, and hosts a CalFresh outreach team.

Hunger in San Diego is nearing levels last seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, when hunger was at its highest. As of December 2025, more than one in four, 25% of San Diegans, experience nutrition insecurity, or are unable to provide three nutritious meals a day for themselves and/or their family. That's more than 840,000 people countywide, including nearly one in three children, and more than one in four older adults.

According to the San Diego Hunger Coalition, in December 2025, 57% of the monthly food assistance meals provided in San Diego County were CalFresh supported. That's 15,700,000 monthly meals that CalFresh provides to San Diego residents.

This, combined with the meals distributed by the San Diego Food Bank and other hunger relief organizations and additional government programs, totaled 27,600,000 meals provided in December 2025. The total amount of dollars issued to CalFresh EBT cards in San Diego County this past December was $73,300,000, distributed to more than 378,000 people.

Using the CalFresh multiplier of a dollar and 79¢, the total local economic impact of CalFresh totaled over $131,000,000. Despite the millions of meals that came from food assistance in December, San Diego was still short by 6,000,000 meals.

Additional data from the Hunger Coalition estimates that 200,000 people are likely eligible for CalFresh, but not yet enrolled, showing great potential to reduce the meal gap by increasing CalFresh participation in San Diego County

If all CalFresh-eligible people enrolled, it would provide another 8,300,000 meals monthly to the county, erasing the meal gap in most months, and providing an additional $66,000,000 in economic activity to our region

To help families obtain CalFresh, the food bank employs CalFresh application assisters. Last year alone, we helped nearly 600 people obtain CalFresh benefits, leading to 563,000 meals for those individuals. This brought in over $2,200,000 in CalFresh benefits, and resulted in over $4,000,000 in local economic spending.

Recently, our team spoke with food recipients at our largest senior food box program distribution site, where our CalFresh outreach team is also stationed. We met an elderly couple, who live with their daughter.

The husband is unable to work due to health issues and is ineligible for SSI, so he has no income. His wife works part-time, but struggles to find steady work at her age and must travel long distances to work, spending a significant amount on gas. Their household receives just $55 a month in CalFresh benefits, barely a $1.83 a day for two people. They rely on food bank programs to bridge their meal gap. The County of San Diego estimates that over 100,000 people are expected to be impacted by changes to CalFresh as a result of HR 1.

Specifically, new eligibility changes to lawfully present noncitizens will impact 13,000 CalFresh recipients, and expanded work requirements will impact 90,300 San Diegans, currently on CalFresh. We estimate that, due to these combined changes, the monthly meal gap will increase by 2,700,000 meals.

To put this into context, to meet an increased monthly meal gap of 2,700,000 meals, the Food Bank would need an additional 3,200,000 pounds of food monthly, which equals 38,000,000 pounds of food annually, or approximately 73% more than our current annual output.

Moreover, the Food Bank would have to host an additional 50 or more distributions a month.

Additionally, these cuts come at a time when affordability is becoming more and more difficult for the community. At the end of last year, San Diego County's inflation rate was the second highest in the nation, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Final Consumer Price Index report.

With recent spikes to energy prices, the rising cost of living continues to impact our most vulnerable

Our partners are beginning to see those affected by HR1 showing up in food distribution lines.

Right now, several of our nonprofit partners are reporting a 20% increase in demand, compared to this time last year. It's a major jump in a very short period.

Our partners are ordering considerably more food to keep pace with the growing demand and ensure they have enough to serve everyone who needs assistance. We're getting requests for basic staples, milk, eggs, produce, even gas cards, as families try to stretch every dollar.

To further help individuals and families enroll on CalFresh, the San Diego Food Bank works closely with the County of San Diego to provide ongoing crucial feedback on its countywide food justice community action plan.

We're recommending that the County's Self-Sufficiency department conduct an internal audit of CalFresh denial rates, with recommendations on how to address, identified patterns of avoidable denials. Develop recommendations on how the county can increase CalFresh participation rates among eligible individuals. And to partner with organizations to develop a public charge awareness campaign.

Additionally, we're also working with the county to become a resource for individuals subjected to the expanded work requirements, to meet their required hours through volunteering with the San Diego Food Bank.

While we work very closely with our county partners, we understand that state-level investments and solutions continue to be crucial. CalFood funding has been essential in helping the food bank meet the need in our communities, enabling the purchase of rarely donated, but highly requested, items, like eggs, meat, and fresh produce, that reflects the diverse dietary and cultural needs of the community we serve

The San Diego Food Bank has been entrusted with serving as the sole CAL food distributor in San Diego County since the program's inception.

Critically, the San Diego Food Bank uses 100% of CalFood funding to purchase food. We absorb the staffing and overhead costs, rather than drawing on the 25% administrative allowance permitted by CDSS. This means that every dollar invested by the state goes directly into food for the community in San Diego County. Last year, CalFood provided 7,000,000 meals across San Diego County, and supplemented 118 monthly San Diego Food Bank distributions.

The legislators' Cal Food investments last year proved essential during the Federal Government shutdown, when delays and disruptions to CalFresh significantly increased demand for food overnight.

During this period, the food bank's Get Food GPS locator map webpage saw a 104% increase in visits. Cal Food enabled us to quickly increase food inventory, launch emergency distributions, and support nonprofit partners to meet this urgent need. The San Diego Food Bank is calling on our state leaders to fund Cal Food at a $110,000,000 this fiscal year. This proposed $110,000,000 investment would increase the San Diego Food Bank's capacity to distribute an estimated 14,000,000 meals to San Diego County residents.

14,000,000 meals meets half the need we are expecting to potentially see if all HR1-impacted CalFresh recipients fall off the program.

Therefore, this $110,000,000 request represents the minimum amount the state should be considering to quickly connect individuals who roll off CalFresh with emergency food to see them through their time of need safely and with dignity.

Another solution that I wanna highlight is a budget request for $14,000,000 for CalFresh outreach. Without additional funding, many of the existing 160 organizations who do CalFresh outreach will no longer be able to do so, starting this October, when the CalFresh administrative cost shift goes into effect.

This network is vital to helping Californians learn about CalFresh, to navigate the application process, and to manage their benefits. This network helps those facing the greatest barriers to accessing CalFresh, like older adults, SSI recipients, college students, mixed status households, and unhoused individuals.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Your strong support over the years of all food banks across California has been very impactful. We know that the path to meet this moment will require us, the Food Bank, and our elected partners to continue to work together to protect California's most vulnerable communities from hunger.

Thank you very much. And I'm hoping that some of the panelists who were there can come back. My first question was to Benyamin, and it might be something that actually Trinh might be able to touch upon as well. So I think, Benjamin, you really talked about the impact of HR1 on mixed-status families and the impact that that will have on availability, for people to be able to participate in CalFresh.

And I think it dovetails into some of the issues that Miss Phan raised around the impact to our elders.

So, basically, the question around either multigenerational or mixed status families, how we are seeing the interplay of the work requirements, the eligibility changes, impacting a family's overall ability to feed themselves. Right?

When you sit down at a dinner table with your lo/la and your and your younger siblings and your and your uncles and tios, right, and tias all at the same table. It's the same number of people who are, at this point, having fewer resources to be able to feed that family. So, can you just speak to some of the challenges that you all are seeing related to that?

Yeah. I mentioned in my remarks that we, in effect, have two tiers of access to food programs in our state. And for those who don't qualify for federally funded benefits, now that that list of qualifying immigration status has been limited, we're finding more people in that tier. And I, you know, there, there are several other programs that are still available to immigrant families. For example, with children, universal school meals, summer EBT are all programs that continue to serve immigrant families, WIC.

But when we look at SNAP, which many of the speakers here have, has demonstrated CalFresh as, as, as one of our most powerful anti-hunger programs, we're finding that now, you're gonna, we're seeing segmentation of eligible household members. And even with the way that the legislature has designed the, the age-based phase-in approach for the, the CFAP expansion that Food for All has led, starting with populations ages 55 and older, we have maintained, has kind of created a similar problem.

When, having grown up in an immigrant household myself, it's just kind of counterintuitive to think that who belongs at the dinner table should be based off of some eligibility requirement, you know, based on age or your status. But, in effect, that's what we're, that's what we're seeing. That's what's, we're gonna see increase in mixed-status families is that, families will continue to put family values above their own needs and share what household resources are available if they can.

But in effect, those those households that have mixed statuses will will will receive less benefits or perhaps choose not to enroll out of fear of protecting their their family members' information or just having a lack of clear information or guidance. Or even just the barriers of applying and getting over those hurdles administratively with language access.

These are all things that create an invisible wall for immigrant families, and it's unfortunate that we were kind of seeing it as, you know, those who are born here and and and immigrants when in fact, the the way California is, we're we're very blended in what what happens to one of us impacts us all. And that's really evident with mixed-status immigrant households.

Just adding for older adults. We all live together. Like, at least we we live together, we eat together. And an earlier speaker had touched on who doesn't eat, who doesn't eat a meal? And that's a, that's a decision no family should have to make.

And that yeah. That's a decision no family should have to make.

I had a question for him too. With that. I'm going to Ben. There was a a previous speaker who actually suggest that CFAP eligibility was a federal decision. So I'm just trying to confirm that, can California expand expand the coverage to to those that were gonna be excluded from CalFresh?

Yeah. So my my understanding of of how CFAP works is, as I I mentioned, this program was created nearly thirty years ago. And it was created under an agreement with the Federal Government to provide state funded food and benefits to the folks directly impacted by welfare reform at the time. Since we've launched Food for All and engaged in this conversation with the legislature, we've clarified that there are steps that the administration can take.

One of them is creating our own payment system, like a state state bank account that we could use to issue benefits.

And once we have that online, it will, you know, unlock the door for for using CFAP in a more flexible way. That's ultimately what we would need to go beyond its original eligibility requirements and provide, for example, to anyone regardless of status. So that's our understanding. We've been in conversations with with CDSS about that, and in our legislative advocacy, have been working with them to get clarity on those details.

But, really, once that work is completed, we we believe there is the the legislature will be much more empowered to begin appropriating and making additional expansions to CFAP.

Seems to be a path that we are going to take, have to take, our state-only approach in a couple of different areas around responses to HR1. I appreciate that one. I wanted to, I had a question, I think, that Miss Scott is going to be able to address. So if you don't mind coming back up here.

So I think throughout the first panel and the second panel, we did hear some significant conversations around the the basic issue that the automation components are certainly necessary but insufficient for our beneficiaries to receive as much of of continuous service and benefits as possible.

We also have heard that our counties are making the very tough decisions right now in many instances to reduce their workforce. In part, it sounds like because the state is, has been perhaps delayed in the certainty of the amount of funding that we are going to be able to produce. And when.

I just wanted to have both, Miss Scott and Mister Banuelos speak to the reality of the time delay associated with your, need to be able to support, eligibility workers, how your work, you, you anticipate, is gonna be changing over time, because of the, because of the new requirements, and where you would like the state to really focus our energy, in this moment in time, to make sure that you have the most amount of support and resource possible, in this moment.

Because of the the layoffs and the shortage of staff, that's gonna put more burden on the staff that we have. And we're gonna be learning to assist our clients with the new restrictions and work requirements. We're gonna have their schedule requirements. We're gonna have to refer them to workforce, workforce development. And right now, we're only given in San Francisco County, I'm sorry.

3.5 to do task and 4.5 hours to do function. The function is on the phones or face to face. So we have people, an influx of calls and people coming in because their cases can't get processed because we're doing more function than task. So with the additional task, we're gonna be really overwhelmed. And you need assistance with training and some kind of assistance with helping us transition.

And you mentioned that you see, and then would love to have Mr Banuelos answer that question as well. Right now, you're seeing 50 to a 100 clients a day.

When at function. So remember, one day you can be at the service counter, that's face to face, or you can be on the phones. And lately, with the threat of HR1, our lines are down blocks, and our doors stay open until 05:00. So if you get in there at 04:59, we have to stay until every client's need has been met. And sometimes, our rooms are still full.

Thank you.

Thank you for for the question. So I will start with the automation piece. Our CalSAWS system is the most important tool our eligibility workers have. However, it's a tool. The conversation is with the customer.

We also have our staff that throughout California, we have not had to ask questions regarding work activities or we just collect. So it changes the dynamic in the conversation that now we have to have with our cost, with our customers. So that increases the time. And then it's also our our customers are accustomed, you know, especially if they are ongoing. So the shift in questioning is also, causes confusion because the customer does not understand, oh, you didn't ask me this last April.

Right? The support that most of the counties need is in the administrative piece because we are going to be having. having to educate both our staff and our customer base. We are expecting to see many appeals. Many of them will be because of misunderstanding of the new policies. The transaction or the action taken could be a 100% accurate, but because our customers are not used to, or they're not expecting that determination, they will file an appeal.

We will have the administrative burden of putting it through the process. We have to train not only our newly hired staff, but we have to retrain all of our existing staff for a program that, you know, has been on a waiver for fifteen plus years. I will say, and I can only speak on San Diego, probably 90 to 95% of San Diego eligibility workers have never dealt with an ABAWD.

That also adds up to the, in January 2027 when the working community engagement requirements for Medi Cal, which we appreciate that both DHCS and CDSS are working in partnership, but the rules are different. So the confusion for our customers to receive a letter that says, congratulations, you've met work requirements for program A.

You are being this denied or discontinued for not meeting work requirements for program B. Our, our staff do multiple programs. So the workload is also keeping the right program when having that conversation and following the conversation with the customer. So to be specific, are we talking about CalFresh at this moment? Are we talking about Medi Cal?

And then having, you know we don't expect our customers to understand our lingo. We don't expect them to be eligibility worker themselves is the clarity.

So at this moment, the the support I think that many, many counties, need is that, that support and for the back-end and for the training, for staffing resources, to be able to, be able to do this work for the first twelve months regardless if we're talking about the the citizenship changes that happened in April or the work requirements that are coming in June. All 58 counties will have the burden to touch that case regardless of outcome. And the goal is to keep them eligible.

The goal is to identify the exemptions, first, before we even look at the work requirements. We wanna see, has the family have already met an exemption so that we can know. Monopoly. Right? Pass go, collect $200 so that we can keep on going.

So, but regardless of outcome, the burden is on the county departments to touch every single case for, as we go through the twelve-month cycle, for ongoing cases.

My my question was already asked by Assembly Member Bonta in regards to really diving in in a little bit more in into your workload. But listening to the both of you speak, right now, Miss Scott, for your department, how many eligibility workers would you say you have in your in your department?

It's hard to say because we're in two two buildings. Yeah. Yeah. We're in several buildings.

Mmhm. Okay.

I'm just trying. trying to gauge that because I know you said some are at the counter, some are on the phones. On on average a week, how often are you at the counter or on the phones?

Two times a week, but at any given time, I can be called for backfill. So if there's not enough workers at work, then workers are distributed to meet the backfill. So if they can call me, it could be three times a week. It could be four. It all depends on staff.

And would you be able to just dive in? Because I saw the impact it it it had on you hearing from some of your customers. And I wanted to just kinda hear hear a little bit more in regards to the impact on the mental health, because as things change and your caseload increases, that's gonna impact you and your ability to do your job and your mental health component. And that's something that we also have to consider as you're moving forward.

I just wanted to know if you would be willing to share a little bit more on how this is also impacting your ability to do the work.

So I'm really concerned about my clients. I'm suffering from, like, a lack of sleep since all of this stuff came on, but I try to do things to keep myself healthy enough so I can be there for them because it's important that I be there for my clients. So, you know, I'm a spiritual. I go to church. I pray.

I go to the gym when I can, or I take walks every day. So I do the things that I can to keep myself stable enough to be able to, you know, work with my clients and be able to to listen. Because right now, they need somebody to listen to know that somebody does care. Because this is harsh. And they're not taking it.

And most of the time, we get the backlash. Why did you decrease my benefits from $298 to $168? And it it it wasn't me. It was because of the new budget cuts. They no longer qualify for something called SUAS, which was the utility little allotment we gave them, and it helped to raise the allotment, the the CF allotment.

And they're not understanding that. They're hurt and they wanna know how they gonna feed themselves, how they gonna make it through the month. So I'm just trying to bear with them and try to explain to them what has happened, and some of the things that they will have to do to continue to meet the requirement.

Thank you. I do have one more. In listening to the conversation about the ABAWD, just correct me if I'm wrong, you were saying that as of right now, a lot of the eligibility workers do not have the experience of dealing with the ABAWD?

The ABAWD requirements comes in June 1.

Correct.

So they're going to training. What I'm what I referenced was that, based on, so in San Diego County, we have roughly 1,700 eligibility workers. Many of them are probably, have, the majority I would say around 70% have been employed under five years since probably COVID. So since the waiver being in place for over fifteen years, they've never had to work the ABAWD.

Mmhm.

So we're not accustomed. It wasn't trained in initial training. We just concluded a new training cohort. They just graduated last Thursday.

That cohort was the ABAWD rules were not, were were not trained within their CalFresh, and that was due to we have not received our ABAWD handbook, which will be that department is still pending approval to issue because some of the rules that we need us, you know, how do we verify? How do we train for certain exemptions? Somebody included. So we have a cohort of roughly 35 new eligibility workers that will now have to get scheduled and taken offline to read to be trained in the ABAWD requirement

Okay. Thank you. I was asking that because, in our hearing yesterday for health hearing, it was something, from one of the bills that was presented, talking about MS. And, the the confusion that can possibly persist with that of of identifying, an ABAWD person, meaning that some people's new, you know, for for the neurological aspects of it may not be, they may be misidentified. And so I'm just wondering how that training is.

So I'm I'm I'm I'm hopeful that we can kinda talk about that a little bit further just to make sure that we need training that is coming to folks with being able to identify those that are there also including certain disabilities that may not appear the way, you know, typically some some disabilities actually appear. But they do need some additional support and they could qualify, but they're overlooked because of the physical symptoms, you know what I mean, of that.

So just wondering which training includes that. But that was that was one of the the questions that I had. But I'm gonna turn it back over before we get to public comment. Thank you

Yeah. I I don't have any more questions. I wanna appreciate all of you for coming to really just offer some insights into the day-to-day.

And I know that we didn't get to dive more deeply into the realities of the food banks, but I really wanted to pull from what I heard you you testify about around the fact that we actually need to be enrolling more people and having greater outreach to to make sure that people are, you know, who are eligible for CalFresh and all of our, you know, other social benefits actually have the ability to do that.

I think we've been mostly in the mindset when we're hearing budget presentations around just the reduction of the number then and trying to hold on to the bare minimum of people that should be receiving services.

But the reality is that in order for our food banks and for our whole entire kind of food and nutrition insecurity system to be able to work, we really need to be very aggressive and and proactive in making sure that we can enroll as many people as possible, and then, obviously, keep them enrolled. So I wanna thank you all for, the very, insightful, testimony that you offered and for traveling all this way to come up to Sacramento.

And wanna thank my Co-chair Assembly Member Sharp-Collins for highlighting all of the assets that are in San Diego County, especially in in the work that we have before us. And I'm trying to figure out how to not be sad, but the only thing that I can get to is mad.

And at this point, I think we don't even have time for mad. And I'm very much looking forward to figuring out how to ensure that the state can position our frontline folks to be able to live up to the standard and the ideal that was set by one of our testifiers here today, which is how can we be able to provide support with dignity, continuity of care, and and recognizing the basic humanity that we all as residents of California have a right have a right to.

So I'm gonna stay focused on that and, and really appreciate you all bringing to life what the current challenges are.

Thank you. Thank you.

At this time, we're gonna go ahead and move to public comment. Okay. You have one minute to provide public comment.

Good morning, madam Chairs and members. Raymond Contreras with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of Fullwell, Fullwell is a Bay-Area rooted nonprofit focus on expanding healthy, affordable food and improving the food systems for low-income communities. We strongly support California's investment in a robust twenty-first-century safety net that mitigates the harms stemming from HR 1.

That includes investing in a year-round access to the CalFresh fruit and vegetable program, as previously mentioned today by the California Retailers Association, this program offers recipients an additional $60 a month to spend on fresh fruit and vegetables in participating locations. We know that even before HR 1, CalFresh benefits often fell short of what families needed and participants ran out of benefits before month's end. The CalFresh fruit and vegetable program helps close that gap.

That's why we are asking the legislature to infuse this program with a $100,000,000 in the 26-27 budget. This act is championed by Assembly members Lee and Scott, and Senator Wiener. Thank you very much.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you, Doctor Sharp Collins and Co-chair Bonta, Andrew Shane on behalf of County Welfare Directors. Obviously, thank you for having us to speak. We wanted to make sure on the record we were thanking you as our champion for the resources that our frontline workers need. We're glad to share some good news that you may have seen, that the $20,000,000 from last year's budget was finally released. So thank you for staying on that.

We know that that that was a strong push, and so that money will will start to move through this system, very shortly in front of June 1 as was just discussed, but better late than never. So we are grateful, but we are, of course, continuing to press the administration for the full $102,800,000 needed in the budget year in order to shore up the staffing in San Diego County, San Francisco, and across the state.

And one of the reasons is that as the department spoke to, this 1,800,000.0, we are hopeful that there those folks can all be exempted automatically, but we don't know. And if people have temporary exemptions like students or other pieces and they disclose a change, then the workers need to work that case. And so we don't know that there's no workload yet.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Co-chairs. I'm Erin Evans with the county of Santa Clara. As the counties and the state grapple with the changes in HR 1, it's really our residents who are at risk of losing their CalFresh benefits. As individuals, the same individuals could be at risk of losing health care benefits at the same time under a different set of rules, as you heard today. Maintaining folks on programs is really critical to the stability of families in our communities and statewide.

We have 130,000 CalFresh recipients in Santa Clara County alone, and the county supports streamlining through the Cal SAWS program and other eligibility exemptions as much as possible to support our workers. Yet as you heard, we know that that the eligibility work is going to increase and require many more person-to-person interactions with folks. So we wanna make sure as well to express support and thank you for your leadership on the funding requested by the California Welfare Directors Association.

Thank you.

Nicole Wordleman, on behalf of the Children's Partnership, in support of Food for All Coalition's CFAP expansion request, as well as in support of CWDA's request for funding for eligibility workers on behalf of Orange County. In Orange County, just the CalFresh eligibility workers were looking at needing an additional 100 workers.

Thank you.

Hi. I'm Chloe Satern, legislative advocate for Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organization. I'm also a Umean American woman who's part of a refugee community who have to navigate systems here to adapt. My network and community also include veterans, single moms, those who have been in deep crisis, who've had a life below baseline, who had a started life below baseline, who also who have lost support before they've had a chance for stability. So benefit loss, like, which leads to hunger means that it induces stress.

It doesn't wait for implementation, like, timelines, and we we want to prevent hunger prevent being hungry from, like, further preventing, like, that stability. And so I want to urge you guys to sustain CalFood at $60,000,000 ongoing, plus the $50,000,000 in addition to 1 time funding to address increased demand for food resources due to HR 1 at $14,000,000 to protect the CalFresh outreach network.

Thank you.

Good morning. Josh Wright on behalf of the California Association of Food Banks and the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Thank you to the chairs for hosting this hearing and for the robust conversation that occurred today. We just wanna echo, what many of the panelists spoke about today. We urge the legislature to fully fund the Cal Food Program to help food banks meet the immediate demand from HR 1.

We also ask that you ensure county workers have the resources they need as they face these unprecedented cuts, preserve the vital CalFresh outreach network, and support California farmers and food banks by funding the LFPA program. And we ask that you create the long-term solution to HR 1 by expanding state-funded CFAP benefits to all populations who are newly ineligible. All of these actions are important parts of the state's response to HR 1. Thank you so much.

Hello, Greg Hurner on behalf of 211 San Diego. So thank you Co-chairs, but thank you particularly, Co-Chair Sharp-Collins for being a champion for 211 San Diego and and CalFresh. We, so much appreciate you and our communities down there. As noted today, I think, you know, if we can keep people on CalFresh, it's a 100% drawdown of federal funds.

So the most, the smartest thing for us to do is to make sure that we support the outreach network to keep all of those people as we can to draw down those federal funds.

And so that's why we're cosponsoring the request with California Association of Food Banks for $14,000,000 to to maintain that in HR 1, from the HR 1 cuts. But, you know, we we need to we need to help those most vulnerable to stay on. We work in 211 San Diego. We work with the county to make sure that we are looking across programs as well for all types of eligibility.

So this not only helps with CalFresh, but it helps with everything else that those individuals may need as well.

So we really support that and we, of course, of course, support the Cal Food request, to for those that we're not going to be able to keep on CalFresh.

Thank you.

So thank you very much for your leadership.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. Alright. I did it in my first hearing. Yay.

No. This concludes our select committee hearing, and I would like to thank my cochair, Assemblymember Bonta, for being such an incredible partner in this work. I've learned so much from you, and I'm and I'm looking forward to our continued partnership as as we continue to move forward. I also want to thank our panelists for joining us today. We cannot do this work that do the work that we do and advocate effectively without hearing from you all.

And we have to hear from you guys about your overall experience. So I'm very appreciative of of all of you coming to share your stories and and, providing public comment also in regards to what's happening. Your your testimonies truly equipped us to go fight for you, but not just fight for you, fight with you.

Finally, I want to thank well, thank the members that were able to come here and also the public that is here, here here within the room and those of you that are watching online. These are dark times federally, but together, we will maintain the California promise.

And we will do everything we can to ensure that no California will go hungry. And lastly, to my colleagues that that were in the room and once again who was watching, I truly hope that if you were here in the room and that you were watching, that you took stock of all of the presentations that was, presented today. When I say take stock, I mean, really take stock and understand the severity, of of of the situation and what our communities are gonna be facing.

This is a major crisis, and this is an actual crisis point. And without all of us banding together, our constituents face a enormous risk, a huge risk.

And we have to start just paying attention and making sure that we do what was right for them and also by them. Yes. Our resources, we know for a fact they are scarce, but we have to prioritize the most vulnerable and who, and and those who are more vulnerable than, you know, those that are gonna be a part of the food insecurity. Hunger, in my personal opinion, hunger knows no district. Hunger knows no line of political parties.

Hunger is hunger. And so I know that it does not deal with age. Hunger does not deal with race. Hunger does not deal with religion. Hunger truly affects everyone.

It affects all of our districts. So once again, I hope that my colleagues took stock in these presentations. So to my Co-chair and to everyone else, I look forward to our continued working with you, doing everything we can to craft a workable solution. I did take stock on what was said today, and we will continue to advocate and do our best to make sure that once again, everyone have what they need to not just survive, but to thrive in the state of California.

Thank you so much for being here, and this concludes our hearing.

Thank you.