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As many as 67,000 people in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties are at risk of losing CalFresh food assistance benefits in coming months, according to the CEO of Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, a regional food bank.
New federal rules stemming from HR 1, last year’s sweeping federal spending bill, have taken effect that expand work requirements for some CalFresh recipients, California’s implementation of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The latest changes, went into place June 1, imposing a three-month limit on food assistance for certain adults who cannot demonstrate that they meet federal work requirements or qualify for an exemption.
The rules now apply to adults ages 55 to 64, who were previously exempt from the time limit, and to some households with children ages 14 to 17, which were previously exempt if they included a child under 18. It also adds the three-month limit for veterans, unhoused people and people under 24 years old who were in foster care when they turned 18.
“Generally these changes just add a lot of additional red tape to the system and make a benefits program that already is somewhat difficult to access even more challenging,” said Leslie Bacho, CEO of Second Harvest. “It’s really impacting some of our most vulnerable neighbors.”
Second Harvest, which according to Bacho has 400 nonprofit partners and serves 187,000 people across the two counties, expects demand for its charitable food services to increase sharply in the next few months as some California residents lose their CalFresh benefits from the June 1 changes.
The organization has seen demand for its services rebound to about 500,000 people per month, on par with levels seen during the Covid-19 pandemic Bacho said. Demand decreased in the years immediately following the pandemic due to robust federal government support. When the extra federal SNAP dollars ended in 2023, food assistance lines got longer again, Bacho said. Demand ticked up again during the government shutdown in November and demand for food assistance services has surged in recent months.
Adding to this dynamic, Bacho said, is an economic gap in Silicon Valley that has only widened in recent years. Wages for low-income jobs have stagnated while the tech industry has boomed in recent years. As the region becomes less affordable, Second Harvest is bracing for increased demand for its services.
Amid a worsening affordability crisis, more reductions to SNAP are coming down the pipeline that Bacho said could put further pressure on charitable food services, including Second Harvest.
“This first layer of work requirements is honestly small compared to what’s coming down the road, as the federal government puts more of the administrative burden and more of the benefit burden on states that they are just not going to be able to afford,” Bacho said.
Currently, California splits 50% of the administrative costs of CalFresh with the federal government, where 35% is paid by the state and 15% by counties. HR 1 adjusted that breakdown so that states will now have to cover 75% of the administrative costs starting in October 2026.
Additionally, CalFresh faces increased financial penalties associated with the error rate – whether payments were made in accordance with the program’s requirements. If California’s most recently measured error rate from fiscal year 2024 remains at 11%, the state would be responsible for 15% of CalFresh benefits, resulting in about $2 billion in annual costs, according to the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office.
In addition to the sweeping changes to CalFresh, HR 1 also makes major changes to MediCal, California’s Medicaid program that provides free or low-cost health care to around a third of California’s population. Similar to the CalFresh changes, the HR 1 MediCal changes phase in work requirements, more restrictive eligibility rules for non-citizens and eligibility checks and enhanced financial penalties.
“It’s an erosion of the safety net that’s hard to wrap your head around,” Bacho said.
When government assistance programs are reduced, that need doesn’t go away, said Moses Zapien, executive vice president of community impact and policy at Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a grant-making and advocacy organization that aims to address issues like housing, food insecurity, and education.
Silicon Valley Community Foundation launched the Community Lifeline Fund last fall to support local organizations including Second Harvest in meeting essential needs as federal funding has declined.
‘“The need simply shifts to local food banks, community-based organizations, schools, faith communities, and other nonprofits that become the safety net,” said Zapien.
While organizations like SVCF are stepping in to fill the funding gap and meet critical needs, the reduction in federal funding has already resulted in budget cuts and staffing changes in Santa Clara County, where 365 mostly-vacant positions, many in health care, were eliminated in February.
Bacho said the first thing community members can do is understand the changes, which she said are designed to be hard to understand. The next step, Bacho said, is to try to reverse some of the changes in HR 1. Community members can support their local food banks by donating money.
“We cannot replace these critical federal programs,” Bacho said. “There’s going to come a time for advocacy at the state level, because states will have to decide how they are going to prioritize their resources.”
This is only a start. As stated in the article, most of the cuts are designed to kick in after the mid-term elections.