{"id":233004,"date":"2025-09-17T04:58:40","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/233004\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T04:58:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:58:40","slug":"leaders-vow-to-advocate-send-alerts-before-food-benefit-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/233004\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders vow to advocate, send alerts before food benefit cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Food-Stamps.jpg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Food-Stamps.jpg?resize=640%2C360&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"An applicant signs up for food stamps\" class=\"wp-image-103045\" style=\"width:810px;height:auto\"  \/><\/a>An applicant signs up for food stamps, known as CalFresh in California. (Photo by Anne Wernikoff\/CalMatters)<\/p>\n<p>As cuts for food programs make their way outward from Washington, D.C., San Diego County <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegocounty.gov\/content\/sdc\/bos.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Board of Supervisors<\/a> Chair Terra Lawson-Remer Tuesday joined leaders of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegofoodbank.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jacobs &amp; Cushman San Diego Food Bank<\/a> to urge San Diegans to prepare.<\/p>\n<p>Set to go into effect in early 2026 as part of the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill Act,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdss.ca.gov\/calfresh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CalFresh<\/a> exemptions will be cut and require more recipients to prove they work at least 20 hours a week \u2014 or risk losing food benefits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople shouldn\u2019t lose their groceries because they missed a form or didn\u2019t see the rules changing,\u201d Lawson-Remer said. \u201cWe\u2019ve known these cuts were coming for months \u2014 and we\u2019ve been building a plan to get ahead of them. They told us to wait. We\u2019re not waiting anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of the exemptions to be eliminated include those for veterans, older adults, the homeless and more.<\/p>\n<p>A county-led report released in July projected more than $300 million in local impacts from the federal budget bill, including $200 million in new costs or cuts to CalFresh.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHistorically, when government-administered food assistance like CalFresh is reduced, we see a surge in demand for emergency food services,\u201d said Casey Castillo, CEO of the food bank. \u201cAs a result of H.R. 1, we estimate the monthly meal gap in San Diego County could grow by 60%, reaching 7.1 million missing meals. This comes at a time when our USDA food supply has already declined, creating a one-two punch that will deeply impact our communities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur CalFresh Outreach team is ready to help \u2014 assisting clients with applications, tracking their progress, and advocating on their behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The county is developing a notification plan to allow those who might lose benefits advance knowledge before the program is slashed.<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An applicant signs up for food stamps, known as CalFresh in California. (Photo by Anne Wernikoff\/CalMatters) As cuts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":233005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,6971,276,18716,18874,125467,28040,3549,12051,7264,12052,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-233004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-calfresh","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-cuts","13":"tag-food-security","14":"tag-jacobs-cushman-san-diego-food-bank","15":"tag-one-big-beautiful-bill-act","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-san-diego-county-board-of-supervisors","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-terra-lawson-remer","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115217871901258210","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}