For Contra Costa seniors on SNAP, program’s uncertainty leads to fear

Karen Ward has been preparing for a lapse in federal food assistance by getting creative with how she stretches a dollar.

“You can get a chicken from Costco and make three different things, then I boil the bones to make a broth and then I make a soup,” Ward said. “I get the most out of that $5 chicken.”

These days, Ward and her husband, who are both in their 60s, track every dollar, clipping coupons and watching for discounts.

“You have to find those deals when you can and make it last as long as you can,” Ward said.

For older adults like Ward, missing a month of benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program can upend carefully balanced budgets. Ward and other SNAP recipients faced that threat recently after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the program was out of funds. Shortly after, two federal judges ruled that the Trump administration must use reserve funds to maintain payments during the federal shutdown. After a flurry of court activity, the administration took its challenge to the Supreme Court on Monday.

In the meantime, Contra Costa County residents who receive CalFresh benefits, the state’s version of SNAP, found money reloaded on their accounts late last week. Though it’s unclear where additional funding for the program will come if the shutdown continues and government reserves are exhausted. 

This comes at a time when an increasing number of seniors are experiencing financial and food insecurity. According to a survey by the USDA, food insecurity for people 65 and older increased from 7% in 2021 to 9% in 2022.

Ward described how the cost of everything from hamburgers to health care is going up.

“We’ve been working all our lives, finally get to retire and it feels like we’re almost worse off,” she said.

Some lawmakers and government agencies are trying to soften the blow from the lapse in funding by providing support of their own. Recently, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced an $18 million public-private partnership through which the city will distribute prepaid gift cards that should cover recipients’ full benefits for the month. And on Nov. 4, Contra Costa County Supervisors unanimously approved up to $21 million for food boxes and debit cards to the roughly 107,000 residents on the county rolls as of September. That includes about 20,000 individuals over 65, including 3,000 in Richmond.

‘One more bit of chaos’

While local funding is providing temporary relief, Congress has set in motion more permanent cuts to funding streams that low-income residents rely upon, including SNAP.

Not only is there a 20% reduction in the SNAP budget over the next decade, but states also will be required to cover a greater share of the program’s cost, likely leading to benefits being reduced and going to fewer people. 

The Food Bank of Contra Costa & Solano is set to lose some of its funding sources after the federal spending bill’s passage earlier this year, said Caitlin Sly, president and CEO. It already lost $2 million in funding because of cuts to the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement, which helped it purchase locally grown produce.

“So this is just one more bit of chaos that we’ve been dealing with,” Sly said.

This shutdown has become the longest in U.S. history and it’s unclear what the impacts will be for people who are food insecure.

“It has the potential of hundreds, if not thousands, more people needing to rely on us for food,” Sly said.

Tracy Murray, Contra Costa County director of Aging & Adult Services, said additional programs, such as in-home support services and meal deliveries serving 2,000 older adults, could be impacted in the next month or two because of the shutdown.

Ward said she and her husband are doing better than many people they know, but they’re cutting corners everywhere they can, from doing home repairs themselves to eliminating vacations. 

“There are a lot of things we just can’t do because we can’t afford it,” she said.

If the shutdown continues for another month, Ward will have to make hard decisions about which bills she and her husband can afford to pay and what foods they can afford to eat.

“It’s rough,” Ward said.

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