Bay Area Counties Pour Millions Into Food Aid Assistance as Clock Runs Out on SNAP

The Bay Area is bracing for federal food assistance to run out this weekend, even as federal judges rule that the Trump administration must continue to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the ongoing federal shutdown.

Although judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday to use contingency funding to continue paying for SNAP benefits in November, it’s unclear how quickly the department will respond.

The rulings, which offer the Trump administration leeway to only partially cover the program’s average $8 billion monthly cost, could also be met with legal challenges, local officials warned.

“We don’t know if [Trump] going to comply, we don’t if he is going to appeal, so what we can control in California is making sure that our food banks are strong and that no matter what the federal government does, that our food banks are able to provide food to folks in our community,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said Friday. “That’s what we can do.”

Around the state, food banks are expecting demand to surge ahead of the looming deadline. To help meet need, counties across the Bay have directed additional resources to food banks and found funding alternatives to absorb at least part of the impending hit.

In San Francisco, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced Wednesday that the city plans to cover $18 million in CalFresh benefits in November, thanks to a public-private partnership with Crankstart, the family foundation of venture capitalist Michael Moritz and writer Harriet Heyman.

While that funding will likely fall short of the full cost of covering the 112,000 city residents’ monthly allowances, other community organizations are also stepping up. The city’s Family Services Alliance and nonprofit Safe and Sound have announced a fund to help families losing access to SNAP and another federal supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC.

It’s also significantly more robust than what counties elsewhere in the Bay Area have been able to provide.

“We are so grateful that here in San Francisco, 112,000 CalFresh recipients are going to have benefits,” said Tanis Crosby, executive director of San Francisco-Marin Food Bank.

“That’s not the same in every county in the Bay Area, and that’s certainly not the same across the country.”

Alameda County’s Board of Supervisors has approved about $10 million in emergency funding for local food banks and food assistance programs, about $1.7 million of which will directly fund meals for seniors. More than $8 million will go to Alameda County Community Food Bank, which expects that an additional 13,000 to 19,000 people could begin seeking food assistance daily come November, on top of the 60,000 they usually serve, according to communications director Michael Altfest.

Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas announced Friday that the county had also raised an additional $1.5 million for an emergency food program to support food banks and smaller, community-based organizations. The funding was provided by Crankstart and Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry’s Eat, Learn, Play Foundation, along with contributions from Bas’s office and from the office of Alysse Castro, Alameda County’s Superintendent of Schools.

According to Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, even with the contributions, the county isn’t able to cover the total benefits Alameda County residents receive each month.

“For every one meal the food bank provides, SNAP generally provides nine,” said Lee, who said she relied on CalFresh benefits while raising her two children.

“We usually think of food insecurity, famine in other countries. Here we are in this country, the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, talking about how we mobilize to feed people,” she continued. “Shame and disgrace.”

Santa Clara County announced Thursday that it would provide $4.5 million to support food aid programs in the county — offsetting just a fraction of the more than $25 million its 30,000 CalFresh recipients receive each month.

In Marin, county supervisors are expected to vote next week on a plan to allocate $800,000 in emergency funding to provide direct food assistance to their 15,500 CalFresh recipients.

Crosby said traffic on San Francisco-Marin Food Bank’s online food finder, which helps people locate food pantries and assistance, has increased 250% in recent days. She expects the organization’s waitlist, which is already 8,000 people long, to grow.

“Food insecurity is higher now than at the height of the pandemic,” she said. “That’s why it’s all hands on deck.

“We’re working so hard with our partners to boost capacity right now,” she continued. “We are activating and mobilizing and calling on our community to volunteer and join with us, because we want to double [our home delivered grocery] program in the days ahead.”

Restaurants across the Bay Area have announced that they will offer free and discounted meals to CalFresh recipients, and California is sending National Guard personnel to aid food banks throughout the state.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has also ordered that $80 million in emergency funding allocated for food assistance in this year’s state budget be expedited to reimburse organizations’ additional costs as they increase supply.

Crosby said even when the federal shutdown comes to an end, the current scramble to keep food on hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents’ tables will likely continue.

“There are cuts to SNAP that have already been approved,” she said, referring to changes in SNAP’s benefit levels and work requirements included in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill this summer. Those changes are set to take effect in January.

“This program will be dismantled in the months and years ahead,” she continued. “What’s happening right now is a foreshadowing, a foreshadowing of the hurt that will happen without action.”

KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara contributed to this report.