As millions of people prepare to lose their federal food assistance program benefits like SNAP — CalFresh in California — nonprofit organizations are already noticing the impact of the government shutdown on the community.
“Today is our fourth week of our emergency response to this government shutdown,” Tom Stewart, the vice president of strategic integration at Jewish Family Service (JFS), told NBC 7. “We’re preparing this afternoon to be able to serve up to 200 households.”
Stewart, along with about a half-dozen volunteers, was preparing boxes of fresh produce and canned goods for community members to come pick up at a drive-through distribution event. He added that they will host these Wednesday evening events at their Balboa Avenue location in Kearny Mesa until the shutdown ends.
“That first week of the drive-through, we had folks that were sharing, you know, there was a lot of information being shared about what to do for military families,” Stewart said, “but [as for] civilian federal workers, we had several people who shared they were just glad to hear that they weren’t forgotten.”
NBC 7 watched more than two dozen cars line up outside of the property 15 minutes early in anticipation of the event’s 4 p.m. start time on Wednesday. In the past four weeks, JFS has served nearly 1,000 people. There is no need to register beforehand. All you need to do, Stewart said, is show up, fill out a brief intake form so they can gather metrics on who they are serving and then pick up your items. However, Stewart stressed, “there is no one demographic that captures who is impacted by this. It really is everybody.”
Stewart added that there was a 42% increase in the amount of people being served from Week 2 to Week 3, and he anticipated that figure would increase once CalFresh benefits aren’t distributed Nov. 1.
“Unfortunately, at this time, we don’t have a timeline or expected resolution date for that,” Assmaa Elayyat, with San Diego County Health and Human Services, told NBC 7. It just depends on how long the federal government shutdown remains.”
Elayyat shared that roughly 400,000 residents or about 240,000 households within the county, use the CalFresh program. She encouraged anyone who is signed up for CalFresh to use local community resources like 211 to find out where to get food from local pantries or larger food banks.
According to Feeding San Diego’s website, they are holding an emergency food distribution for anyone impacted by the shutdown on Nov. 1 at its headquarters on Waples Street in Sorrento Valley. They added that no registration is required. Their website has a map tool for more information.
There is also a map tool through the Jacobs and Cushman San Diego Food bank — where, Stewart said, JFS got its food from — that can also be used to help find the best options for food near you.
‘Whatever we can do to meet the need in the community, we’re going to do everything that we can,” Stewart said.