The ongoing legal battle over the issuance of SNAP benefits has led to confusion, with neither side showing signs of backing down. The conflict began when it was announced that SNAP benefits would be issued for November, prompting a challenge from the Trump administration. In response, state attorneys general across the nation, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, have vowed to protect the benefits for low-income families.
In Kern County, CalFresh recipients had their EBT cards loaded with November benefits on Friday, according to an email from the Kern County Department of Human Services. Recipients who have not received their benefits are advised to contact the Kern DHS at 877-410-2212.
Meanwhile, the Community Action Partnership of Kern (CAPK) is prepared to distribute food to those in need if there are any changes.
Susana Magana, the CAPK health and nutrition director, stated, “Any time that there is an emergency, especially when it has to do with food, we always get put out there as: go to the food bank. When we started hearing that, we definitely knew that expecting us to meet that need, and we knew that we weren’t able to do that on our own.”
Magana noted that CAPK would not have been able to distribute food to about 15,000 people last week without the help of their partners, the National Guard, and volunteers from the governor’s office. Typically, CAPK distributes about 400,000 pounds of food weekly across more than 100 sites, but last week, they distributed a million pounds.
The National Guard assisted with the food distribution at the Kern County Fair on Monday. (Steve Virgen, KBAK/KBFX)
“As we’re entering the holiday season, we definitely want to continue to ask the community to assist us either by donating money or donating canned goods or anything that is holiday-related because a lot of our folks are in our normal food insecure issues that we have in our county, we definitely need additional resources at this time,” Magana said.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta emphasized in a press conference that the state will continue to protect the SNAP benefits issued to low-income families.