{"id":61327,"date":"2025-11-20T02:15:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/61327\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T02:15:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:15:30","slug":"new-calfresh-work-requirements-may-impact-thousands-in-kern-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/61327\/","title":{"rendered":"New CalFresh work requirements may impact thousands in Kern County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fns.usda.gov\/snap\/obbb-abawd-exemptions-implementation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New work requirements<\/a> for CalFresh recipients, stemming from H.R. 1, are set to take effect this month in Kern County, potentially impacting thousands.<\/p>\n<p>Adults aged 18 to 64 will now need to work 20 hours per week to qualify for benefits, unless they have a child under 14. Previously, the requirement applied to adults aged 18 to 54 without a child under 18.<\/p>\n<p>Angela Roman-Garcia, Kern County DHS program director, said, &#8220;With the HR 1 impacts for Kern County in regards to CalFresh we potentially believe that 18,000 CalFresh clients could be impacted based on the current work requirements.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Currently, over 200,000 people in Kern County receive CalFresh benefits. H.R. 1 also restricts benefits to lawful permitted residents, excluding refugees, asylees, battered non-citizens, and trafficking victims.<\/p>\n<p>Roman-Garcia noted that approximately 2,000 people could be affected in the coming months.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This will be a time you\u2019ll see a significant amount of increase in our community based organizations within Kern County,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"New work requirements could impact thousands of CalFresh recipients in Kern County. (KBAK\/KBFX){p}{\/p}\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/b210efa7-581b-4df1-82a9-719e6494f41b-ebtcard.jpg\"\/>New work requirements could impact thousands of CalFresh recipients in Kern County. (KBAK\/KBFX)<\/p>\n<p>Some recipients, like Dolores Chapman, express frustration. &#8220;If you\u2019re working, why would you even need it? It\u2019s for people who can\u2019t get jobs,&#8221; Chapman said.<\/p>\n<p>Gabriel Trujillo, a Bakersfield resident, added, &#8220;The CalFresh, you\u2019re giving us $294 in food stamps. I mean, it\u2019s not enough.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kern DHS assures that no recipient has lost benefits yet and advises contacting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcdhs.org\/about-dhs\/about-us\/office-hours-and-locations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">their office for guidance.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New work requirements for CalFresh recipients, stemming from H.R. 1, are set to take effect this month in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-61327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}