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Another sweeping round of proposed federal cuts to food aid threatens to leave thousands of local families, including children, without the support they need to get by even as food banks struggle to support rising demand, local officials say.
The version of President Donald Trump’s sweeping policy and tax cuts bill passed by the House of Representatives aims to eliminate $295 billion in spending over the next decade on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, also known in California as CalFresh.
The state’s food banks say it would be the largest cut in food assistance in a generation or more, slashing federal support for food aid by about a third. The Senate’s latest version of the legislation has a slightly smaller proposed cut, at $211 billion.
Statewide, SNAP helps 5.5 million low-income residents afford groceries.
The benefits are issued monthly through a kind of debit card that can be used at grocery stores, farmers markets and any other stores that accept the form of payment.
At least 41,000 people in Sonoma County rely on the program, according to data provided by the economic assistance division of the county’s Department of Human Services, the primary manager of those benefits in the county.
Almost 14,000 of those recipients are children.
The cuts — which food bank leaders say will make it harder for parents and senior citizens to put food on the table — come in reductions or total elimination of SNAP programs under the Thrifty Food Plan, which calculates how much food assistance each household receives.
Some current SNAP recipients could lose eligibility altogether, while others could see their benefits reduced.
“No matter how much food food banks provide, SNAP is still the largest hunger relief program because it gives (residents) the total autonomy to fill in all of the food they need,” said Allison Goodwin, chief executive and president of Santa Rosa-based Redwood Empire Food Bank, which serves about 142,000 people in a five-county region stretching to the Oregon border.
Two other programs set for hits under the proposed federal cuts are The Emergency Food Assistance Program and SUN Bucks. The former redistributes surplus food to those in need and the latter gives families with school-aged children money during the summer to supplement the loss of free school meals.
The Trump administration, in its 2026 budget proposal, also targeted for elimination the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides a monthly 30-pound box of shelf-stable food to seniors, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The administration called the program unhealthy and has released little information on what will replace it.
Making even minimal changes in food-aid access for local residents in need will have major ripple effects, Goodwin said.
“The people that are in most dire need — the people who are using those benefits — couples with picking up our food, couples with subsidized child care …” Goodwin said. “They’re losing one of those programs that they’re relying on.”
On June 17, Goodwin and leaders of five other Bay Area food banks held a press conference to urge elected officials to preserve the “essential lifeline” for families at risk under Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill.
The Redwood Empire Food Bank does not distribute food through SNAP but spends a significant amount of time helping local residents apply for benefits under the CalFresh umbrella.
Following a 2022 rule change that expanded CalFresh eligibility to seniors on Social Security benefits, an “influx” of seniors have requested SNAP assistance through the food bank, Goodwin said.
In Sonoma County, 10,000 seniors are enrolled in the program.
“We had quite an increase in the last few years of families living on a fixed income … inquiring about how they could get help because living on their (social security) was not enough, in this high-cost-of-living community,” Goodwin said.
Officials with Sonoma County, which has the largest number of SNAP recipients on the North Coast, did not have specific figures on how many recipients would see reductions or eliminations to their food assistance benefits.
If authorized, restrictions to SNAP eligibility will pull recipients off the program each month. Over the next 10 years, roughly 3.2 million people would lose some access to monthly food support, according to a May 22 letter from the Congressional Budget Office to the Senate’s Agriculture Committee.
Of those 3.2 million recipients, here are the affected groups of people.
- About 1 million able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 64 who do not live with children.
- 800,000 able-bodied adults ages 18 to 64 with children 9 or younger.
- 1.4 million able-bodied adults ages 18 to 54 who do not live with dependents but receive some waiver or exemption to current eligibility rules.
Reductions to the smaller programs under CalFresh’s umbrella could hit homeless service providers as well, according to Jennielynn Holmes, CEO of Catholic Charities of Northwest California.
The SNAP Education program is a critical resource for unhoused residents in Sonoma County who learn how to budget their SNAP monthly allotment and make healthy meals, Holmes said.
Catholic Charities operates the county’s largest homeless shelter. Its Caritas Center in downtown Santa Rosa also houses at-risk families for up to six months at a time.
The SNAP Education program is a significant source of funding that also allows the organization to conduct their own food distributions in partnership with Redwood Empire Food Bank, Holmes said.
“We go to where there aren’t regular food donations,” Holmes said. “In rural communities … in Lake County, Mendocino County, where there’s more food deserts.”
In food deserts people have limited access to healthy and affordable food and poverty rates are at 20% or more, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
The funding also helps with the costs of enrolling Catholic Charities clients in CalFresh benefits, “particularly for families living in poverty,” Holmes added.
Officials are bracing for an economic hit, as well, in the pullback of federal food aid.
The California Association of Food Banks — using USDA’s Economic Research Service calculations — estimated that 488,000 jobs statewide would be lost if the cut is approved. Those jobs range from grocery store workers to truck drivers to farmworkers.
For every SNAP dollar spent, $1.80 goes back into the local Sonoma County community, according to the county’s Economic Assistance Division.
“The presumption is if I receive CalFresh SNAP benefits and I go into my local grocery store — yes the grocery store is benefiting from that revenue but so are the food producers, and the delivery drivers and the distributors of that produce and the local farmers,” Goodwin said.
The county did not have projections on exactly how much economic value or jobs could be at stake in the federal aid cuts.
Guinevere Zabinsky, program planning evaluation analyst with the CalFresh Program in the county’s Human Services Department, said “absolutely CalFresh does generate economic activity in the county” but “what that could look like specifically (if cuts are approved) is not determined at this point.”
She sought to clarify that as things stand, with the Senate still deliberating and no final bill yet passed by Congress, the full suite of CalFresh programs remain in operation and residents should reach out if they need assistance.
“Maybe the climate may be a little uncomfortable at points,” Zabinsky said. “But those who feel they need food assistance should apply.”
Trump has signaled that he wants a bill to sign by July 4, ahead of Congress’ break.
If approved, states will have to manage the fallout of the cuts — no small thing for California, with the largest overall number of SNAP recipients and a $12 billion deficit.
On May 12, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a joint statement with other Democratic governors, pushing against GOP-proposed cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits.
“On top of targeting Americans’ health care, Republicans have proposed gutting food assistance — also known as SNAP benefits — which will make groceries more expensive, shutter local grocery stores, and force kids to go hungry,” the statement read.
Currently, the federal government pays the full cost of the benefits for residents in each state. Under the new proposal, states would take on at least 5% of that cost and as much as a quarter of total costs.
The Congressional Budget Office, in its May 22 letter, wrote that while some states would maintain benefits or modify overall benefits, some states could “possibly leave the program altogether because of the increased costs.”
The joint statement from Democratic governors addressed the possible state burden.
“The notion that states will respond to massive cuts to federally appropriated dollars by backfilling with state resources is simply inaccurate and impossible,” the statement read. “These proposals are not just a ‘cost shift’ to states, they are cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and the social safety net that supports millions of Americans.“
It is unlikely California would lose the program altogether, officials say.
But, Goodwin fears the negative implications for other social service programs if California’s budget has to shift to continue supporting CalFresh.
“The state can’t be successful getting their typical line items over the finish line if they’re waiting at the federal level for cuts to SNAP,” Goodwin said. “They’re not going to be able to fund things like infant diapers that food banks have been able to distribute in our lines.”
And while food banks can try to fill the gaps, most are already stretched thin.
“We can’t take on the entire burden,” Goodwin said. “That still leaves people vulnerable.”
Report For America corps member Adriana Gutierrez covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. You can reach her at Adriana.Gutierrez@pressdemocrat.com.
