Bay Area food banks see surge in demand due to lapse of SNAP benefits
On Monday, in a parking lot of Contra Costa College in San Pablo, the line for food stretched all the way down the sidewalk.
"We're expecting at least 500 families to come out to our distribution," said program coordinator Geo Dinoso.
When he opened the food line, the crowd was a little hard to believe, but for Dinoso, not very surprising.
"I think it just speaks about the current state of people being able to manage and to meet their needs," he said. "I think everyone is working hard to take care of their families, and even with that, it's hard to make ends meet. People are very aware that the resources, the support that they got from CalFresh, is gone. And without that type of support, they're going to have to try to find other ways to feed their families."
With SNAP, people get financial assistance to purchase groceries on a debit card. The shutdown of the program has instantly thrown thousands of people onto food lines, and it has the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano scrambling to keep up.
J.P. Contreras was busy all day fielding calls from people wondering where they could find food.
"There's a lot of fear, especially our most vulnerable populations," he said. "I'm talking about seniors or people with disabilities. We're also getting a huge increase in people that never had to use our services before, altogether. Not just SNAP recipients. But now that we're in it we know, at the best, SNAP benefits are going to be delayed, so in that meantime, food banks were getting ready to fill in that gap."
And it's a huge gap to fill. Contreras said for every one food bank client, it's estimated that nine people were getting help from SNAP. Now, with the federal government saying there might be partial benefits at an unknown time, the uncertainty is making things even harder.
"There has been confusion ever since the government shutdown started," said food bank CEO Caitlin Sly. "And that panic and anxiety is really taking a toll on people experiencing hunger in our community. Benefits are paused and there is not a clear timeline for when benefits will be reinstated. Right now, we're hearing 'partial benefits' will happen at some point. But we know it will take at least a few weeks for even partial benefits to be loaded on the cards."
The problem was not lost on Zachary Harris. The Richmond resident stopped by the food bank headquarters to write a check to donate to the cause.
"What we're going through is a little bit crazy," he said. "And, yeah, if we can help out, go ahead and do it. Hopefully, this will make things a little more normal."
And back at the food line, Dinoso found there was no shortage of people willing to volunteer.
"It just brightens my heart," he said, smiling. "Whenever there's a crisis or hard time in the community, people just come together. We always look for the helpers, and they're right here."
There are 107,000 people registered for SNAP in Contra Costa alone, and food banks are asking for financial help from the public to meet this unprecedented demand.