Author: Michael McAlpin

Food Bank Hosts SF Mayoral Candidate Watch Party

October 10, 2024

Ending hunger starts with policy change, and policy change starts at the ballot box. To encourage civic engagement around the issue of hunger in the City and County of San Francisco, the Food Bank partnered with the League of Women Voters and UCSF in co-sponsoring a San Francisco Mayor Candidate Forum on Sept. 30, 2024, at 6 p.m. at UCSF’s Robertson Auditorium. That same evening, 20 community members came together for a live stream of the event at a Mayoral Forum Watch Party in the Food Bank’s Welcome Center.   

In alignment with the Food Bank’s co-sponsorship of the forum, mayoral candidates were asked how they would address food insecurity. Watch party attendee Troy Burnette, a member of the Food Bank’s new grassroots advocacy program, the Food Policy Advocacy Coalition (Food PAC) appreciated the opportunity to gather with others to discuss the candidates’ positions.  “We all need to be coming together to get a better understanding of what we need to work on, to hopefully make things better for everybody,” said Troy. “To hear the candidates speak from their own voices makes a difference on who you may lean toward to move forward and hopefully help the Food Bank.” 

Andre Aikens, Director of Programs for the Rafiki Coalition (a Food Bank partner), also noted that the location of the watch party helped underscore the reality of hunger with the policy positions on food insecurity shared by the candidates. “It connects the dots,” Andre said. “Listening to the candidates and sitting in this place kind of brings it all together so that you feel whether or not an individual actually has a plan, and this issue [hunger] is a priority as well.”  

The candidate forum and watch party are part of ongoing strategic efforts to increase awareness of the Food Bank’s public policy concerns and foster civic engagement activities around ending hunger, according to Noriko Lim-Tepper, Chief Officer for the Food Bank’s Strategic Partnerships, Advocacy and Voice (SPAV) Department. “The Food Bank values the strength and wisdom in our community. As an organization, we center our efforts on lifting the voices of people who have lived experiences with food insecurity to lead meaningful policy change,” said Noriko.   

In addition to viewing the live stream, attendees posed questions to members of the SPAV team. Discussion topics included how ranked choice voting works, aspects of the mayoral race and updates on the Food Bank’s latest policy and advocacy efforts including helping to drive statewide efforts to pass AB518, a new law that could lead to greater access to CalFresh for many eligible but unenrolled Californians. 

Over the next several months SPAV plans additional events demonstrating the Food Bank as a civic engagement gathering place. The department includes the Community Building team of Associate Director Irene Garcia, and Community Builder Jesus Benitez Gomez, and Policy & Advocacy’s Associate Director Marchon Tatmon, and Community Organizer Alex Raffanti. Learn more about Food Bank advocacy efforts at sfmfoodbank.org/advocacy. 

 

The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization and is prohibited from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office. Our goal is to elevate the issue of hunger with candidates and the public during the election cycle.

National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference

March 18, 2021

Federal Advocacy in the Time of COVID

Every spring, our Policy & Advocacy team flies to Washington D.C. for a National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference co-hosted by Feeding America and the Food Research and Action Center.  Our new COVID reality has shifted the conference from our nation’s capital to our own home offices but hasn’t diminished the power of uniting thousands of anti-poverty and anti-hunger advocates in common purpose.

New Administration, New Opportunities

Since assuming office in January, the Biden Administration has taken dramatic, long-sought steps to reduce hunger across the country during the COVID crisis.  The passage of the American Rescue Plan represents a one-in-a-generation investment in low-income Americans and in our nation’s children.  From extending increased benefit levels for SNAP (food stamps) recipients to providing support for free meals for kids while in-person learning is suspended to making it easier for college students to access SNAP, the Biden Administration has made rapid investments in our anti-hunger infrastructure nationwide.

Advocates at the Anti-Hunger Policy Conference will hear from the new Secretary of Agriculture at the USDA, Tom Vilsack.  Food banks like ours receive millions of pounds of food through the USDA and the SNAP/CalFresh program is also funded through the agency, so we look forward to continuing to build relationships with the new Secretary and his staff to push for increased funding and policy advancements for our federal nutrition programs.

Lobbying From Your Living Room

The new remote format makes it easier for advocates who were previously unable to participate in the vital activity of meeting directly with our elected leaders because of the challenge of paying for travel to D.C.  Our Policy & Advocacy team arranged meetings with our Members of Congress and fellow community-based organizations from our district to share the local impact of Federal policies and request their support for policies and funding to alleviate hunger across their district.

Our priorities include continuing to strengthen the social safety net through extending SNAP and school meal flexibilities, fortifying the donated food pipeline that keeps food bank shelves stocked, and making long-term investments in child nutrition.  We will continue to fight for these vital resources to keep our communities nourished, during COVID and long after.

 

Biden Administration Takes First Step to Improve Immigrant Food Access

February 16, 2021

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden took necessary action to undo some of the harm inflicted on immigrant communities by the Trump Administration.  The White House released an Executive Order directing government agencies to review the changes to public charge regulations, which have driven millions of immigrants to forego vital health and nutrition services for their families out of fear.

We applaud the Biden administration’s commitment to promoting policies of immigrant inclusion along with other important investments in the nutrition safety net.

“Chilling Effect” Prevents Families from Seeking Vital Health and Nutrition Support

We witnessed the impact of the Trump Administration’s discriminatory policy changes firsthand, as dozens of parents and individuals flooded our CalFresh Outreach lines to cancel their food benefits out of fear of being deported. Approximately 10.4 million people in California, including 3.1 million children, live in families with at least one noncitizen in the household. Many of these families have chosen to avoid food and health assistance of any kind, fearing that their children will be forced to pay back the benefits or that they would be deported.

Though the majority of immigrants are not subject to the public charge rule, its “chilling effect” has had widespread impacts in our state.  Research shows that about 6.8 million people in California could have been deterred from public programs because of immigration-related consequences.  Even before the pandemic, people who were undocumented were more likely to experience food insecurity, and children of newly arrived immigrants were at increased risk of poor health outcomes due to lack of access to nutritional food

Food Bank Stands with Immigrant Communities

The Food Bank has taken a strong stance in opposition to the harmful public charge rule changes since they were first released.  We stand by the statement our former Executive Director, Paul Ash, made in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle: “We become stronger, more compassionate, and more productive communities when our neighbors are able to access the services they need to thrive without fear.”

More Work is Needed

This is an exciting first step in repairing the damage done by this and other policy attacks on immigrants, but it will not immediately reverse the harm done to immigrant families nor eliminate their distrust of our nutrition and health safety net.

Our Policy & Advocacy and Programs teams will continue the vital work, both in the halls of government and out in our communities, of healing the harm of these policies.  If you’re interested in learning more about policy solutions to include immigrants and their families here in California, sign up for Action Alerts from our partners at Nourish California: Food4All Immigrants Campaign

Vote to End Hunger

September 23, 2020

Who We Elect Matters

We have seen COVID-19 and its economic fallout thrust millions of more families into poverty and hunger. In San Francisco County, for instance, nearly 19% of households struggled to get enough to eat in April and May, up from 5.7% in December 2018, according to the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. here at the Food Bank we have seen nearly twice as many households turn to us for support compared to before the pandemic.

The crisis has only highlighted how vital food assistance programs are for the 40% of Americans who already lack enough savings to cover a $400 emergency expense. Amidst the chaos, uncertainty, and unprecedented crises this year has dealt us, it has rarely been clearer that our elected leaders hold tremendous power in shaping our daily lives.

Federally, our Members of Congress reacted quickly to the crisis by passing landmark COVID relief legislation providing much-needed stimulus money, unemployment benefits, and healthcare support for Americans impacted by the coronavirus.  Our state lawmakers pushed for historic budget investments to support food banks and the tens of thousands of newly food insecure Californians through investments in CalFresh, child nutrition programs, and emergency food boxes.

The policies and programs our elected officials support or oppose have urgent, lasting impact on the ability of our neighbors to feed themselves and their families.

Cast Your Vote to End Hunger

Your vote this election cycle can help decide the future of life-saving programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (CalFresh, formerly food stamps), can affect how many kids get access to school meals, and can ensure that putting policies in place to end hunger is a priority for lawmakers.  Join us on National Voter Registration Day, Sept. 22nd, to double-check your voter registration status.

Vote to end hunger. Then, ask a friend or a family member to do the same.

Beyond the Ballot Box

Whether it’s signing onto an email campaign, tweeting at your Senator, showing up to a virtual Town Hall meeting held by your Supervisor, or simply filling out the Census, your engagement in civic life has an impact, and your voice matters.

We believe it will take the combined will of both the public and our elected officials to elevate hunger as a key issue in this election cycle. We’re counting on you to not only make sure you’re registered to vote, but to cast your ballot for candidates who hold our shared values of ending hunger.

State Budget Prioritizes Food Amid Historic Cuts

July 15, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare some of the hardest truths about our communities, our state, and our country. It has shown us where the greatest inequities across our society lie, how quickly trust in many of our institutions can be eroded, and how politics can be used as a wedge to drive our nation’s residents apart.  It has also, however, revealed to us the incredible resilience and compassion of our communities and the leaders they elect. From showing up to volunteer by the thousands to opening hearts and wallets, to sending letters and signing petitions, we have been awed by seeing our neighbors show up for one another.

Nowhere has this support for the most vulnerable Californians been more evident than in the recently passed State Budget. Despite historic reductions in state revenues, Governor Newsom and the Legislature passed a budget that avoids deep cuts to critical safety net programs and even makes several improvements to programs that impact the lives of many in our communities.

Below are five of the most important investments that CA is making in our low-income communities:

  1. Emergency Food: The budget includes $8 million for food banks to purchase goods from California farmers and producers (CalFood), and $50 million for Emergency Food Boxes, unprecedented investments in the emergency food system. These investments will bring much-needed resources to food banks statewide as we continue to respond to the ongoing economic crisis.
  2. CalFresh: The budget includes administrative program changes for which we have advocated for years: using Medi-Cal data to identify eligible CalFresh households and provide pre-populated CalFresh application forms, reduces barriers to access by introducing more client-friendly options, creates a process to simplify required reports to help people keep their benefits, authorizes additional modern means of communication with CalFresh recipients, and seeks potential relief from overissuances. The budget also limits counties’ CalFresh administrative costs in an effort to prevent counties from cutting staff when more Californians rely on human services programs than ever.
  3. Child nutrition funding: Includes $112.2 million for operators of the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Seamless Summer Option, and Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) serving meals during school closures.
  4. Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP): Maintains current funding for SSI/SSP grants for older adults and people with disabilities, and rejects the Governor’s May Revision proposal that would have cut the 2021 cost of living adjustment and increased hardship for some of our more vulnerable neighbors.
  5. California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC): Expands the Earned Income Tax Credit to Californians and small business owners with children under the age of six that file their taxes using Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITNINs). We know that this program has a tremendous impact on reducing childhood poverty and hunger.

While we celebrate these budget wins, we also know that the need is still staggering. We will continue to work with our state and national partners to advocate for increases to CalFresh benefits to help keep our communities fed during this crisis.

Long-Term Change to End Senior Hunger

May 28, 2020

Food In Crisis, and Every Day

We’ve all seen the images of cars lined up for miles, waiting to get groceries.  We’ve witnessed thousands of our neighbors, standing six feet apart, waiting in lines snaking around city blocks in our neighborhoods to pick up food for their families.  We’ve read with disbelief the unemployment numbers, growing by millions with every passing week. We’ve rushed to aid our senior neighbors and relatives, sheltering in place and unable to access resources safely.  We know that we are in a moment of historic highs for hunger in our community.

But here at the Food Bank, we have known that hunger has been a crisis for thousands of our fellow San Francisco and Marin residents long before the COVID-19 pandemic.  That’s why we not only provide free weekly groceries to people experiencing an acute need for food in the moment, but also have invested in long-term policy advocacy to combat hunger at the systemic level.

CalFresh is a Proven Solution

As a proven positive public health intervention and powerful economic stabilizer, CalFresh has a critical dual role to play in California’s immediate and long-term COVID-19 response. Yet, only 19 percent of eligible older Californians (age 60 or over) receive CalFresh, the lowest participation rate of any state.  Here in California, the average monthly benefit for a senior is $158, making it especially worth their while to apply. Yet seniors represent the population with the greatest gap between their eligibility for SNAP and their enrollment in the program, due in large part to the administrative hurdles of applying for the program as a senior.

Legislation for Change

We’re working to change that and make it easier for eligible older Californians to get the benefits to which they’re entitled.  We’re co-sponsoring a bill in the CA State Senate (SB 882 – Wiener) that would simplify the CalFresh application for many older adults and people with disabilities, while also making permanent several key changes to increase access to CalFresh during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The current application is 18 pages long!  When is the last time you had to fill out an 18-page application for anything?

SB 882 would eliminate burdensome, ongoing reporting requirements that cause many households to lose nutrition assistance, even when they remain eligible. SB 882 would also ensure that all applicants and participants can complete the application and recertification interview processes by phone, including submitting the required client signature. This is crucial for older adults with limited mobility and access to reliable transportation.

As the COVID-19 crisis continues to make clear, meeting the nutritional needs of low-income households is an urgent and ongoing need. No one should go hungry in California, and it is our collective responsibility to use all the tools we have to make it easier to access our most powerful anti-hunger tool, CalFresh.

Ensuring Immigrant Food Access During COVID

May 20, 2020

All Are Welcome Here

Here at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, we believe that access to food is not a privilege granted based on the country of your birth, but your right as a human being. Our food pantry programs are open to all, regardless of citizenship status. During the COVID-19 crisis, our immigrant neighbors face increased hunger and financial hardship because of their exclusion from unemployment insurance benefits and Federal stimulus payments. We are working to help them gain access to the food they need to get through this difficult time. 

California Takes Action to Support Immigrant Neighbors

To help support undocumented Californians excluded from federal stimulus funds, Governor Newsom has created the Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants Project. The project will distribute $75 million in state funding to 12 organizations throughout California. Families can apply to receive up to $500 per adult. The Governor shared, “We feel a deep sense of gratitude for people who are in fear of deportations but are still addressing the essential needs of tens of millions of Californians. In the healthcare sector, in the agriculture and food sector, in the manufacturing and logistics sector, and the construction sector. This is a state that steps up always to support those in need, regardless of status.” Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis starting on May 18, 2020. 

Local Leaders Step Up

We celebrate Supervisors Shamann Walton and Hilary Ronen for proposing the Emergency Family Relief Fund to provide financial assistance for immigrant families during the crisis. As Sup. Ronen said, “We believe that our immigrant communities in San Francisco are as deserving as the rest of us for help during this crisis. We will step in strong and loud as a local City and County where our federal leaders have failed to help our immigrant population.”   

The City of San Francisco has also set up an immigrant resources page on its website, where immigrants can find the help they need during the crisis. 

Food For All

We are all in this together. That means we are all harmed when immigrants are excluded from life-saving programs or when they fear going to the doctor or accessing vital nutrition benefits because of the Administration’s changes to public charge policies.  One of the most powerful lessons we are learning from this crisis is that our own wellbeing is bound up in the wellbeing of our neighbors.  We are committed to ending hunger in San Francisco and Marin and providing food for all who need it in our communities. 

Feeding Our Kids During the Pandemic

May 13, 2020

Hunger Intensifies for Families With Kids Out of School

Before the pandemic, over 40,000 families in San Francisco and Marin had children who received free or reduced-price meals each day at school. This helped ease the financial burden on hard-working low-income families and ensured that kids were getting the nutrition they needed to thrive in and out of school. 

Since schools closed, these families have been scrambling to find resources to feed their kids when work has become scarce and support networks have been strained. We see so many of these parents picking up groceries at our Pop-up pantries while they wait for unemployment insurance or CalFresh benefits to arrive. 

New research explores how dramatically the economic collapse has deepened food insecurity, with nearly one in five children not getting enough to eat. That rate is three times higher than in 2008, at the height of the Great Recession. Our pantry programs help, but we need a stronger social safety net to help families in crisis. 

Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) Can Help

Thanks to fierce advocacy from anti-hunger groups including the Food Bank, families whose children typically receive free school lunch will now be able to receive up to $365 per child on a debit card to purchase food through a new program called Pandemic EBT (P-EBT).  Enacted in March in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, P-EBT was created to help compensate for those missing school meals.  Families whose children receive CalFresh, Medi-Cal, or are in foster care will automatically receive this card in the mail between May 8 and May 22.  For those who don’t automatically qualify, a short application will be available on May 22. 

Families will be able to use this money to purchase groceries at most grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and at select online retailers. Receiving P-EBT does not jeopardize a person’s immigration status and is not included in public charge determinations. Families are also still encouraged to pick up free to-go meals from school meal sites in their neighborhoods. 

 More Action is Needed to End Hunger

This will be a tremendous help for many struggling to put food on the table, but it is insufficient to fill the staggering need among families in our community. As the saying goes, “it takes a village to raise a child,” and it will take all of us to urge lawmakers to prioritize policy solutions to feed our children, too. 

Please, call your lawmakers (202-224-3121) and urge them to include new investments in SNAP that will help the economy rebound from the impact of the pandemic and ensure the well-being of millions of children. Ask them to: 

  • boost the SNAP maximum benefit by 15%; 
  • increase the minimum monthly SNAP benefit from $16 to $30; 
  • suspend any administrative actions that eliminate or weaken SNAP benefits. 

 

Food Insecurity Town Hall

April 29, 2020

Last night, we were proud to participate in a digital Town Hall Meeting on food insecurity during the COVID–19 crisis, hosted by San Francisco Senator Scott Wiener. Over 2,200 people watched on Facebook and Zoom as our Executive Director, Paul Ash, joined leaders from fellow Bay Area non-profits working to ensure no one in our community goes hungry during this difficult time. 

Food Providers Adapting To Meet the Growing Need 

Senator Wiener was joined by the leaders of Meals on Wheels SF, St. Anthony’s, Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley, and the CA Association of Food Banks. Each organization is reporting exponential growth in the number of people in need of food assistance since the crisis hit. In the face of significant challenges — including operating with only 60% of their workforce and fewer volunteers, having to rethink how to prepare thousands of meals while keeping cooks 6 feet apart, and compensating for closed pantries — the organizations are continuing to step up to feed more of our neighbors facing hunger. As Executive Director Jose Ramirez of St. Anthony’s shared, “We’re really leaning on each other and learning what it means to be a community.” 

“We should not go back to the ‘old normal'” 

The Town Hall also focused on the ways that COVID-19 has helped advocates advance policy recommendations that improve food access. The crisis has actually allowed us to secure improvements to the CalFresh program for which advocates have been fighting for many years. These include the expansion of online purchasing using CalFresh benefits, allowing for the application process to be done entirely over the phone, and waiving the interview requirement. 

The Food Bank is co-sponsoring a bill in the State Senate, authored by Senator Wiener, that aims to make some of these program flexibilities permanent.  SB 882 – CalFresh: Simpler for Seniors – would make it easier for eligible low-income Californians to sign up and stay connected to CalFresh, particularly older adults and people with disabilities, many of whom have been hit hardest by the COVID crisis. 

We are In This Together 

As our colleague Jose from St. Anthony’s shared last night, “This is an opportunity to reflect on our priorities as a city, as a community, and as a country. We have to address food insecurity as the crisis that it is. It’s about human connection and compassion – putting people first, leading with compassion, and letting the rest fall into place.” 

You can catch the townhall here.

Feeding Kids During COVID19

April 21, 2020

Schools May Be Closed, but Hunger Persists 

Last year, 9,000 kids in Marin and 30,300 kids in San Francisco received free or reduced-price meals every day at school.  When their schools shuttered last month to combat the spread of COVID–19, families were left wondering how they would be able to feed their children while they were at home. 

Child Nutrition Advocates Push for Policies to Feed Our Kids 

In response, we advocated for policymakers at all levels of government to act quickly to ensure that children would not suffer from hunger during this public health crisis.    

Here are three of the advocacy wins that are helping children continue to access the food they need to grow and thrive, even during these challenging times: 

  1. Children of all ages can access grab-and-go school meals during COVID-related school closures.  The Families First Coronavirus Response Act allowed the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) flexibility in cutting through some of the administrative red tape that typically governs child nutrition programs. Now, schools and other participating sites can provide grab-and-go meals and home-delivered meals to eligible children while their schools are closed. In San Francisco, the Food Bank is also working with the Unified School District to locating our Pop-Up Pantries at school sites that serve free to-go school meals. The “CA Meals for Kids” mobile app is available to help families find participating sites. Read more about our emergency pop-ups here.  
  2. Low-income families will receive money to buy food through Pandemic EBT. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act also established a new program called Pandemic EBT, which will offer a quick and easy way to get food to school-age students by providing funds on a credit-like card for children who are eligible to receive free and reduced-price school lunch. The California Department of Social Services is working with the California Department of Education to efficiently deliver benefits to all families who qualify without anyone having to submit an application. 
  3. Women, Infant, and Children’s (WIC) Program gets a boost. WIC is a federal nutrition program helping pregnant people, new mothers, and their children access vital nutrition in their formative years.  The Families First Act provides $500 million in additional WIC funds to ensure that the program can serve more people as the economic downturn worsens, and also loosens regulatory requirements during the pandemic.  California was granted flexibility in reducing the administrative and regulatory burdens typically placed on WIC recipients, including temporarily halting in-person meeting requirements and blood tests, as well as expanding the foods that families can buy with their WIC card.