San Diego County supervisors unanimously approved a budget Thursday that includes new spending intended to insulate the county from cuts to the federal food assistance program.
H.R. 1 — dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” by the Trump administration — carved $187 billion from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called CalFresh in California.
The legislation also created new work requirements for CalFresh recipients. Recipients must now work 20 hours per week if they’re between the ages of 18 and 64 and don’t qualify for an exemption (like having a disability or taking care of a child).
San Diego County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe said during a board meeting that the new criteria could leave more than 93,000 county CalFresh recipients without access.
“It’s a deliberate policy choice, and a harmful one,” she said. “Taking food away from struggling families doesn’t build stronger communities — it creates instability, hardship and a greater risk of homelessness.”
Nearly 370,000 county residents (including more than 113,000 children) use CalFresh, according to county data.
The freshly-approved $9.16 billion county budget creates 122 new Health and Human Services positions to verify the new work requirements. The spending plan also earmarks $15.8 million to backfill CalFresh administrative costs. Starting Oct. 1, H.R. 1 will shift 25% of those expenses from the feds to local governments.
“We had a choice to accept those cuts and let our neighbors go hungry, or fight back,” Supervisor Paloma Aguirre said Thursday.
The county is tapping one-time reserve funds to support the new spending, which Supervisor Jim Desmond opposed. He also said concern over new CalFresh work requirements is “politically-generated mania and hysteria.”
“If they’re able-bodied, they’re single, got no dependents are able to work — we’re only asking for 20 hours a week … to pay for the services that you’re receiving,” he said.
Still, local food security advocates said they’re already seeing some changes since the new CalFresh work requirements went into effect on June 1.
Allison Glader with Feeding San Diego said the organization is serving 40,000 additional households, with the work requirements most heavily impacting seniors and veterans who were previously exempt.
Meanwhile, the San Diego Food Bank plans to expand capacity to increase the number of people the nonprofit can serve. Director of Programs Amy Eilts said they also want to connect more clients with external resources and services.
“People don't understand that it's working families, it's seniors on fixed incomes,” she said. “You get this idea that it's a benefit that people are relying solely on, but it really is a supplement to help make sure that families can purchase healthy food. That they can purchase enough food, not only for their kids, but for the parents as well who sometimes go without.”
H.R. 1 also created new work requirements for Medi-Cal, which go into effect in January. The county says additional staffing needs tied to eligibility checks could be addressed through a mid-year budget update, if necessary.
