S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show how seniors are coping with the uncertainty around Snap benefits. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. So last night , eight Senate Democrats broke rank to reach a deal to reopen the government. But they did so without an agreement on Affordable Care Act subsidies , which is really what this entire shutdown was all about. And that was that has actually created a rift within the Democratic Party. California Governor Gavin Newsom had sharp criticism and a post on X last night where he wrote , quote , tonight's Senate vote on the federal government shutdown should have been a time for strength. Instead , we saw capitulation Elation and a betrayal of working Americans. The American people need more from their leaders. End quote. So if the shutdown ends , though , air traffic controllers and other federal workers will be paid , including that back pay , and those federal workers who were fired will be rehired. Also , Snap benefits will return , among many other things. As of now , though , Snap recipients in San Diego County saw their benefits loaded onto their EBT cards Friday. But even that's not guaranteed as court battles still wage over funding for the program. In all of this , seniors in particular have been hit hard by all the uncertainty around Snap. According to the National Council on Aging , Snap is the largest hunger safety net program for older adults in the in the country experiencing food insecurity. And of the 400,000 people in San Diego who get Snap , nearly one fourth are seniors. My next two guests are here to talk about the impact on seniors in our community and how they're working to fill in the gaps. Deborah Martin is the executive director and CEO of the nonprofit Elder Help , and Brent Wakefield is the president and CEO of Meals on Wheels , which delivers food to homebound seniors and veterans. Deb , Brent , welcome to you both.
S2: Thank you. Good to be here. Thank you. Jade. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. So glad to have you both here in studio. You know , there's been a lot of back and forth over snap in the past few weeks. The shutdown is one step closer to ending , but there are still these battles over funding to the program.
S3: I mean , even right before we walked into the studio , we were checking our phones for any updates. Obviously , the last several months has been filled with uncertainty and unpredictability. So even if people are receiving their benefits , they don't know how long that's going to last. And so the fear and insecurity of that is creating a lot of upset and a lot of concern. So we are fortunate to be in a partnership with Meals on Wheels and to be able to respond and pay attention to what's happening so we can be responsive to our community. Right.
S1: Right.
S2: Many of our clients were concerned. Am I not going to be able to get my food , my meals delivered to me ? And in fact , I was checking on Friday to see and we saw that the first group of seniors did get benefits loaded onto their EBT cards , their Snap benefits. And then I checked in this morning to make sure they hadn't taken those because they were giving that mandate. Right. You need to take the money back just to be sure that funds those funds were still there and they were still there. And luckily , also the second group of people who received those benefits between the eighth and the 10th had received those benefits. So we're noting that those benefits are there. But for us , we're doing 2200 home delivered clients a day across the county. And when you're a homebound senior , I think one of the things that that people need to realize is not only are you reliant on a nonprofit to bring you that food. But if those funds go away , you can't really get in your car and go somewhere else. Try to do what you can. Get another job , right ? These are seniors. They're homebound , and so their alternatives are already what we're providing them. There aren't any other alternatives for them. And I think that , you know , to remember that. So we have 133 clients that are each day paying with their EBT cards to get those meals. And we are committed to continuing to give those meals , even if those funds are taken away. And our board has agreed to that as well. And our partnerships with people like organizations like Elder Help , who provide these other more than a meal wraparound services are critical in a moment of increased insecurity , both nutrition and security. And then where am I going to have my needs met ? Hmm.
S1:
S3: I rely on mostly on social , which doesn't begin to cover their average basic daily needs and rent , medical , etc. and we are just in the last week getting a lot of calls with people who saw their Snap benefits go away. We do a lot of grocery shopping for our clients with them and also for them. Several of them are called to cancel their appointments because they no longer have had money to buy groceries. And we also have a food pantry that we pulled together in Covid , which we've continued on because it helps fill gaps and the types of clients who want their own food to prepare their own meals. So we did emergency deliveries to several of those clients through our pantry to replace the grocery shopping that they weren't able to get. So we're still just getting. We also have pantries into over 55 low income buildings that we provide resident services to. Those pantries have been phenomenal in responding to the late surge and the emergency needs of residents in both of those buildings , as well.
S1: You know , both of your organizations have been fielding a lot of questions from seniors and their caregivers about Snap. Deb , you mentioned getting an increase in calls. In fact , food related calls for 2 to 2 one one actually went up 170% last week.
S3: There's just a fear , you know , there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of misinformation or it's changing so quickly. It's very difficult for them to stay up on it. I think one of the things that Meals on Wheels and Elder Help do best is just providing calm and confidence during this time. They know they have reliable resources and references. With the two of us in our organizations , we're going to be there to help maintain the continuity of what's happening in their lives , to allay their concerns about their food and all of their services social , Medi-Cal , Medicare , you name it. And all we can do is handle the huge volume of calls that we get every year and reassure them that we will be here in some way for them.
S1:
S2: You know , it's clients and it's volunteers. You can imagine our volunteers do this because they really care about our mission , and they're passionate about the clients that we're serving. And 70% of our volunteers are seniors themselves. So we have 3000 volunteers in San Diego County. And each day , 150 of them are delivering meals to homebound seniors. And so both the volunteers and the clients have been anxious about this and what it means now. We reassure them , like we've said , we've been here doing this every day for 65 years in San Diego's community. In fact , we share our 65 year anniversary with KPBS , by the way. Yeah. There you go. And we're going to be here for 65 more. And it's because of these volunteers. They save us over $4 million a year. And so what we're doing right now is we're reaching out to them. We're showing them through our actions. We're letting them know that if supplements go away , we will still be there. We will continue to fundraise , etc. , to meet their daily needs. And we do this from the beaches to Borrego , from the border , all the way up to Camp Pendleton And every day. And so it's just reassuring right now. I think that's really important to do for these people. And then they see the partnerships and how we grow. Actually , for our clients that have Snap , if they don't have Snap and they qualify , feeding San Diego is a partnership that we refer them to. So we send them to Feeding San Diego and they onboard them to the Snap program. So these types of programs are really critical right now. These partnerships as we grow because not only do we have to meet the need of today , we're actually in a phase of growing at a time when funding is being cut or stripped in certain areas , we have to grow because the senior population is growing. So not only are we audacious in doing what we continue to do every day , even more so by actually having to grow and expand our services day by day.
S1: Deb , you had something.
S3: You want to know. I just went to great point on the partnerships. I mean , also feeding San Diego , but standing with food banks done an amazing job trying to deal with the cutbacks that they've had. They've actually increased food and gotten donations. So we're picking up a lot more food from them every Monday. Putting it into our pantry , distributing it to all of our clients. Um , we have partnerships in North County with senior gleaners. Brother Bruno's , also another great nonprofit up in North County providing food and support. And so everyone's trying to come together. And I think what we've seen especially , is the communities rallying to help these isolated seniors who rely on food security. We have our building up in Oceanside , and the residents in that building are giving money to our resident advisor to buy groceries for other people in their building who they know are suffering. One couple came home from the hospital. He just broken his arm and he had him under dollars and said , my next door neighbor is struggling with food. Don't tell her I gave you this money , but please try and get her some groceries when you can. So we're seeing the amazing community of people coming together. For some reason , food security really resonates with people. It's something tangible they can really hold on to.
S1: Yeah , well , Brent mentioned how funding for Meals on Wheels like federal funding is being threatened.
S3: Right now , I think we have a couple of foundation partners who have stepped up to provide extra funds to us to be responsive to our clientele , and we serve over 8000 seniors a year and their families and the range of services is all over the map , whether it's shared housing , whether it's in-home support , whether it's home safety , maintenance , transportation , family caregiver support. We have so many programs that extend even beyond the pantry and the food. We do have a couple of partnerships stepped up , but our clients are definitely feeling the pinch. And all this uncertainty only leads to additional uncertainty about future benefits , not to mention the subsidies that are coming our way.
S1: Right , Brent , is there anything that you want to add on how the loss of federal funding is impacting the organization ? Yes.
S2: I think a real tangible for us is that these foundations that we go to typically every year are for funding important grants. They've told me the grant officers , that they're seeing a 100 or 200% increase in applications since federal funding has been cut down. So what that means to us is that we are competing with more people for these resources. And , you know , seniors have spent a lifetime contributing to our communities and our economies , and providing them for them is not charity. I think what Deb and I want to say , helping seniors is not charity. It's justice. It's fairness , it's dignity. And I think our community knows that. I think when people hear that somebody grants a benefit onto a card and then says , I'm going to take that away now because it's not expedient for my negotiation processes right now. It's not a message that anybody wants to hear. And so we get kind of excited about this because we think that these clients have been here for us as a country , as a community , and it's time for us to be here for them.
S1: And you say that because that's where the current court case is , right ? Correct. Explain that a little bit. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So what's happening right now is we're waiting to see if we can get these benefits kind of installed permanently. We don't have to worry about them anymore. Right. They they said , you know , it went to a court , a federal court that said , okay , you know , you don't have the right put the put the money back on the EBT cards. They did that. And then literally so that was Friday. So we're celebrating Friday. Friday evening I open up my phone at 7 p.m. and I see that nope , you've got to take it back now. So are we actually going to rake back funds for somebody who who was already anxious about it and say , I'm sorry , we just kidding trick. We got to you know , we got to have these funds back. Now you're nutrition insecure again. You thought you had fixed this problem at least for the month. Well , not right now. I mean , what kind of game is that ? Honestly. And so I don't think this using seniors as pawns or anybody for that regard. With hunger is a game that our country wants to play right now , and I hope that they can take care of this as soon as possible. So this is something that we can just take off the table. It's really , um , it's really a stain for us right now.
S1: I mean , you know , Deb mentioned how food insecurity really resonates for people. So paint the picture for us. I mean , what is the landscape like for food insecurity in San Diego for seniors ? Yeah.
S2: So there are about 190,000 seniors in San Diego County alone that are at about 200% of the poverty , federal poverty level or less. So this is 900,000 seniors that are making less than $32,000 a year. So many of those are making less than $20,000 a year. And if you pay rent in San Diego , you know that easily 24,000 is going to your rent and you're a senior , and this is the moment in your life when you have the most absolute need because of medications , health concerns , transportation , etc. and you if you are lucky , if you're one of those 190,000 people , you're lucky if you have $6,000 a year left for all of your expenses food , medication , transportation and everything. This is 190,000 people in our community alone. So this is data that we get in partnership with San Diego Hunger Coalition. And this is this is what we're dealing with already. And we're growing. The senior population is growing. So this is what I'm talking about today 190,000. That number is only growing each day. So we have to get ready. We have to be prepared. And we have to stop playing games and using people in hunger as pawns in those games.
S1: I mean , Deb , what about you ? I mean , against the backdrop of all of this uncertainty , this back and forth with the Trump administration now sort of asking that these these funds be clawed back.
S3: I mean , we know we've seen and this isn't going to be PC , but , you know , our governments , we've built out automotive industries and home lending industries and , you know , oil industries. And why is food insecurity and benefits for seniors going to be the hill that we die on ? And I just can't fathom it. And just from just to say that you don't believe in food subsidies or Snap. Just look at it from a business standpoint. Those people who are unable to receive those benefits , they're going to enter into the health care system. We're going to have chronic disease. We're going to have an increase in homelessness. We're going to have an increase in all of these other things that are far more expensive than the cost of these benefits that we're trying to provide. Right now , we're in the preventive space. We're trying to be in the preventive space. These benefits are good for everyone and the communities they serve. It's not just for the people receiving them.
S2: And a shout out to Deb in a bragging point. Her organization , her clients who receive her services go into long term assisted care nine years later than the average U.S. citizen. So that's nine years of savings. So if you want to talk about tripping over a pound to pick up a penny , I'll pull away these subsidies and you'll see what happens. It is an investment , absolutely. In our communities and the well-being it's an economic it makes business sense as well.
S1:
S2:
S1: And Deb.
S3: We are elder Hope of San Diego and we have partnerships , Meals on Wheels and other help share space. We have partnerships with all the nonprofits in town to get services to our community.
S1: All right.
S2: Call. And I want to shout out to people to check in on the seniors around you. Could it be a relative , a neighbor , and make sure that they have what they need and have an honest conversation. If not , and you can refer them to us. 211 is also a great information source. There are community information source , so they have all of our numbers and contacts as well.
S1: All right , Deb , I'll let you have the last word.
S3: Well , I just say if we don't have it , we'll find it. And I think we are all working together. We want to make sure we provide a valuable , usable resource to anybody who calls in and just give us a call. We'll figure it out. That's what we're here for. And we're just full of gratitude for not only our partnership with Meals on Wheels and all the nonprofits in town trying to trying to hold the ground while we deal with this constantly moving landscape.
S1: All right. Well , great advice and great conversation here. I've been speaking with Deborah Martin , executive director and CEO of the nonprofit Elder Help , and Brent Wakefield , president and CEO of Meals on Wheels , will also be including a list of those resources mentioned at KPBS. Deb , Brent , thank you so very much.
S2: Thank you.
S3: Thank you. Trade.
