What Trump's bill means for people going hungry in San Diego

S1: Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. On today's show , how the new federal Spending Act will impact food insecurity in San Diego. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. Last Friday , President Trump signed his tax and spending bill into law. One of the programs facing cuts is the Food Benefits Program , also known as Snap or called Cal Fresh here in San Diego. Yesterday , I spoke with San Diego County Supervisor Tara Lawson Riemer about the bill , and here's a bit of what she had to say.

S2: I'm worried about kids who aren't going to be able to eat because their food benefits , their Snap benefits , are going to be disappearing. So there's a real attack underway on working in middle class San Diegans , and we're doing everything we can in San Diego to figure out how to buffer for the storm.

S1: So what does this mean for San Diegans facing food insecurity ? Bob Kaminski is the CEO of Feeding San Diego , which provides hunger relief programs across the county. Bob , welcome to Midday Edition.

S3: Well thank you. I'm happy to be here.

S1: Glad to have you in studio here.

S3: It was disappointing that there were certain provisions in the bill that are now going to put people who are already at risk , particularly for food insecurity , at greater risk.

S1: So it puts people who are already at risk , uh , in a higher risk category.

S3: We are part of Feeding America , which is a national non-for-profit comprised of about 200 food banks. And the efforts by Feeding America in quantifying the potential impacts show that with the reductions that have been placed into the bill , that there will be a need to backfill nationwide between 4 and 5 billion. That's with a B meals per year through private efforts versus through the Snap or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helps families and individuals In need of hunger relief , access to food. So when you take it from the national scale and bring it down to local , we have more unique circumstances here in San Diego County. Being a border city , border state with a large population of immigrants who may not previously have qualified or accessed hunger relief aspects of Cal Fresh. Now , in addition to those people who are using private sources , you're going to have people who fall off of the Cal Fresh rolls or have their benefits reduced , that they're going to need to reach out to that same social network represented by nonprofits , which is going to place an even greater strain and demand on our capabilities and capacity.

S1: Paint the picture for me.

S3: People have what is called food insecurity , which is not knowing day to day whether they're going to have three square meals to be able to feed themselves or their families. And of that , more than 100,000 of those are children. Now , Cal Fresh reaches over 400,000 people in the county of San Diego. Now , if you look at who is eligible , there are close to 580,000 people just based on economics , who fall into the category where they could reach out , register for , and more than likely be given privileges to be part of Cal Fresh. So if you're only covering 400,000 , you have 180,000 difference , and now you're going to reduce benefits to the 400,000. Where are they going to go ? Right.

S1: Well , you know , there are a lot of misconceptions , I think , about who relies on food assistance. And those misconceptions have been intentionally created and then used to to politicize a really a basic human need , which is food. Tell me about that. And who in San Diego is most impacted by hunger ? Okay.

S3: Well , first , please let me clarify that I'm not speaking from a political perspective when it comes to what Feeding San Diego does. We feed people in need. We don't ask questions. We do not look for pre qualifications. We currently are not part of any federal assistance programs at Feeding San Diego. All of our food is coming by way of rescue donation. Greater than 90%. And then we have about 10% that we purchase using private funds in order to supplement our agency network. 501 C threes who are the front face to feeding for feeding San Diego to the communities. We see elderly. We see children. We see veterans and families , military , active duty military families. And we see across the spectrum of unemployed through people in professional ranks who , because of the cost of living in San Diego County , are unable to make ends meet without taking away from their food budget in order to cover some of those basic costs that you can't pay part of your rent , you can't pay part of your , uh , your cost for your vehicle. You cover all of it , or it's taken away from you. So where do they economize food ? Now , it may be that they have full tummies , but it is less than optimum nutritional content because it's more easily affordable. And we are really pushed , pushing our side to provide fresh produce. More than 50% of the food we move is fresh produce , because of the nutritional content and the high demand for that type of quality food by people who are seeking hunger relief.

S1: Well , you know , cuts from this new tax and spending Act aren't the first cuts to food programs in our region. How are other cuts to both federal and local grant programs affecting your partnerships ? And when I ask this question , I'm thinking directly about the law. Okay.

S3: Okay. Well , the law was the local food purchasing agreement. And this was a program implemented in the last administration as a supplement to commodities , food purchasing and the Emergency Food Assistance Program , whereby federal monies were channeled through the state. The state distributed them to a particular , in our case , California , the California Association of Food Banks , who then administered the transition or the transfer of funds to farmers specified by the food banks who are part of AFB , to purchase food from the local farmers. The intent was twofold. One is to provide a stable supply demand on a small group of farmers who are what we call micro farmers. And these are small acreage in the local community. So for us at Feeding San Diego , we had two organizations , one of whom I'll use as example Food Shed , who represents 24 farms. They aggregate across the 24 farms. We pay food shed or should say CFB pays food shed. And we receive the food from those 24 farmers through food shed. And then we put it into distribution to people in need. The impact with LPR is that the program was targeted for complete dismissal , effective the 1st of July 2026. So we will be concluding our play in that particular program by the end of January of 26 , when the funding that we had allocated toward our use will have been expended.

S1:

S3: A lot of them have been in the red since they started because being small , local farms , they have to compete against large farms who have more depth than capacity. The intent is really to provide them like a business start up , small business association , and in this case it's small farms. And this is not unusual by federal programs to help Bootstrap startup organizations who are trying to break through that initial startup effort , where it takes a certain amount of energy to get through it , and we find that the food we receive from those small farmers is absolutely precious , because it's less than two days since harvest , and we are distributing it within the third , or in some cases the fourth day after. It just has been taken from the field. And it's beautiful , fresh produce to get out and very high in nutritional content. Have you had shiitake mushrooms before given to you by a food bank ? Well , we were delivering that as just one of numerous examples of small level production that was able to be put into 10 to £15 box kits of 8 to 10 ten varieties of produce that now can be delivered , along with recipes to help people appreciate the preparation and , um , the enjoyment of eating some of those very fresh produce items.

S1:

S3:

S1: You know , I mean , with a smaller safety net now , it seems like it's really on communities to take care of the people in them. While hunger is is a big problem that continues to grow.

S3: The first thing is we rely as well as many of our agency partners on private philanthropy. Whether it's an individual who has signed up for a $5 a month donate to whichever organization. In our case , we would say Feeding San Diego , so that it helps provide a steady stream of funding for us to do the work that we're doing and to purchase some of these products , because that program , I'll circle back to it. We have a private donor who has already committed a large six figure sum to help us backfill the payment of those farmers to keep those farmers employed. So that's going to be initiated in February of 2026. Those funds are going to be activated for us to continue that relationship. That ability coming from private donors to help sustain that local agriculture is one way of doing it. A second way is for people to volunteer time. Last year we employed , and I say that loosely. More than 14,000 uniquely named volunteers who came in to help feeding San Diego. We can't do the work we do without the volunteer force. It would completely overwhelm us. My staff is only 82 people. Big. They can't move tens of thousands of pounds per day into gleaning , packaging and prepping it to ship. Volunteers do that. When it comes to distributing it in the field. When you have a mobile pantry or a produce pantry at a remote location somewhere in the county of San Diego , who puts it out there , we deliver it. But volunteers are the ones who do the last point of delivery to the people who are facing food insecurity. We need hands. The third one is advocacy. We cannot let up on pressure with all of our elected officials. Whether it's at the city level. Up through the national level. About there are needs in the community. That need to be addressed. If hunger is not addressed. People will turn to alternative methods to take care of themselves. And there are direct correlations between poor nutrition , poor education , poor outcomes for children and families. Poor nutrition. Find another source. Crime can go up. Health concerns with people. Because of poor nutrition or lack of nutrition. So all of these different causes and effects play together. And where we can mitigate those. It's in our best interest for the community. In addition to the individuals who are impacted by the food insecurity.

S1: I've been speaking with Bob Kaminski , CEO of Feeding San Diego. Bob , thank you so very much.

S3: You're welcome. And thank you for giving me a voice.

S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.