Millions of Californians will meet at the dinner table this week for Thanksgiving. For about 7 percent of San Francisco’s residents, CalFresh will help buy their meal.
Food is a basic need that more than 100,000 of our city’s residents struggle to afford. CalFresh helps by providing money for food purchases on a debit card. At less than two dollars per meal, the benefits are extremely modest, but they go a long way in helping avoid hunger.
This holiday season, about 19,000 San Francisco residents are newly enrolled in CalFresh. A decades-old rule was eliminated this summer. This rule had prevented recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) from participating in CalFresh. Once removed, the San Francisco’s Human Services Agency and its scores of eligibility workers, in collaboration with numerous community partners, worked hard to support low-income older adults in applying for benefits. For many, their new eligibility couldn’t come soon enough. For this, we can be thankful.
Hunger among older adults is a growing problem in San Francisco. Almost a third of older adults cannot afford to make ends meet, lacking sufficient income to pay for the basic needs of housing, health care, and food. Lack of money for food, and nutritious food in particular, can contribute to poorer health and higher health care costs. In fact, one of these authors recently showed that food insecurity is associated with more than $204 million in excess health care costs annually in San Francisco alone. Meanwhile, research suggests people enrolled in CalFresh spend about $1400 less in health care costs annually compared to similar people not enrolled.