May is CalFresh Awareness Month

By Cassie Klapp County of San Diego

May is CalFresh Awareness Month in California and the County of San Diego, with our community partners, are celebrating.

Several community events are scheduled throughout the month of May to provide people with information about CalFresh and offer free, in-person eligibility and application help to determine if they are eligible. A full list of the free events is available online on the County’s CalFresh website at www.sandiegocounty.gov.

“CalFresh is a safety net for many of our neighbors and we see how it helps people every day,” said Rick Wanne, director of San Diego County Self Sufficiency Services. “We are seeing more families enroll as they navigate inflation and the housing crisis. We want to make sure everyone eligible signs up and receives this nutritious benefit.” seats in this auditorium should be full. They should be full. We need to be doing the work to get the word out grassroots style to get our reparations. It’s been time,” stated another long-time resident.

CalFresh is California’s federal food assistance program, C alifornia’s version of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It is designed to increase access to fresh and healthy food. The program also aligns with the County’s Live Well San Diego commitment to healthy, safe and thriving communities. Over the past decade enrollment to CalFresh has climbed 68% and as of April 2023 it was serving 375,928 San Diegans.

People can find out if they qualify for CalFresh anytime by calling call 2-1-1 or applying online at GetCalFresh.org or www.mybenefitscalwing.org.

One of the key questions that was posed was, “Who would qualify for reparations?” In March of 2022, the task force voted 5-4 on a lineage standard for persons eligible for reparations. Lineage-based is determined by an individual being an African American descendant of a chattel enslaved person or the descendant of a free Black person in the U.S. prior to the end of the 19th Century.

The individual will need to have been a resident of California by the signing of AB 3121 on September 30, 2020, by Governor Newsome. Other questions and comments were brought forth. It is important that if you have questions or concerns about the Reparations, you must send an email to the Reparations Task Force. We must stay informed and ask those pressing questions.

The California Reparations Task Force is the first task force to recommend reparations for Black people in the nation. CJEC has worked tandemly with the Task Force, ensuring they engage the public as much as possible.

The Interim Report in its entirety can be found on California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s webpage https://oag.ca.gov/ab3121.

The last two meetings, where attendance is encouraged both in-person and on the livestream, will take place May 6th (Lisser Hall; Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland) and June 30th (Sacramento; subject to change). The final Task Force report will be issued by July 1, 2023.

Yvette Porter Moore contributed to this article