Take Action: Help Restore the Brown Bag Program for Seniors

Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties and other food banks throughout California receive state funds for the Brown Bag Program for seniors.

During the recent State budget process Governor Schwarzenegger's made the bold move of doing a line-item veto of the Brown Bag Program. Basically, he removed the program from the State budget!

In fiscal year 2008/09, our Brown Bag Program provided groceries to over 10,800 senior households. This amounted to over 10,400,800 pounds of food for the elderly. Many of these low-income seniors are struggling, and the Brown Bag Program provides their primary source of food. They are being forced to choose between spending their money on rent, utilities, prescription medications, or food. For them, purchasing enough food to survive is a daily challenge. The Brown Bag Program provides a critical service to ensure that people have the basic necessity of life: nutrition.

The Impact
Brown Bag recipients are primarily women receiving SSI/SSP who, through a string of budget deals, have just seen their stipends cut. Additionally, the Brown Bag Program provides critical funding to food banks. Approximately $20,000 per provider may not seem like much to make a program operate and grow, but it is critical to smaller food banks.

Return on Investment
The Brown Bag Program makes efficient use of state funds. Every dollar invested by the state provides to seniors approximately $40 in food and services from the local community. The program is currently funded at $541,000, which means the program leverages over $21 million in food and services for seniors, all of which will be lost if the Governor's veto stands.

Take a few easy steps to help restore the Brown Bag Program:

• Download, fill out and fax this flyer (pdf) to all the Assembly members and Senators in your service area, as well as the Assembly and Senate leadership. Fax numbers for all legislators and the leadership are listed on the second page of the flyer.


• Spread the word. Email the flyer to your coworkers, friends, and other people who will want to take action.


• Update and fax this sample letter from your organization to legislative leaders asking them to restore the Brown Bag Program.

Photo: One of Second Harvest's long-time Mountain View Brown Bag volunteers

Why Finger-Imaging is Bad News for Food Stamps

Bad news from Sacramento: Governor Schwarzenegger wants to not only keep the finger-imaging requirement for food stamp applicants, but expand finger-imaging to those receiving In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS).

We at Second Harvest Food Bank are deeply concerned because many of the people we serve are also participants or are eligible for these crucial safety net programs.

Second Harvest supports initiatives that would increase participation in state and federal supplemental food programs. This will relieve strain on our resources, allowing us to concentrate on those in our community who do not qualify for those programs but still meet our income guidelines (approximately 200% of the Federal Poverty Line).

WHY THIS MATTERS:
IHSS provides in-home support to elderly, blind, and disabled Californians. This helps prevent them from having to be institutionalized, which is a far more costly alternative to the state than providing services for them in their own homes. Were finger-imaging implemented for this program, participation would assuredly drop, and many more of California’s most vulnerable population would end up in nursing homes.

It has been proven that finger-imaging is a major deterrent to participation in the programs it has been applied to, namely the Food Stamp Program. This program is the main federal nutrition program and it provides credit to low-income families and individuals to be redeemed for food at participating grocery stores.

Finger-imaging makes applicants feel like criminals. Ashamed and embarrassed, many don’t sign up for food stamps, even if they need them and qualify for them.

Furthermore, getting a fingerprint done requires another trip out to government agency offices, which for many of these families means missing work. The money and time lost, and the childcare arrangements during that trip can deter those in need from seeking assistance.

What is more, finger-imaging has not been cost-effective. It is meant to deter multiple-aid fraud, but its cost far outweighs the negligible amount of benefits stolen through fraud. In this economic climate, the governor wants to expand an ineffective system that costs the state more than $8 million a year!

Click on the following links for more information on the governor’s proposal and learn how Food Stamps BOOST our economy in the following articles:

Fingerprinting rule will deter those needing help
Editorial, The San Jose Mercury News

Fairy Tales, Fraud, and Food Stamps (PDF)
California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA.net):
Read this lighthearted one-pager on the Governor's serious finger printing expansion efforts. Call the Governor (916.445.2841) and urge him to accept the Legislature’s plan to save millions to by ending finger imaging for food stamps and to abandon his efforts to fingerprint blind, elderly, and disabled Californians receiving IHSS.

Boost in Food-Stamp Funding Percolates Through Economy
The Wall Street Journal

The stimulus that actually IS working
The Dave Ross Show

State Budget Committee Votes to Preserve CalWORKs

Good News!

On June 11th, the Budget Conference Committee voted 6 to 1 to reject the Governor's proposal to eliminate CalWORKs. The committee's vote likely ends serious attempts to eliminate the program.

The committee had a long discussion about the other CalWORKs options put forth by the Administration and the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO). The committee seemed most interested in pursuing an LAO/CWDA proposal to exempt some families with small children from work requirements thus saving child care and transportation costs. The committee also seemed poised to support a proposal to expand subsidized employment opportunities for CalWORKs recipients using federal stimulus funds.

Taken from an article from the Western Center on Law and Poverty. View the entire article