In the summer of 2019, the ‘cash-out’ policy that bans SSI recipients from receiving CalFresh (food stamps) will end. For the first time in over four decades, people will be able to receive CalFresh benefits and SSI benefits at the same time. This presents a tremendous opportunity to increase food security for very low-income seniors and people with disabilities throughout the state. Successfully implementing this policy change this summer will require a collaborative effort to educate and enroll SSI recipients in CalFresh, and to ensure that any implementation issues are resolved quickly and effectively. The legal services community will need to understand the details of the change, in order to be effective advocates for their clients once the change goes into effect.
The policy change includes a commitment by the state to offset the loss of CalFresh benefits for households where adding in the SSI recipient will lead to a partial or total loss of the household's CalFresh. These households will be eligible to receive a state-funded nutrition benefit, either the Supplemental Nutrition Benefit (partial loss) or the Transitional Nutrition Benefit (total loss), to help offset the loss. The session will include a panel on the collaborative, cross-sector advocacy that led to the policy change and the subsequent collaborative effort to implement the change, and details on the changes and the two new state-funded nutrition programs.
