Supervisors back expanded meal and grocery grants as city braces for CalFresh cuts

The Budget & Finance Committee on Feb. 15 recommended that the full Board of Supervisors approve amendments increasing grant funding to several nonprofit nutrition providers to meet sharply rising food demand.

Tiffany Kearney, lead nutritionist at the Department of Disability and Aging Services, outlined changes that would add funds to Meals on Wheels, Project Open Hand and Self Help for the Elderly to deliver additional home-delivered and congregate meals for older adults. "Meals on Wheels serves clients in every district and provides at least two meals a day, seven days a week," Kearney said, and the modification includes a 21‑cent per‑meal increase and $253,000 in infrastructure funds for electric vans and a meal-label printer.

Cindy Lin, HSA citywide food-access manager, described a related amendment to extend and expand the San Francisco Marin Food Bank pop‑up grocery program. Lin said the modification would add about $4.94 million to raise the program's new not‑to‑exceed amount to roughly $11.23 million and extend the grant period through June 30, 2023. "From July 2022 through December 2022, over 435,000 bags of groceries have been distributed," Lin said, representing nearly 70,000 individuals served.

Budget and Legislative Analyst Nick Menard reviewed the fiscal impacts and recommended approval, while also noting a budgetary risk: providers have in some cases been delivering more meals than the city has contracted for. Menard told the committee that even with the proposed increases, deliveries under the grant amendments would be lower in the near term than 2022 service levels unless providers supplement with private fundraising.

Public testimony emphasized urgency. Jean Cooper, chief impact and strategy officer at the Glide Foundation, told supervisors that the end of the CalFresh emergency allotments would reduce benefit levels and worsen food insecurity for households in San Francisco. "We're facing a massive collapse in benefits and buying power," Cooper said, adding that the grants would help Glide continue its daily free meals program.

Sean Brooks, chief program officer at the San Francisco Marin Food Bank, said the pop‑up pantry program serves 18,000 households weekly and that the food bank currently supports 220 food pantries across San Francisco; of those, 20 pop‑up sites are funded at roughly 56 percent by the city.

Supervisors pressed HSA for more granular data correlating pop‑up pantry demographics and citywide demand, and HSA agreed to follow up with the food bank for additional datasets. After a brief amendment to clarify the retroactivity of Item 6, the committee voted unanimously to forward Items 4–8 to the full board with a positive recommendation.

The full board will receive the detailed grant budgets and BLA fiscal analysis as the items return for final approval.