This is not a normal moment. On June 1, new federal CalFresh/SNAP work requirements took effect and with them, the dismantling of food security for tens of thousands of neighbors. Approximately 51,000 Contra Costa residents are now subject to these rules. Those who can’t meet them face a limit: just three months of food assistance over any three-year period.
That is not a safety net. It’s a trap door. And the consequences extend beyond food: these same eligibility changes could strip MediCal coverage from as many as 93,000 Contra Costa residents by 2029.
This is happening against a national backdrop that should alarm us. Nearly 48 million Americans — one in seven households — were already living with food insecurity in 2024. That was before the deepest cuts to SNAP in the program’s history.
WPE was built for this. Not as a stopgap but as a scalable, systemic response to a problem government programs alone have never fully solved. Last year, we delivered over 4.1 million fresh meals to 135,000 vulnerable individuals across Contra Costa County. We grow when the need grows.
But we’re especially worried about the neighbors who will fall through quietly — the seniors who won’t know they’ve lost benefits until the month their groceries don’t stretch. The parents who skip their own meals before they let their children go hungry. The unhoused navigating a bureaucracy that was never designed to see them. We see them. We will be there.
The need will grow. The only question is whether the resources to meet it will too. If you’re able to support this work, now is the time.