If you or someone you know is in need of food assistance, visit Long Beach Fresh’s online food map, Care Culture Collaborative’s directory organized by days of the week or ÓRALE’s directory organized by zip code and specifically verified for the safety of immigrants and their families. Long Beach Forward also has a list of food banks, hot meals and pantries throughout the city.
On the morning of Nov. 5, volunteers move quickly in the crammed and noisy warehouse basement of Long Beach’s Christian Outreach in Action (COA).
Some are lugging boxes onto a conveyor belt stocked with food items from local grocery stores, restaurants and organizations. Others are unpacking those boxes, placing canned items, fresh produce, dairy, meats and snacks onto a table.
A few feet away, seniors clutch empty grocery bags and wait in a long line leading up the stairs to pick out their items, as volunteers scramble to make the tables neatly stocked and organized.
It’s Senior Wednesday, and the pantry is preparing to meet the growing need of older residents relying on COA for their next meal — more than usual, said executive director Dixie Dohrmann — since the government announced they would be discontinuing, then reducing, SNAP benefits.
“We always need help, and we’re just trying to meet the needs … No one will ever go hungry with us, ever,” Dohrmann said.
Over 5 million Californians are stuck in limbo regarding critical food assistance due to the ongoing government shutdown, which is now the longest in United States history.
The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), known as CalFresh in California, is a federally funded program that helps low-income residents buy groceries. It’s become one of the biggest issues for families across the country, first with new work requirements pushing millions out of the program, then the possibility of benefits being paused altogether.
“Over the next few years we’re going to see a significant spike in food insecurity.”
Diana Lara, Executive Director of Food Finders
Over 40 million Americans have been waiting to see how they will afford groceries this month and beyond.
In late October, recipients discovered they wouldn’t be getting this critical support the following month. After two federal judges ruled that it was illegal to stop funding the country’s largest anti-hunger program, it was announced the program will be partially funded in November. Then Friday morning, some Californians began reporting full benefits in their account after a Rhode Island judge told the administration they had to find the money to fully fund SNAP this month.
However, uncertainty remains for December and the following months, with local food pantries bracing for the worst.
“We’re foodies, we’ve prepared for this,” Dohrmann said. “We’re still here. We’ve never left … We’re still providing these services and more so today than ever before.”
This cutoff doesn’t just hurt low-income residents, who make up at least 30% of Long Beach residents, and more specifically 32.8% of children under 5 and14% of seniors. According to the Food Research and Action Center, every dollar spent of SNAP benefits generates $1.79 in economic activity.
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The over 40 million Americans on SNAP also support 388,000 jobs and are a huge source of economic activity at grocery stores. Californians alone typically receive $1 billion in SNAP funds every month. Governor Gavin Newsom joined 23 other states in a lawsuit to keep SNAP going during the shutdown.
In Long Beach, where 93,000 people have lost their regular source of grocery assistance, food pantries, food banks, nonprofits and even urban farms have begun bracing the impacts.
“It’s heartbreaking because we continue to impact the same people,” said Diana Lara, executive director of Food Finders. The nonprofit is one of Long Beach’s largest and longest-running food pantries, having served the community since 1989.
In 2023, roughly 4.5 million residents received free groceries from Food Finders, most of them being seniors, Lara said.
Food Finders has been hosting monthly grocery distributions for the past three years. As their name suggests, the nonprofit finds food throughout the city through various methods, from grocery stores, restaurants, cafes and urban farms.
Thanks to a $30,000 boost from Supervisor Janice Hahn and another donation from Feeding America, Food Finders was able to ramp up to weekly distributions every Saturday through Dec. 20 at Admiral Kidd Park in Long Beach (2125 Santa Fe Ave.). After that, they don’t know if they’ll have enough food to continue weekly distributions.
It’s just the latest in a tumultuous past few years for Food Finders, which had to increase distributions during the pandemic. Most recently, the need for grocery deliveries have increased due to the ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, now in their fifth month.
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And the worst is yet to come, Lara said. While analysts are still trying to figure out the impacts of President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, food advocates are preparing for an emergency.
Also passed on Nov. 1 was new requirements on who can benefit from SNAP. The “Big Beautiful Bill” expanded the age range for able-bodied adults subject to time limits from 18-54 to 18-64, meaning people up to 64 years old will have to work at least 80 hours a month to receive their benefits. Individuals who don’t meet these requirements can have their benefits taken after three months.
Trump’s bill also removed these work requirement exemptions from veterans, homeless individuals, and youth aging out of foster care, and narrowed the caregiver exemption to those with children under 14.
“We’re going to see the biggest impact next year,” Lara said, especially for seniors, who are also facing cuts to Medicaid. “I think eventually it’s going to surpass COVID, because we never got back to pre-COVID food insecurity rates, it just continued to grow. … Over the next few years we’re going to see a significant spike in food insecurity.”
In their first weekly distribution, Diana said nearly 500 people lined up for groceries, despite it being announced on short notice. They expect even more people at their next distribution on Nov. 8.
Dohrmann described a similar spike at Christian Outreach in Action, with more families than ever attending their daily breakfast and hot meals, on top of the 300-400 people a day coming to the pantry.
On the ground level, or perhaps soil level, Long Beach’s Farm Lot 59 is doing everything they can to increase production. The farm provides a batch of fresh produce to Food Finders every week, which then goes to Long Beach residents through their food distributions.
She and her staff — some of whom are also facing the loss of their CalFresh benefits — have spent the last week shifting plant schedules and increasing production to meet the community’s needs.
But it’s a slow process, said Sasha Kanno, executive director of Farm Lot 59.
“We planted seeds today and we’ll be cutting lettuce in about 45 days, but that’s about as fast as I can go,” Kanno said. “ … It’s adding another layer of stress to a very tumultuous and stressful situation we’re all already dealing with.”
If you or someone you know is in need of food assistance, visit Long Beach Fresh’s online food map, Care Culture Collaborative’s directory organized by days of the week or ÓRALE’s directory organized by zip code and specifically verified for the safety of immigrants and their families. Long Beach Forward also has a list of food banks, hot meals and pantries throughout the city.
What You Can Do:
- Find your nearest food pantry: ÓRALE has a directory of food pantries organized by zip code, all of which have confirmed they do not inquire about immigration status. The City of Long Beach has a list of pantries and places providing hot meals throughout the day on its website. Even if you don’t need food assistance right now, it’s good to know where your nearest is located for when you do need help.
- Contact your representatives: Let your councilmember know if you’re struggling to afford groceries. The more the city is aware of its residents’ needs, the more they’re likely to step in with support. To find your councilperson, use the City’s online map.
- Donate and volunteer: Check our list of nonprofits, pantries, food banks and local businesses that are looking for donations and/or volunteers to help the community stay fed.
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