The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has commited to pay CalFresh benefits in advance for October, 2023. This means benefits for October, 2023 will be committed to be paid in September, 2023. As a result, CalFresh benefits for October, 2023 will be issued on time, even if there is a federal government shutdown. (ACWDL, September 20, 2023.)
Summaries of select CalWORKs, CalFresh, Health and Housing Regulations
CalFresh / SNAP
CalFresh mass replacement for Northern California power outages
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved mass replacement of CalFresh benefits for area impacted by public outages in Northern California in August, 2023. Based on USDA’s approval, the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) will automatically replace 30 percent of CalFresh benefits for August, 2023 for zip codes: Calaveras: 95223 and 95247 Contra Costa: 94514 Del Norte: 95531, 95543, 95548, and 95567 Humboldt: 95556, 95558, and 95546 Kings: 93204 Lake: 95426 Mariposa: 95325 Nevada: 95975 Placer: 95715 Santa Cruz: 95006 Siskiyou: 95568 Trinity: 95527 and 95563 Tulare: 93633 Tuolumne: 95321 and 95372. CDSS will automatically replace 25 percent of CalFresh benefits for August, 2023 for zip codes: Colusa: 95979 Glenn: 95939 Humboldt: 95569 Shasta: 96065, 96084, and 96047 Tehama: 96029 and 96074.
The replacement benefits will be issued to all regular CalFresh households in those zip codes. Households that have already received replacement benefits based on a signed affidavit of loss will not receive the mass replacement benefits. Households can submit a signed affidavit of loss to request more than the amount of the mass replacement benefits. (USDA Letters, September 8, 2023 and September 15, 2023.)
Increase in CalWORKs Maximum Aid Payment
Effective October 1, 2023, the CalWORKs Maximum Aid Payment (MAP) will increase by 3.6%. In addition, the 10% MAP increase that was scheduled to end on September 30, 2023 will continue.
The 3.6% increase in the MAP may cause a decrease in CalFresh benefits. Counties must give written notice of any CalFresh grant decrease because of the MAP increase no later than September 20, 2023.
Counties must send a notice to all CalWORKs recipients informing of the MAP increase and the potential CalFresh decrease no later than September 1, 2023. Counties must also send individualized notices giving each assistance unit information specific to their CalWORKs grant amount.
CDSS has updated the child MAP charts to reflect the October 1, 2023 MAP increase. The child MAP is used to determine if child support received on behalf of a child is more than the CalWORKs grant amount for that child. If the child support received on behalf of a child is more than then CalWORKs grant amount for that child, the assistance unit has the option of having that child opt-out of the assistance unit. The county may add the child back into the grant mid-period if the child support received is no longer greater than the CalWORKs grant amount. If the child support received remains lower than the CalWORKs grant amount, the county must add the child to the CalWORKs grant at the next semi-annual review or annual recertification.
These changes must be programmed into the CalSAWS computer system no later than October 1, 2023. If they are not, CalSAWS must provide counties with a manual work-around to ensure that families receive the correct amount of benefits. (ACL 23-74, August 30, 2023.)
CalFresh waivers of 10-day requirement to report food loss
CalFresh recipients who lose food because of a power outage have 10 days to ask for replacement of the food they purchased. The Food and Nutrition Service has approved a waiver of the 10-day time frame to request food replacement for three counties because of various disasters. The deadline to request food replacement for households in Siskiyou County because of power outages due to wildfires is extended to September 14. The deadline to request food replacement for households in Del Norte County because of power outages due to wildfires is extended to September 18. The deadline to request food replacement for households in Riverside county because of power outages due to Hurricane Hillary is extended to September 19. (August 24, 2023 letter from FNS (Siskiyou), Letter from FNS (Del Norte), August 30 2023 letter from FNS (Riverside).)
Change to CalFresh treatment of Guaranteed Income
Effective immediately, Guarantee Income (GI) payments that have any amount of non-government funding and are exempt from being considered as income for CalWORKs are also not counted as income for CalFresh. This means that CalFresh GI exemptions are no longer limited to funds from individually approved CalWORKs demonstration projects.
Some programs have already been screened and approved by the California Department of Social Services to meet the requirements to be exempt for CalFresh purposes. Counties can rely on those approvals. To exempt future GI payments for CalFresh, counties will need to determine whether GI payments contain any non-governmental funds.
For resource determinations, this change will not impact households that have Modified Categorical Eligibility status because they do not have a resource limit for CalFresh. Households that do not have Modified Categorical Eligibility must meet a resource test, and they will be at risk of losing CalFresh if GI payments that they save put them over the resource limit at initial application, semi-annual reporting, or annual recertification. Households that do not have Modified Categorial Eligibility are households that contain sanctioned individuals, or elderly or disabled households with income over 200% of the Federal Poverty Level. (ACL 23-60, July 5, 2023.)
CalFresh Employment and Training Screening and Referral Requirement
Counties are responsible for screening and referral of CalFresh applicants and recipients to the CalFresh Employment and Training program as part of the certification process. California Department of Social Services criteria for referral includes all CalFresh applicants and recipients who are interested in services. Counties have flexibility to develop their own criteria for referral to CalFresh employment and training.
Counties can only administer employment and training programs to people who want to participate. Counties cannot disqualify voluntary participants for failure to follow program rules, Applicants and recipients cannot be sanctioned or negatively affected because of non-participation.
If an individual was not screened or referred to CalFresh employment and training during certification, the individual or the employment and training program can ask the county to complete a screening and referral. (ACL 23-34, March 28, 2023.)