Senior hunger is a very real challenge in San Diego County where 1 in 10 older adults experience food insecurity. Food insecurity means that a person doesn’t always have enough to eat to lead an active and healthy life. But, what does that mean for older adults who have additional challenges to face?

Senior citizens who are food insecure:
Represent 50% of older adults who are hospitalized.
Are 40% more likely to have congestive heart failure.
Have twice the risk of suffering depression.

The reasons for this are varied and include the necessity of making tough choices between food and medicine or housing.

We recognize the need for an intervention to support our older residents and have partnered with AARP Foundation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, and the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Angency to provide CalFresh-in-a-Day workshops to senior citizens.

These workshops are a San Diego Hunger Coalition innovation that has proven results and phenomenally high levels of success. People who attend these workshops can apply for CalFresh, submit documents, interview, and find out whether they are eligible all in less than one hour! This is a process that can take weeks or, sometimes, months. Additionally, workshop applicants see a higher rate of CalFresh approval than those who apply through more traditional methods.

In other words, our CalFresh-in-a-Day workshops are better at getting people the food assistance they need when they need it.

One of the reasons these workshops are so successful is that they are conducted in partnership with local nonprofits that are familiar and trusted by the people we’re seeking to enroll. For our El Cajon workshops, we’ve had the pleasure of partnering with Home Start, Borrego Health, and San Ysidro Health (Chaldean Middle-Eastern Social Services).

AARP Foundation shares the Hunger Coalition’s belief in CalFresh/SNAP as our best and most successful hunger relief program. They provided SDHC with a $60,000 grant and the might of the AARP Foundation brand to reach as many senior citizens as possible. Through this partnership, and with the aid of the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency, over two years we will reach an additional 700 seniors, providing them with up to an additional 760,000 meals every year through CalFresh!

We can do more.

With your help, we’d like to double the number of older adults that we enroll in CalFresh. It doesn’t seem like 700 people is a lot, but consider Murray’s story, and think about how much of a difference we can make in the lives of the elders who have been the backbone of San Diego for so many years.