New federal rules and CalFresh funding cuts may leave Cal Poly students without food assistance

This is a cross-published piece with Mustang News, more information can be found here.

Cal Poly’s CalFresh Healthy Living program, which focused on nutrition education, shut down on Oct. 1 after its funding was terminated. The news is just one of the changes that CalFresh leaders are adjusting to due to the Trump administration’s new reconciliation bill.

CalFresh is a part of California’s Department of Social Services and distributes nutritional benefits to low-income Californians through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

As of May, about 6,300 Cal Poly students were actively enrolled in CalFresh.

CalFresh operates both CalFresh Healthy Living, which offers nutrition education to students using food assistance, and CalFresh Outreach, which helps eligible students sign up for food assistance. Olivia Watts is the manager for both CalFresh Outreach and CalFresh Healthy Living, and she takes issue with these new rules.

“The rule predates this reconciliation bill and historically tightens SNAP access,” Watts said. “It’s another barrier for people who need and deserve CalFresh.”

The bill has faced harsh backlash from Democratic lawmakers like California Senator Alex Padilla, whose office wrote in an email that the reconciliation bill “disproportionately benefits the wealthy at the expense of working families.”

The recent reconciliation bill implements the Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWD) restrictions. 

The new rules mandate that students enrolled in at least six units, or half-time students, no longer qualify for food assistance, and those enrolled anywhere between six and 11 units, part-time students, must complete 20 hours of work a week. If ABAWD requirements are not met, SNAP benefits for recipients will be limited to three months every 36 months.

Exemptions to ABAWD still exist, such as:

• Residing in a CalFresh household with a member under 14​
• Pregnancy​
• Physically or mentally unfit for work​
• “Individuals who are Indians, Urban Indians, California Indians, or Indians eligible for Indian Health Services”

Nearly 96% of Cal Poly’s student body were full-time as of 2024. However, it still leaves over 1,000 Cal Poly students and 7,500 Cuesta College students as of 2023 faced with additional obligations if they want to join CalFresh. Those are the students Watts is concerned for.

“I’m super concerned for part-time students who are attending community college because we know that demographic is largely part-time… the demographic has a much higher proportion of students with dependents,” Watts said. “That doesn’t mean that they are any less deserving or in any less need of resources like CalFresh.”

CalFresh’s funding will also change in terms of who will shoulder the cost. Currently, for every dollar the federal government provides for CalFresh, California must provide $2. By 2027, that ratio will jump, obligating California to give $5 for every $1 that the federal government provides. 

Watts wrote in an email that CalFresh is “working diligently to secure Cal Poly Match Partners in preparation for this change.” These are Cal Poly employees who dedicate a certain portion of their time to addressing food insecurity on campus. Offices with match partners include the Office of the Dean of Students, Student Diversity and Belonging, and Campus Health and Wellbeing. By doing so, these employees help CalFresh Outreach earn “match grants,” which award funding in proportion to a partner’s salary.

Watts defended CalFresh as a crucial resource and believes the reconciliation bill will harm students who rely on it. In videos taken by Watts’s team, chemistry senior Gabriel Ribeiro and environmental earth and soil science junior MC Reali both answered that if their CalFresh benefits were taken, their lives would become harder.

“I would have more financial stress and would likely have to work more,” said Ribeiro. 

READ MORE: Cal Poly’s CalFresh Healthy Living Program loses funding due to federal cut

“I probably wouldn’t eat enough or as healthily and therefore wouldn’t be as happy or motivated,” said Reali.

Also adjusting to SNAP changes across San Luis Obispo is the SLO Food Bank, which already serves approximately 45,000 people each month. The reconciliation bill does not impact funding for the food bank, but a representative for the food bank, Savannah Coleman, said past SNAP reductions have increased food insecurity in San Luis Obispo, leading to more people seeking their assistance.

“If SNAP benefits are reduced, thousands of people in our area will lose a substantial part of their grocery budget and turn to the food bank and our hunger relief network to fill the gap,” Coleman wrote in an email. “When pandemic-era increases to SNAP ended, our food bank saw a 27% increase in the number of people we served throughout SLO County.”

The SLO Food Bank already provides food and groceries for Cal Poly students via the Cal Poly Food Pantry. At both Cuesta College and Cal Poly, Coleman estimates that nearly 3,500 students are served via their Neighborhood Food Distribution program.

Coleman reassured that the food bank is prepared for an increase in people. She affirmed in her email that they are “strengthening our partnerships with local organizations and agencies to stretch our resources as far as possible.”

Makena Locsin produced the audio and video content for this story.