Once again, President Trump has introduced a federal budget calling for massive cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other vital supports for low-income Californians.

The budget proposal would slash SNAP funding by $213 billion over the next decade, threatening food assistance to over 306,000 residents in Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties — particularly children, seniors and individuals with disabilities.

If SNAP is cut by 30 percent, as the president proposes, organizations like the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano won’t have the capacity to backfill the massive increase in need it would create. As hard as organizations like ours work to feed all our neighbors in need, we could never match the reach and efficiency of SNAP in our communities.

Bay Area food banks distribute over 150 million pounds of food each year, but nonprofits like ours represent only 1 in 20 emergency assistance meals provided in America. The other 19 come from government nutrition programs, including SNAP. While community-based nutrition assistance is desperately needed, it represents a supplement to, not a substitute for, the public safety net.

In addition to slashing funding across the board, this budget threatens the responsiveness, flexibility and effectiveness of the SNAP program by proposing to alter how nutrition assistance is delivered.

SNAP benefits currently are deposited onto an inconspicuous Electronic Benefits Transfer card that recipients can use to purchase foods that meet their dietary needs and cultural preferences. The president’s budget proposes replacing about half of most SNAP recipients’ EBT benefits with a delivered box of non-perishable foods that the government would select for them.

Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, compared this proposal to the high-end meal delivery service Blue Apron. However, unlike Blue Apron, the president’s proposal would not include fresh produce, dairy or meat, and these food boxes would not actually be delivered to peoples’ homes.

Furthermore, the average price of Blue Apron is about $10 per serving and it includes all the ingredients you need to make a nutritious meal. The average SNAP benefit per meal is just $1.40 and boxes would include items like pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruits, which would need to be heavily supplemented.

Despite the low benefit levels of SNAP, they generate $1.70 in economic activity for every $1 spent, taking advantage of federal funding to support local businesses. Last year, SNAP provided nearly $413 million in federally funded benefits to low-income residents in Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo, generating $679 million in total economic activity and supporting 5,000 jobs in the region.

In addition to supporting grocery stores and community markets, many SNAP recipients spend their benefits at local farmers’ markets to receive a 50 percent discount on California-grown produce. The president’s budget does not propose funding such nutrition incentives and entirely eliminates SNAP-Ed, which funds nutrition education for low-income Americans.

The president is also calling for massive cuts to other programs like CalWORKs welfare-to-work, disability payments and MediCal, which would threaten the health and economic well-being of our community. This would force more families to face impossible tradeoffs between paying for food and skyrocketing housing costs.

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Opinion: Megaprojects are hard. Let’s get BART extension right One-third of SNAP recipients in America also rely on food banks to make it through the end of the month because nutrition benefits are simply too low. The monthly minimum benefit actually decreased last year from $16 to just $15. For this reason Bay Area food banks have been calling on Congress to increase SNAP benefits in the 2018 Farm Bill to ensure that the program offers adequate support to those who need it.

We urge every member of the California congressional delegation to work to strengthen anti-hunger programs while opposing any cuts to SNAP.

Carly Finkle is advocacy manager for Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.