Existing federal law provides for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known in California as CalFresh, under which supplemental nutrition assistance benefits allocated to the state by the federal government are distributed to eligible individuals by each county. Existing federal law generally prohibits a resident of an institution from receiving supplemental nutrition assistance benefits.

Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services, if the department deems it necessary to maximize CalFresh enrollment outcomes or employment placement success rates for individuals reentering the community from the state prison or a county jail, to submit to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service a request to waive that prohibition to allow for preenrollment of applicants prior to their release.

Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions. Under existing law, subject to implementation of the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative, a qualifying inmate of a public institution is eligible to receive targeted Medi-Cal services for 90 days, or the number of days approved in the CalAIM Terms and Conditions, before the date they are released from the institution, if otherwise eligible for Medi-Cal services.

This bill would require the State Department of Social Services to establish a CalFresh workgroup by February 1, 2026, composed of members with specified backgrounds, to meet no less than quarterly. The bill would require the workgroup to create and submit a report to the department and to the Legislature by August 31, 2027, and by August 31 annually thereafter, through 2030, with its recommendations for a state reentry process incorporating the necessary resources for transition from state prison or county jail to obtaining CalFresh benefits upon reentry into the community.

The bill would require the department, by January 1, 2026, to seek a certain federal waiver to allow for preenrollment of applicants prior to their release from the state prison or county jail.

The bill would require the department to partner with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and county jails to allow for preenrollment of otherwise eligible applicants for the CalFresh program to ensure that an applicant’s benefits may begin as soon as possible upon reentry of the applicant into the community from the state prison or county jail. The bill would condition implementation of that partnership in a given county on notification to the State Department of Health Care Services that the corresponding county has implemented the Justice-Involved Initiative that is developed pursuant to the above-described CalAIM provisions. By creating new duties for county eligibility workers and county jail officials, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The bill would make the provisions above operative on the date that the department notifies the Legislature that the Statewide Automated Welfare System can perform the necessary automation to implement those provisions.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.