A strange scene unfolded last week at the Adams/Vermont Farmers Market near USC.
Pomegranates, pumpkins and apples were in season, pink guavas were so ripe you could smell their intoxicating aroma from a distance, and nutrient-packed yams were ready for the holidays.
But with federal funding in limbo for the 1.5 million people in Los Angeles County who rely on food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the parking lot of the church that housed the market was largely devoid of customers.
Although the market accepts payments through CalFresh, the state's SNAP program, almost no one was in line when the doors opened. Most of the vendors were alone at their produce stands.
A line of cars stretches more than a mile as people wait to receive a box of free food provided by the Los Angeles Food Bank at City of Industry on Wednesday.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
As thousands of people across Southern California lined up at food banks to collect free food and the fight over the delivery of federal allocations sowed uncertainty, fewer and fewer people receiving aid seemed to spend money at open-air markets like this one.
“So far we are doing 50% of what we would normally do, or less,” said Michael Bach, who works with Hunger Action, a food relief nonprofit that partners with farmers markets throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area and offers “Market Match” deals to customers paying with CalFresh debit cards.
The deal allows shoppers to purchase up to $30 worth of fruit products for just $15. Flipping through a ledger on her table, Bach's colleague Estrellita Echor noticed that only a handful of buyers had taken advantage of the offer.
All week at farmers markets where workers were stationed, the absence was equally evident, he said. “I was in Pomona on Saturday; we only had six transactions all day,” he said. “Zero in La Mirada”.
CalFresh customers looking to double their shopping dollars largely disappeared from the downtown Los Angeles market the next day, Echor said.
A volunteer carries a box of free food for a family at a food distribution site in City of Industry.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
“This program usually attracts a lot of people, but they either hold on to what little they have left or they just don't have anything on their cards,” he said.
The halt in aid comes as a result of the Trump administration's decision to deliver only partial SNAP payments to states during the current federal government shutdown, circumventing a court order to restart funding by November. On Friday night, Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson temporarily blocked the order pending a ruling on the matter by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
But by then, CalFresh had already begun charging 100% of November allocations to users' debit cards. Even with that respite for food aid recipients in California, lack of access to food is a persistent problem in Los Angeles, said Kayla de la Haye, director of the Institute for Food System Equity at USC.
A study published by his team last year found that 25% of Los Angeles County residents (about 832,000 people) experienced food insecurity, and that among low-income residents, the rate was even higher: 41%. Researchers also found that 29% of county residents experienced nutritional insecurity, meaning they lacked options to obtain healthy, nutritious foods.
Those numbers marked a slight improvement compared to data from 2023, when the end of pandemic-era boosts to state, county and nonprofit aid programs, combined with rising inflation, caused hunger rates to rise just as they did at the start of the pandemic in 2020, de la Haye said.
“That was a big wake-up call: in 2020, 1 in 3 people were food insecure,” de la Haye said. “We had huge lines at the food pantries.”
But while the USC study shows that immediate delivery of food assistance through government programs and nonprofit organizations can quickly reduce rates of food insecurity in an emergency, researchers found that many vulnerable Angelenos do not participate in food assistance programs.
Even though the county made great strides in enrolling more eligible families over the past decade, de la Haye said, only 29% of food insecure households in Los Angeles County were enrolled in CalFresh, and only 9% in WICthe federal nutrition program for women, infants and children.
De la Haye said participants in her focus groups shared a mix of reasons why they didn't sign up: Many didn't know they qualified, while others said they felt too embarrassed to ask for help, felt intimidated by the paperwork involved or were afraid to reveal their immigration status. Some said they didn't apply because they earned a little more than the eligibility cutoff amounts.
Even many of those who received help struggled: 39% of CalFresh recipients were found to lack an affordable source of food and 45% faced nutritional insecurity.
De la Haye said hunger and problems accessing healthy foods have serious short- and long-term health effects, contributing to higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity, as well as higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression in adults and children. What's more, he said, when people feel insecure about their finances, highly perishable items, such as fresh, healthy foods, are often the first things to sacrifice because they can be more expensive.
The USC study also revealed stark racial disparities: 31% of Black residents and 32% of Latino residents experienced food insecurity, compared to 11% of white residents and 14% of Asian residents.
De la Haye said his team is analyzing data from this year that they will publish in December. That analysis will look at the investments Los Angeles County has made in the food system over the past two years, including allocating $20 million in federal funds to 80 community organizations working on everything from urban agriculture to food pantries, and the recent creation of the county's Office of Food Systems to address challenges to food availability and increase consumption of healthy foods.
“These things that disrupt people's ability to get food, including and especially cuts to this key program that is so essential to 1.5 million people in the county, we don't weather those storms very well,” de la Haye said. “People are just living on the edge of the cliff.”
