Disaster CalFresh - California Association of Food Banks

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Disaster CalFresh (D-CalFresh), federally known as the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP), is a way to meet the temporary nutritional needs of disaster victims following a natural disaster.

Income eligibility guidelines and benefit amounts for D-CalFresh (October 1, 2020 – September 30, 2021)
For all state notices and updates about D-CalFresh, you can visit the CDSS page here.

Update (9/29/2020): Today the USDA approved California’s plan to provide D-CalFresh in 9 counties that were affected by the fires in August. The counties included are:

Lake, Monterey, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, Yolo (the application period will begin no earlier than October 14th through 22nd)
Butte (the application period will begin no earlier than October 21st through 29th)

Update (8/24/2020): On August 22, 2020, a Presidential Disaster Declaration was issued for California due to the whildfires, and it included Individual Assistance. However, Disaster-CalFresh is not yet in effect.

If you have been impacted by fires and lost food in your friedge/home (e.g. loss of power for 4+ hours, or had to evacuate), you can fill out the CF 303 form (English, Spanish, for other languages look up CF 303 here) within 10 days of the food loss to have your CalFresh benefits replaced.

D-CalFresh is only available when all of the following elements occur:

A Presidential Declaration for Individual Assistance has been declared in the affected area;
Commercial channels of food distribution have been disrupted and those commercial channels have been restored; and
The State of California has been approved to operate a D-CalFresh program.

Advocacy resources and materials:

Minimizing Hunger in a Disaster: Advocacy Timeline (February, 2018)
The Importance of Disaster SNAP: SNAP Responds When We Need It Most (February, 2018)

For additional information, visit the following websites:

USDA Food and Nutrition Service: Disaster SNAP
California Department of Social Services: Disaster CalFresh and their recently published CalFresh Emergency Response Handbook (October, 2018)
Food Research and Action Center: Advocate’s Guide to D-SNAP and D-SNAP Infographic

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