Ventura County residents over age 60 are drawing food stamps in what appear to be record numbers, the figure rising by two-thirds in the past few years alone.
Officials say the growth in the program renamed CalFresh conflicts with the pattern they have seen in the past. Many low-income seniors rejected the nutritional program because they saw it as welfare or felt it was too small a benefit to make the paperwork worth it, human services managers said.
"It's still pretty difficult to get seniors to apply," said Margarita Cabral, CalFresh program analyst for the Ventura County Human Services Agency. "We have to tell them it's not welfare, you don't have to pay it back, we are not going to take your home."
Although CalFresh is public assistance, it is not the cash aid that many seniors associate with the word ''welfare," Cabral said.
On average, county households composed only of people over 60 draw an average monthly benefit of $136. But that masks the variation. A Social Security recipient living alone may qualify for just $16 a month while a single person with no income could get about $190.
At least two factors appear to have driven the increase from 2013 to 2017: financial need and an outreach program that FOOD Share, the county's regional food bank, operated. The program was canceled earlier this year amid state budget cuts.
Officials say there were no major changes in eligibility rules to explain the increase, but that the sign-up process became more user-friendly to allow applications by phone and online. Some believe the stigma associated with food stamps has also declined.
Seniors and their savings were hit hard by the economic downturn of the late 2000s, just as they were nearing the end of their careers, state and county officials said.
"They were laid off or entered retirement with much less," said Kim McCoy Wade, the director of the state CalFresh program.
Seniors in Ventura County also had more opportunity to learn about the CalFresh program and how to navigate the process in recent years, charity and public officials said.
"It is not easy to enroll on your own," said Susan Haverland, who oversaw the FOOD Share outreach program.
"We didn't just do outreach to inform people. We also helped them complete applications and we submitted applications to the county. Then we would follow up."
The director of the state CalFresh program suspects the stigma has lessened, so seniors are more willing to enroll. Under that theory, younger groups of seniors see the program in a better light than people who weathered the Great Depression and World War II.
"They see it as health and nutrition and basic needs," Wade said.
Katharine Raley, a manager at the Area Agency on Aging, says the form the benefits take has made them more acceptable.
Recipients use an electronic card to buy food, a change introduced around 2003 that has become the status quo in supermarkets. For years recipients paid with stamps marked "food coupon" in the grocery line that could easily be spotted by other customers.
"Nobody has to know," Raley said. "The card has helped 100 percent."
The CalFresh program is rooted in a pilot project started by former President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s to provide subsistence for poor families. His successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed a law that created food stamps as a full-fledged program. Food stamps were a key element of Johnson's "War on Poverty."
Some seniors are under the impression that the program is for children, Wade said. "We have worked really hard to say it's for everybody," she said.
Almost 6,200 people over age 60 in Ventura County were drawing the benefit in October, compared with about 3,700 for the same month in 2013. That's a 67 percent increase.
The growth is not unique to Ventura County. Every county in the state showed substantial increases over the past four years, the figure rising 80 percent in Los Angeles County and 100 percent in tiny Sierra County north of Lake Tahoe.
Statewide, the number of senior recipients doubled from 2010 to 2014, then almost doubled again to more than 343,000 last year, based on monthly averages.
About 20 percent of county recipients receive $19 or less per month, based on figures for households made up exclusively of people over age 60.
Another 6 percent draw $20 to $49. A total of 22 percent receive $50 to $149. In the highest category, 53 percent get $150 or more.
Raley said her staff tries to show seniors that even a small benefit can be worth the effort. In a year's time, $16 a month adds up to almost $200 for eggs, meat and fresh produce, she said.
They eat wherever they can, she said. Some have told her they resort to digging into garbage cans, Raley said.
"They're really worried," she said. "They're all proud."
If seniors do inquire about the program, they will find looser rules for them than younger households.
A single person over age 60 can qualify for CalFresh if net income does not exceed $1,005 a month after deductions that can be substantial. They need not meet the test for gross income that households under age 60 do.
Seniors may deduct from monthly income their full rent or mortgage payment, the cost of heating and cooling bills they pay, and certain medical bills.
Nor do most assets throw seniors off the caseload under rules in force for all ages. The government does not count the primary residence, a vehicle, retirement accounts and inactive bank accounts that are used to store away savings.
Although there is no limit to the amount of cash a recipient can hold in a bank account, the interest that accrues would count as income. Too much in the way of earnings would push the senior out of the program, county spokeswoman Jennie Pittman said.
Seniors drawing CalFresh vary from people surviving on Social Security to those who are destitute.
Nora Duran, a staffer at Community Action of Ventura County who worked in the FOOD Share program, saw both types.
Among those living on the edge were couples with no income who lived with relatives.
They would qualify for about $350 a month.
"That would have been a huge difference," Duran said.
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