"During the last 10 days of every month, Julia pulls together whatever scant meals she can with produce from food banks and canned items until her food benefits renew. The 28-year-old, who didn't provide her last name for privacy reasons, receives about $600 a month in food stamps to feed herself and three children. She uses that money to stock up on meat, enough to last about three weeks, and goes to the food bank for fruits and vegetables weekly."
"The produce usually lasts a couple days before going bad, she said. Hunger - and planning for her family's next meals - are things that habitually consume her life. "Sometimes at the end of the month, we come down to the last couple days, and I'm like, 'Oh my God, six more days until we get food stamps. What am I gonna do?'" Julia told San José Spotlight. "It feels like crap, not knowing if (I'm) going to be able to feed them next week.""
Julia, a 28-year-old mother of three, receives about $600 per month in food stamps and relies on food bank produce and canned goods during the last 10 days of each month. She buys meat to last roughly three weeks and visits food banks weekly for fruits and vegetables, which often spoil after a couple of days. End-of-month scarcity and constant meal planning cause persistent stress. A 2023–24 examination across 55 ZIP codes in Santa Clara County found roughly 30% food insecurity in parts of East San Jose even after assistance, 23.5% downtown, 22.6% in Gilroy, and 11.7% in Los Altos. Accessing nonprofit food assistance can be difficult in some neighborhoods.
Read at San Jose Spotlight
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]