Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho on Thursday warned that more than a quarter million local students could lose access to critical food aid, and said the school district will expand its free meal offerings to help fill the gap.
Speaking at a press conference alongside school board members and community partners, Carvalho called the looming halt to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits “a food insecurity crisis purely manufactured by the federal government” that will affect 271,000 LAUSD students.
“Political fights should never result in meals being removed from the table of our children,” he said. He noted that LAUSD will continue to provide free breakfast, lunch and supper to all children 18 and under.
“In our school system, we already offer free breakfast, lunch and supper to any kid, no questions asked,” Carvalho said. “We are ramping up our efforts and ensuring that across most of our schools, supper will be available to be picked up, as it has been the case in the past for any child up to the age of 18.”
Carvalho said the district has set up a new resource hub — lausd.org/foodhelp — which lists school and community-based food distribution sites. He added that LAUSD will be offering shelf-stable food this week and cooked meals next week at its sites.
“I want to be clear also that these federal decisions, particularly the shutdown, is not impacting, nor will it impact, the provision of the breakfast, lunch and supper that we’re providing,” he said. “We do not anticipate any type of impact, specific to our nutrition program in our community.”
The superintendent also addressed recent immigration enforcement activity near schools, including a federal raid near Santee Education Complex, a high school where a firearm was discharged. One federal agent was struck by a bullet fired by another agent just yards from the campus, he said.
Carvalho said he has twice — most recently in a letter sent Thursday — urged the Departments of Homeland Security and Education to establish exclusion zones around schools, barring immigration enforcement within two blocks during the hour before and after the school day begins and ends.
“Every one of our children and families walks the same sidewalk of hope and opportunity to schools,” Carvalho said. “And I find it unacceptable that during that journey, children as young as four-year-olds would witness adults jumping out of vehicles with vests, helmets and long rifles.”
Meanwhile, California Attorney General Rob Bonta visited a Los Angeles food bank Thursday and assisted with preparing food for distribution to families who are about to lose their federal benefits.
“The irreparable harm to families, food banks, our state, California businesses and our economy is immense, and it is imminent,” Bonta said of the pending lapse in federal benefits.
Bonta and Gov. Gavin Newsom this week announced a lawsuit seeking to force the federal government to dip into a $6 billion reserve fund to pay out November benefits.
Newsom previously deployed the California National Guard to the state’s food banks to assist with the anticipated spike in demand for meal distribution. The state also fast-tracked $80 million in state funds to help alleviate the crisis.
L.A. Care Health Plan, billed as the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan, announced Tuesday it was providing $5.4 million to help provide food for impacted families. Of that amount, $5 million will go to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, and Food Forward. The funding is expected to support 10,000 to 15,000 households in the county each week in November, according to the Health Plan.
The additional $400,000 will go toward advancing food security efforts and bolstering food distribution efforts in the county.
L.A. County officials have allocated $10 million to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank to expand its purchasing capacity, and to set up pop-up and drive-through distribution sites, in addition to the existing network of 940 pantries across the county.
The county Departments of Public Social Services and Children and Family Services also contributed $2 million each to support food programs.
Democrats and Republicans blame each other for the government shutdown, with Democrats refusing to vote on a budget bill without an extension of subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to keep health care premiums down. But Republicans refuse to budge on the matter, saying the health care issue can be debated later since the health care subsidies are in place until the end of the year.