San Jose food lines grow longer as more people seek help 12%
By Joyce Chu21%
7/31/2026, 8:30:42 AM
Keywords: Food Insecurity, Inflation, Calfresh, Work Requirements, Marthas Kitchen, Hunger At Home, San Jose
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Appeal to Emotion, and Negativity Bias, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 13.1% saturation with 131 hits. Analysis detected 884 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,002 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 23.9% and a BS Rank of 12% (22,549 of 25,467 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 88.50% of the article peer group.
Across San Jose, nonprofits running food distributions are seeing their lines explode.
Martha’s Kitchen, which provides hot meals and has a weekly food pantry, has seen its numbers nearly triple since June, serving between 150 to 300 people each week.
Hunger at Home, another nonprofit group fighting food insecurity, has seen a 30% increase of people seeking assistance since the start of the year, distributing produce to about 300 to 350 households, or 1,200 to 1,400 people each week.
A combination of inflation, changes in federal work requirements for people receiving food aid and economic headwinds — along with spreading word of local food pantries — has led to the increase.
“It’s gratifying that we can be here, but disheartening that we need to be here,” Hunger at Home CEO Ewell Sterner told San José Spotlight.
Hungry at Home recently celebrated serving 1 million pounds of food in the last year.
With the increase in food distribution, it’s also seen fresh faces showing up: working people and a rising number of older adults.
About 60% of people receiving food from the nonprofit are older adults.
To accommodate the influx of people, Hunger at Home created multiple drive-thru lines in June to shorten the time people are waiting to receive produce.
Hungry at Home has seen a 30% increase of people coming to its food distribution since the start of the year.
It serves 1,200 to 1,400 people each week.
Photo by Joyce Chu.
Phoebe, a San Jose resident who did not want to use her last name for privacy reasons, never thought she would be waiting in line for food.
Last November, federal cuts scaled back her food stamp benefits by $100, leaving her with $180 a month to feed a family of three.
Since she started coming to Hunger at Home this year, Phoebe said she can breathe easier and not worry about keeping her family fed.
“I knew that these (food distributions) exist, but I never had to go that low just to come and pick it up.
But now there’s no choice,” Phoebe told San José Spotlight.
“Now (I) have extra food left over and don’t have to worry.
It helps.”
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In June, work requirements for people receiving food stamps, known as CalFresh in California, expanded to include adults ages 18 to 64, raising it from the prior cap of 54.
Individuals previously exempt from work requirements, including homeless people, veterans and those aged out of foster care, are now required to work 80 hours a month.
Phoebe, 55, said she’s forced to choose between getting enough work to keep her food stamps or being denied benefits for making more money.
Finding consistent or part-time work has been a challenge.
“A lot of companies have been lowering people’s hours,” she said.
“Now the price of groceries went up by a lot.
When it rains, it pours.
At least help the lower class.”
In Santa Clara County, where more than 132,000 people relied on CalFresh last year, about 55,000 people are expected to lose their food benefits due to the expanded work requirement as a result of H.R.1, the federal spending bill passed last summer.
The bill slashed food stamp benefits by $187 billion, the largest cut in the program’s history.
Trish Garcia, operations manager at Martha’s Kitchen, said they’ve had to extend food distribution hours since the influx of new people seeking help in June.
The nonprofit is also seeing double to triple the amount of people standing in line than during the pandemic.
Partners who receive produce from Martha’s Kitchen have also seen increased demand .
While Martha’s Kitchen is working to get the word out about its food distributions, Garcia said the complicated process to recertify for benefits is another reason why the nonprofit is seeing longer lines.
She’s had personal experience helping her grandparents with their applications, and the process is more difficult than before.
“The questions that are on applications are confusing so it’s easy for someone to answer incorrectly … even for someone like me,” Garcia told San José Spotlight.
“I felt like giving up, I felt defeated.
The (applications) are meant to be confusing.
Because the more confused you get, the more people you deny.
Which is the ultimate goal of the new restriction.”
For many residents braving the heat to get groceries at Martha’s Kitchen, it’s one of multiple food pantries they visit to get them through the week.
Paulina Brackemyre started going to Hunger at Home’s food distribution at the Berryessa Flea Market after she lost her job in March.
Photo by Joyce Chu.
It’s not just changes in CalFresh that are drawing crowds to pick up food.
The economy is pushing people who normally would be able to get by to the edge.
That includes Paulina Brackemyre, who lost her job when the metal fabricating company she worked at for 15 years closed as a result of steel becoming too expensive to import — with tariffs on foreign steel going to 50%.
The company’s sales plummeted because no one wanted to build, she said.
“It was a huge blow (for me),” Brackemyre told San José Spotlight.
Brackemyre started going to Hunger at Home’s food distribution at the Berryessa Flea Market four months ago as she searched for a job.
She’s starting a part-time job at Safeway this week making just above minimum wage.
She’s still looking for another part-time job.
“It’s horrible what’s happening,” she said.
“These people (at Hunger at Home) are pretty awesome.
They help out a lot.
This bridges the gap so I don’t have to spend a lot on food.”
Contact Joyce Chu at joyce@sanjosespotlight.com or @joyce_speaks on X.
The post San Jose food lines grow longer as more people seek help appeared first on San José Spotlight .
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