This has been an especially challenging year for Rosalba Ortega’s family.
It’s been a cold, soggy winter in Bakersfield, and Ortega said her two granddaughters, ages 4 and 7, don’t have warm coats for their walk to school. Rent and food prices have been climbing, and as a farmworker, she’s struggled to find work in the fields. Last month’s delays to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — known in California as CalFresh — hit her grandkids at a time when her family is already struggling to put food on the table.
“There’s not much food for them,” said Ortega, in Spanish. “We have to look for low prices to buy for them. Sometimes the shelters give us food and that helps us a lot.”…