Group Homes Information

Group homes include group living facilities, such as housing for the elderly, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, battered-women shelters, and homeless shelters. Group homes can be authorized representatives for residents receiving benefits, and can use those benefits to purchase food for the facility.

The group home will swipe the residents' Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards on EBT point-of-sale (POS) equipment and their food benefits will be transferred to the group home's account. It works just like a food benefit transaction at a retail store. The group home can then shop for food from its own account.

If a resident leaves before the end of the month, the group home can return any unused portion of the food benefits to the recipient's EBT account using the POS equipment.

If a group home would like to participate in SNAP, contact the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) at (877) 823-4369 and request an application, or click here. Once the facility is approved and an FNS number is assigned to it, Xerox State & Local Solutions, Inc. will contact the group home about installing POS equipment.

Because most counties distribute CalWORKs (and in some counties, General Assistance cash aid) and other cash benefits via EBT, the POS equipment can also be set up to access these benefits. A group home may elect to use this feature, so residents can pay rent, etc., using their EBT cards.