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Orange County DSS reports February caseloads, SNAP and fraud investigations
Summary
Department of Social Services reported February figures: 1,549 Temporary and Family Assistance cases, 17,671 SNAP cases, 19,543 Medicaid recipients, and 182 fraud/eligibility investigations (95 substantiated). Officials also described homelessness and emergency housing placements.
Lacey Trimble, Commissioner of Social Services and Mental Health, presented the Department of Social Services' February monthly report to the Human Services Committee on April 21.
Trimble reported that 1,549 cases received Temporary and Family Assistance in February and that 17,671 cases received SNAP benefits that month. She said Medicaid recipients numbered 19,543 and that the department's average homeless served in 2026 to date was 854. Emergency housing placements were cited as 19.1 for families and 47.1 for singles; hotel/motel counts were 126 families and 206 singles in February. Trimble also said the department recorded five Raise-the-Age arrests in February, 160 traditional Child Protective Services responses and 96 Family Assessment Responses, 122 foster-care cases, 232 Adult Protective Services cases and 330 Home Care cases.
Trimble summarized child-support activity and investigations: Child Support had 9,141 cases and collected and dispersed $3.3 million in February. She described fraud and eligibility work: "The Front-End Detection System (FEDS) and Eligibility Verification Review (EVR) investigated 182 cases for alleged fraud and abuse with 95 cases found to have substantiated fraud and 69 cases resulted in overpayment," she said, and clarified that two of the overpayments were intentional program violations and 67 were client errors corrected by recalculation.
Committee members asked follow-up questions about staff support after traumatic incidents and the causes of client errors; Trimble said mental-health staff respond to significant incidents and the department runs trauma-informed yoga (before work) and virtual forums for staff wellbeing.
