---

---

Crescent City will partner with Del Norte County to pursue special Community Development Block Grant dollars set aside to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both entities were allocated a total of $185,653, which includes $31,600 in city administrative costs, and plan to award it to the Family Resource Center of the Redwoods and the Community Food Council for a mobile market.

Four Crescent City Councilors on Monday approved applying for the first round of 2020 CDBG Coronavirus Response Program dollars. City staff will bring a memorandum of understanding with the county before Councilors by Aug. 17. Councilor Alex Fallman, who works at the Family Resource Center, recused himself.

The mobile market concept — a mobile food pantry that showcases fruits and vegetables — is the product of the Del Norte Emergency Food Security Task Force created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Amanda Hixson, the Community Food Council’s food programs director, told Councilors.

The CDBG dollars would fund the project for a year and is expected to serve about 1,200 people, according to the city's staff report.

Hixson said a variety of agencies and organizations including Del Norte Unified School District, the Del Norte Senior Center, Del Norte Mission Possible, the Del Norte County Department of Health and Human Services, the Veterans Service Office and Our Daily Bread Ministries have endorsed the mobile market idea.

“We see this mobile market, in response to COVID, being especially important, but it's multi-functional,” Hixson said. “We would emphasize eating healthy foods and getting it to the corners of our county where food is hard to come by, especially fresh produce.”

In Del Norte County, the number of households relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, has increased by 10 percent since March, according to Dorothy Waddelow, program manager for the county health and human services department.

Nationally, 6 to 7 million more people have applied and been approved for SNAP benefits, according to the Center on Budget Policy Priorities.

Before March, DHHS issued CalFresh benefits to 3,000 households. Since March, the local caseload has increased by 300, Waddelow said.

“Most definitely the increase is due to businesses that were forced to close and/or (reduce) hours for a good amount of those employers that were able to remain open,” Waddelow told the Wild Rivers Outpost in a July 27 email. “A portion of our employable population relies on employment directly associated with the tourist trade; whether it be hotels, motels, restaurants, tours, etc. With the restrictions experienced due to COVID-19, there was a devastating effect on a number of our residents.”

According to Hixson, however, the number of people visiting the Community Food Council’s Pacific Pantry has steadily decreased since the pandemic started. July saw the fewest number of recipients since the pantry opened in April 2018, though, she told Councilors, she hasn’t yet done an analysis on why.

“Part of it could be because of benefits that have gone out with the Pandemic EBT and CalFresh and those sorts of things,” she said. “Another big one is people don’t want to come to a public place, especially like a pantry, and expose themselves. A lot of people are taking (the pandemic) seriously and staying home.”

Transportation is also an issue when it comes to people accessing fresh food in Del Norte County, Hixson pointed out. That, also, may account for Pacific Pantry’s recent low numbers, she said.
CDBG dollars also won’t be the only source of funding for the mobile market, Hixson said.

The program will operate in conjunction with an ongoing food recovery project the Food Council and the Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority has been conducting. Paid for by a grant through CalRecycle, Food Rescue Del Norte seeks to divert 400,000 pounds of edible food from the landfill by gleaning, preserving and redistributing it to those in need.

Hixson said the Food Council plans to use some of its CalRecycle dollars to purchase a refrigerated van that it plans to use in conjunction with the mobile market.

“Our van can follow the mobile market around as needed and can help with storing extra food and stocking the mobile market,” she said.

Money for the program is also available through dollars the Food Council receives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Food and Shelters Program. The Food Council also has federal dollars available through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act as well as through its grant from Building Healthy Communities, which is funded through the California Endowment.

The 2020 CDBG Coronavirus Response application will be the seventh CDBG application Crescent City has submitted for this year’s funding, according to City Manager Eric Wier. Other CDBG funded programs include the North Coast Rape Crisis Team as well as a business assistance and microenterprise loan program. 

---

SHARE →