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Eureka Recognizes Food Need – And Takes Action On It · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Recognizing significant need for food assistance, the city of Eureka is spending money on it and pursuing the idea of operating a grocery store. Challenges to and actions on providing food assistance were discussed and taken at the November 18th Eureka City Council meeting. The council voted to provide funding to the Food for People Food bank and the St. Vincent DePaul free meal facility, doubling the amount listed on the agenda item. Each organization was slated to receive $7,500, but at the suggestion of Council member Leslie Castellano, the amount was raised to $15,000 each. There was talk of getting other local governments to do the same, and Councilmember Katie Moulton declared what she described as a challenge.
• 0:55
  Speaker B: I challenge. I declare a challenge. The City of Eureka is going to find a way to help put food in people's mouths. I hope that the city of Arcata, the City of Fortuna, the County of Humboldt, the unincorporated area of McKinleyville, the city of Lolita, the city of Ferndale, the City of Trinidad, the City of Rio del Who am I forgetting? Every Hoopa. Thank you. I hope that every, every city, county and tribal government, our immediate area finds a way to match this or make it better. We have a really supportive community and we can help make sure that people in our family don't go hungry.
• 1:38
  Speaker A: Also at the meeting, a Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week proclamation was approved. The proclamation notes a worrying degree of local food insecurity. Food for People Treasurer Ashley Deal talked about the need for food assistance and and the increasing challenges to meeting it in our region.
• 2:01
  Speaker C: The need for hunger assistance is significant. Food For People serves 21,000 people in our county every month, nearly twice as many as we served five years ago. This has been challenging this year for food banks and people experiencing food insecurity. With federal cuts and disruptions to hunger relief programs, this work has gotten more challenging. Recently, we've just seen what it looks like when the food security safety net breaks down. And in the days following the announcements of delayed SNAP benefits, Food for People saw an immediate 40% increase in people seeking our assistance. Many of them were scared, not knowing how they'd feed their family while that emergency has passed. Looking ahead, we anticipate an additional strain. Several policy changes will soon significantly change how Supplemental Nutrition Assistant programs are administrated and who is eligible. These shifts will place new burdens on states and communities and ultimately reduce access for many people who currently rely on food assistance.
• 3:04
  Speaker A: Later in the meeting, City Manager Miles Slattery gave an update on a proposal that's part of the City Council's strategic visioning platform providing food access in underserved areas by operating a city owned grocery store. He said the former Rite Aid site in the Henderson center neighborhood isn't available due to a deed restriction, but the effort will continue as discussed in this exchange between Slattery and Moulton.
• 3:34
  Speaker D: There has been discussion in the community they haven't come into staff to do a development review or anything like that, but there is discussion that there's going to be a proposal for a market down in Old Town adjacent to the Ramones down in Old Town. We haven't received any development plans for that or anything yet, but there has been people in the community discussing that that is potentially going to happen. But staff will continue to look at areas and try and concentrate on area where there is there is a deficit of it. But just wanted to provide that update to council that that's the situation with the Rite Aid property.
• 4:15
  Speaker B: Council member Molton there Just a quick comment. I wanted to say that I appreciate the fact that staff will continue to look for areas where there is a deficit. We're going to be adding a lot of density into Eureka in the next several years and folks are going to need affordable food, hopefully within walking distance in Eureka.
• 4:34
  Speaker A: For KMUD News, this is Daniel Mintz.