During the last month, the Board of Supervisors has approved a suite of programs to fuel the recovery from COVID19 including grants to small businesses, continuation of food distribution, and tenants and landlords.

I recently heard this phrase which made me pause: “There is no vaccine for hunger.” The COVID19 vaccines have helped many return to their pre-pandemic lifestyles. However, there is one pandemic-related hardship that isn’t going away any time soon: hunger. Nationally, hunger has not been this high since the Great Recession from which it took nearly a decade to recover. We don’t want this happening again. 

On June 29th, our Board approved funding for several items that strike at the heart of food insecurity. First, we approved the continuation of funding for home-delivered meals for seniors as the Great Plates Delivered program ended. Renamed “Second Course”, this program will now run through June 2023 with funding of $3.9 million and deliver 3,250 meals per week to 650 residents. It will also have a grocery delivery component for seniors able to cook meals. We also approved an investment of $2.55 million to Second Harvest Food Bank to support the continuation of food distribution to our most vulnerable residents in San Mateo County.

At that same Board meeting, we contributed an additional $1 million to the San Mateo County Emergency Financial Assistance Program. This funding is to help tenants who are not eligible for the state funding. This could include those who sublease or are one of multiple households sharing a home to reduce rent, or those with shadow debt who borrowed from family and friends to cover rent due.

All said – just the above-mentioned investments total over $10 million to help our residents recover from this pandemic!