How the City Is Spending $150,000 Allocated for Meals During COVID Crisis

Back on March 17, in response to the coronavirus crisis, the Pasadena City Council approved a $150,000 allocation from its general fund to start a meals program for seniors, the disabled and other vulnerable citizens.

Monday, Director of Human Services Brenda Harvey-Williams provided a breakdown of how that money has been deployed since.

Harvey-Williams’ update came during a special session of the council at which members briefly discussed an immediate move to extend such funding, but ultimately left that matter for a future meeting based on advice from City Attorney Michele Bagneris.

Bagneris said that any additional funding would have needed to be on Monday’s agenda – and that, in any case, City Manager Steve Mermell has the power to OK emergency expenditures should a need arise.

According to Harvey-Williams, the city’s $150,000 was applied to food-delivery programs already in place in the city and was coordinated with meal distributions underway at seven school locations in the Pasadena Unified School District.

“With the need for food among all age groups high, staff determined the most efficient way to get food to those in need would be to utilize existing delivery methods,’’ she said.

Money was split between prepared meals and food pantries.

Harvey-Williams said $105,400 was earmarked to “provide over 25,000 meals primarily for PUSD students and their families, but also for seniors, and with the remaining … we made donations to three foods pantries in our town.’’

“With such a large percentage PUSD students receiving free or reduced-cost lunch and breakfast, the school district had already developed a program to continue to feed their students and any child under the age of 18 in our community,’’ she said.

“The district developed a grab-and-go food distribution service from Monday to Friday at seven school sites where parents can pick up packaged breakfast and lunch meals for their children.’’

But because this program operated only on weekdays, city staff proposed to provide the funding and staffing for lunch on both Saturday and Sunday, and also chose to extend it to all members of the family, she added.

That started over this past weekend, serving some 3,100 meals at a cost of $4.25 each.

“At this price point the city can fund the weekend lunch program for four weekends,’’ Harvey-Williams said.

Regarding seniors, she said, the city will also be making a contribution to the Pasadena Senior Center totaling $10,000, $8,000 of which will go toward expanding the senior meals program for five weeks. That’s a total of 1,920 meals for seniors, free of charge.

(The other $2,000, the senior center will use to replenish its food pantry, “which is running low because of the increased demand from lower-income older adults, including homeless older adults,’’ Harvey-Williams said.)

In addition, she said, “The city has made a one-time, at this point, donation of $34,600 has gone to three food pantries … Friends In Deed, Foothill Unity Center and the Salvation Army.’’

Council Member Victor Gordo, meanwhile, suggested the city also explore using city vehicles and staff to distribute food to the various distribution locations.

Gordo, who had proposed allocating more money immediately to continue such meals programs, later said, “I would suggest that if need be that we schedule another meeting, once the city manager has a plan in place’’ to continue funding for meals.

For his part, Mermell said, “We can return to the council in due course for a larger appropriation.’’

Councilmember Andy Wilson, meanwhile, said he thought the city should plan for a six-month window in which to fund such programs, in case the need were to stretch that far.

An additional $10,000 has also been allocated by Mermell for meal distribution, but that has not yet been deployed.