Okay.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the Alameda County Together for All or Act for All Ad hoc committee meeting.

As you may know, our Board of Supervisors created our committee to monitor the impacts of federal budgets.

Oh, I'm sorry, let's call the roll.

Supervisor Marquez.

Present.

Supervisor Fortunately Bass.

Present.

We have a core.

Okay.

Ready?

Thank you.

Welcome again to the Alameda County Together for All or Act for All Ad Hoc Committee meeting.

Our Board of Supervisors created our committee to monitor the impacts of federal budgets and policies on Alameda County residents and to develop proactive and coordinated plans to mitigate these impacts on our most vulnerable residents.

We explore a wide range of issues at our monthly meetings, and this month we're going to focus on several safety net issues that are front and center and that will severely impact Alameda County residents.

They are public charge and food security.

The issue of the housing and urban development continuum of care will actually be heard at Monday's Health Committee, so we will not be going into that today.

And today I'm really pleased to have a number of speakers joining us on the public charge issue.

We will have Lynn Jacques and Emily Bactasilva from CJ Lake, our federal lobbyists.

We will also have Lisa Newstrom, who is the managing attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid.

And joining us to discuss food security, we have Reggie Young, the executive director of the Alameda County Community Food Bank, as well as Melanie Moore, the CEO of Oakland Thrives.

Before we go to our first topic, Supervisor Marquez, would you like to share any remarks?

Thank you, Supervisor Fortano Bass and community.

I apologize for the delay.

However, it is important that the public know that the reason why I was delayed is unfortunately we have been notified of likely ICE activity today in the excuse me in the city of Hayward.

So I just wanted to remind the community that we have been working tirelessly to put safeguards, support, and services in place to defend the right of our immigrant and refugee community members to live in this community with dignity and to feel safe.

So I'm just going to take a minute to just remind everyone that you have the right to remain silent.

You have the right to uh be represented by a lawyer.

You do not have have to open the door for anyone unless they have a judicial warrant that is signed by a judge, and you're not required to answer any questions.

I also think it's really important, you know, we get inundated all the time.

There's any type of law enforcement activity, unfortunately, because the fear is real.

People are automatically assuming it's ICE.

I am just going to respectfully ask our community to just take 10 20 seconds.

Just breathe, breathe and pause and look to see if there's any indicators.

It could be Hayward PD, it could be Oakland PD, it could be Alameda County Sheriffs, it could be Highway Patrol.

So just take a moment to see.

Can you see any designation on their uniform, decals on their vehicle?

Don't automatically assume that it's ICE.

The threat is real, but it's very important that we put out accurate information because it is causing a lot of fear in the community.

So again, thanks to the leadership of Supervisor Fortunato Bass.

We have services in place.

We've been working collectively to ensure that our public has resources.

So the a CLIP hotline is 510 to 41 4011.

I strongly encourage everyone to store that in your phone.

So just wanted to give that gentle reminder.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Supervisor Marquez, and thanks to you and your team as well as the CLIP and its volunteers and team for being in Hayward to make sure our community is safe.

And since our last meeting, there were confirmed ICE sightings and enforcement activity in Oakland as well as Fremont.

So the work of this committee is very important, as well as the work that everyone is doing to sort of to serve our immigrant and refugee community.

So moving on to the first of our two items today, this topic of public charge has not yet received much media attention, although the new proposed rules for public charge have far reaching implications for immigrant communities.

This is also something that we dealt with during the first Trump administration.

I would like to thank and invite Lynn Jacques for joining us from Washington, DC.

You are very well versed in this and a host of other issues.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Please go ahead, Lynn.

Sure.

Absolutely delighted to be with you all, and sorry to be discussing this.

Yes, well-versed simply by longevity, right?

So having dealt with the immigration nationality act and the episodes of public charge, quite frankly, beginning as early as the welfare reform programs in the early 90s by the Clinton administration.

And just a second.

We want to make sure the volume is adjusted if possible.

Okay.

And this presentation will be for our second speaker.

Well, I'll let you know when the presentation is appropriate.

Okay.

And Madam Clerk, if we could just make sure the volume is good.

Is that better?

Can the volume was up?

Okay.

Lynn, it sounds a little bit muffled and low on your end.

We've got it high on our end.

If there's anything you can do, we want to make sure we can hear you.

I appreciate that.

I put it up as high as possible, so hopefully, and then I'll up my volume as well.

Right there.

That sounds great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Excellent, excellent.

Well, I was just explaining in writ large.

Obviously, we are watching any and all regulations, proposed regulations, circulars, guidance, policy manual changes in this space and others that impact the county, and specifically on the public charge evaluation when it comes to both inadmissibility for the purposes of an immigration benefit, and or um excludability for the purposes of even entering on a visitor's visa or some other kind of non-immigrant or temporary visa.

And so I will just say that earlier this month, the State Department, which has not to your point received a large amount of scrutiny, released a worldwide um circular that basically expanded significantly the discretion of consular officers to determine what is a public charge, and in fact to then deny visas, meaning on the grounds of exclusion, to anybody that even in fact may become ill.

So factors such as obesity, health issues that while even on visiting family members or some other temporary type of admission might result in them becoming a charge to the taxpayer in some fashion through a medical emergency or others.

And it is quite astounding.

We are waiting to see what the impacts of that might be.

And I think it's important for people to note that yes, while the State Department process is applicable to those that are outside the United States, as you know, or as the you know, um those familiar with immigration law knows that individuals who are subject to um the uh inadmissibility to adjust their status due to unlawful presence have to depart the country for a period of time and then go through the process externally to reunite with their family members and others.

And this visa review circular is going to have a significant impact on them.

And I think it is also important to note why why I am, you know, particularly watching the impact of this is that consular officers, unlike certain categories under the government uh immigration and nationality act, which have some due process rights, consular officers have unreviewable uh ability to exclude an individual and with no explanation and no appeal process.

So I do bring everyone's attention to that State Department process, which could impact obviously family reunification, visitors, students, and employees, quite frankly, in some instances.

At the same time or uh later in the month, November 17th to be precise, then the Department of Homeland Security issued a notice of proposed rulemaking.

And as we have seen in the last eight years, the yin and yang of regulatory approaches, you know, sort of has a whiplash.

But in this instance, it was a return to the attempts under Trump 45 to expand and really undo about 25 years of precedent in the description of what would be a public charge and/or the enforcement of an affidavit of support or the acceptance of an affidavit of support, which a sponsor is able to do in every circumstance that then protects the particular immigrant receiving the benefit from a public charge in admissibility.

So what we are looking at in the proposed rule and understand it's a proposed rule, which means it's open for public comment.

Comment closes 30 days after publication in the public reg in the federal register.

So we hope that many of the organizations in the county and elsewhere will be submitting comments on this.

But it undoes basically the codification of, as I said, about 25 years worth of precedent in really focusing on the public charge definition as being primarily focused on public cash assistance.

And the Biden administration codified that long-standing definition that we actually negotiated in the Clinton administration during the welfare reform process, that that's that is primarily what it would be defined as with a whole list of programs, support programs that are not considered public assistance or public charge.

Thus leaving, once again, as it was prior to the 2022 codification, wide discretion within the Department of Homeland Security to issue policy guidance for individual officers to make those determinations and on an ad hoc basis.

So certainly as part of the comment process, I think that individuals will be focused on what is your replacement, actually.

So that before we become gravely concerned as to what the extension of this might be, going to a means-based any program that is means based will count as public charge, and asking for much greater clarity and guidance in a regulation if they intend to completely rescind the existing regulation.

So I think that it is by the preamble in the proposed rule what the intent is, and that's very concerning.

And if you look at the State Department circular, you get a very good idea of just the breadth of might be of what grounds of inadmissibility and exclusion might be under this scenario, but the bulk of it is going to be left to the discretion of the interviewing officers, whether it is an adjustment of status process inside the United States, or whether it is the granting of a green card or permanent resident process through the consular process outside the United States.

And that's I think where a great deal of concern arises because of the uncertainty of that and the individualized case-by-case discretionary impact.

The other thing that is very unclear from the recision of the of the 22 or of the existing rule is the impact of an affidavit of support.

So obviously, if under a family sponsorship, under an employer sponsorship, is a little bit different because obviously it's the basis of the job that is providing the immigrant immigration benefit.

Therefore, an income is established, a job offer has been made, and the employer is the one that is sponsoring.

But in a family sponsorship situation, the issue becomes it's not necessarily uh clear that the uh immigrant coming has a job waiting for them or has a source of income.

Therefore, the almost de rigueur, if you will, ability for the sponsoring member, family member, to provide an affidavit of support, and that affidavit in and of itself would overcome the assumption of public charge again has been longstanding precedent.

The comments from the administration, and I know that you will hear from you know uh additional experts um later on this issue, is first of all, affidavits of support will continue, but enforcement of those affidavits and and the examination of the family members themselves now as sponsors as to whether they are economically independent and thus capable of issuing an affidavit of support, and that is something that uh could have obviously wide-ranging impact in immigrant communities that are um you know uh building their um you know their their upward mobility, if you will, and the ability to support additional family members that has to be proven in this process.

So it's in the proposed stage, again, I'm much more concerned I am a little concerned about the about the State Department circular, but the proposed rulemaking is uh is out for comment, and also I would imagine uh could conceivably be subject to um some Lope-Bright challenges, legal challenges, because there is some statutory indications, uh, particularly in ERCA as we waive public charge for a lot of adjustment of status purposes for regularization of status, that there could be legal challenges coming.

But um, but just rest assured that you know we are obviously paying a very close attention to this, and we do share your concerns and obviously the community concerns about a potential impact this could have, not just on the ability for sponsorship within the family unification, but also a potential review of existing utilization and the revocation of existing permanent resident status in some fashion as a result of taking a means tested means-based assistance, and the long list of programs such as SNAP and WIC and Child Tax Credit and others that have historically not been considered public charge and public assistance under the the precedent is now open for discretion and and consideration.

So anyway, just just know that we are we are going to submit comments uh on behalf of individuals, not necessarily the county, I'm assuming that county organizations will be submitting comments on it and um and watching also um perhaps some additional statutory clarification that some members of Congress might be willing to do.

Happy to ask or answer any questions on this.

Thank you so much, Lynn.

Um Emily, do you wish to also share some information?

Not at all.

I'm not going to follow up after Lynn, because she is the true expert.

But I was just here just in case you brought up the HUD issue.

Okay, thank you.

We do have one more speaker.

Is it okay if we hear from them first and then we'll take questions and comments?

And are the two of you able to stay for just a few more minutes longer?

Great.

Okay.

Thank you.

So our second speaker on the topic of public charge is Lisa Newstrom, managing attorney with Bay Area Legal Aid.

Thank you for joining us, Lisa.

And Madam Clerk, we do need the PowerPoint for this presentation.

Thank you so much for having me here.

And I really appreciate that.

Excellent overview of kind of the history and the Department of State rule and the USCIS rule.

There will be some overlap in my presentation, which is kind of focused on the like broader audience, like high-level messages around what public charge currently is and what the proposal would change.

So where we are kind of in flux right now.

Next slide, please.

I'll try to go through relatively quickly because I think questions are important.

So this is essentially the public charge rule as it exists in 2025.

And as Lynn mentions going back to the 1996 welfare reform law, as well as, you know, a hundred years of evolution of public policy.

It is a totality of the circumstances test applied to some immigrants, and that is going to be really important.

I'm going to talk about that later.

Applying for LPR status, green cards, or certain visas, to determine if they're likely to become primarily dependent for on the government for their support in the future.

Those are kind of the long-standing key components.

Next slide, please.

And when we talk about it with our clients and community partners, we talk about the ABCs.

Who does and doesn't it apply to?

Because public benefits play a big part in the current understanding of it, which benefits impact it and which ones don't.

So for right now, it's people applying for LPRs primarily through family or employment pathways, or certain entrance visas, or changing a visa from one type to another, for example, from a student visa to an H1B visa.

And there are a whole slew of humanitarian visas that are exempt from this.

So these are things like SSI, general assistance, Cal works.

It is also looked at long-term institutionalization of the immigrants, such as in a state hospital, for example.

And then the other circumstances considered age health, family support, financial assets and resources, education and job skills, and then that sponsorship affidavit.

And then within the last few years, there has been the addition of something called a public charge bond, which had very specific requirements for like when it could be asked for and also when it would be discharged.

Next slide, please.

So I'm not going to go over all of this, but these are the details of who it currently applies to and doesn't.

So I do just want to highlight the second column.

It does not apply to LPR seeking citizenship.

Once you have LPR status, public charge only comes up if someone does something that essentially requires them to reapply for that LPR status, the main one being if they leave the country for like an extended period of time over six months.

Most humanitarian immigrants, refugees, asylumes, folks getting status under VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act, crime victims getting status under the U visa or T visa programs, special immigrant juvenile status, Afghan special immigrants, Ukrainian humanitarian parolees, all those folks not subject to public charge.

Okay.

Next slide, please.

And then as we said before, currently it is those cash assistance programs that are means tested and institutionalization.

And very few of the immigrants subject to public charge are eligible for these programs anyways.

So there's also a whole list of programs that don't trigger public charge, such as health programs, nutrition programs like SNAP, WIC, housing programs, benefits received through school, like school lunch or school based services, earned benefits.

We often get questions about things like unemployment insurance, social security retirement, or disability insurance.

Those are all considered under current public charge law to be earned benefits, disaster aid, private assistance from nonprofits, anything else, do not count towards public charge under current law.

Next slide, please.

So the proposal that was in the Notice of Public Rulemaking issued on, I believe it was the 25th of November, eliminates all regulations in the Code of Federal regulations, except for the ability of the government to demand public charge bond, although it does eliminate the rules under which the bond is returned.

So that is a lot of questions right there that folks have.

So when they propose to change regulation, they set the period for notice and comment.

It is extremely short, it ends December 19th.

And I think most folks anticipate a final rule will be issued shortly thereafter.

Next slide, please.

If they do eliminate the Code of Federal Regulations on public charge and they eliminate all prior guidance, what limits remain?

So you are stuck with what is in the US code.

One thing that does remain relatively unchanged is who the test applies to, because most of those excluded categories are under statute, not under regulation.

So the exemption of all those humanitarian immigrants from public charge, both at the time they get that status and at the time they adjust through those related humanitarian pathways, if available.

So at the time they get a green card after being an asylum, for example, or after having a U visa.

And then certain other immigrants paroled into the US, like the recent Afghan and Ukrainian arrivals, although there's obviously a lot of other stuff going on there right now.

And the statute does require the consideration at a minimum of these factors: age, health, family status, assets, resources, education, and skills.

Next slide, please.

But I think what is most notable and expansive is the rationale given for the NPRN, which describes the longstanding definition as too restrictive and rejects the definition that has long been used of public benefit as means tested.

Public benefit.

It rejects the requirement for primary dependency, opening up the question of whether incidental use could be used against folks.

It rejects the focus on the likelihood of future dependency.

And any sort of limitation of which benefits will be considered.

It's not willing to say any benefits in particular are not going to be considered.

And there are mentions that receipt by family members, including presumably US citizens, could potentially be considered.

As the prior speaker noted, this is also in the context of the Department of State cable, which included instructions for decision makers to speculate about the health problems of the immigrants or their family members, and what potential medical costs could arise from that might cause any sort of cost to the community.

Next slide.

So I think what a lot of folks are seeing in terms of how to understand and talk about public charge is the challenge of providing information and making informed decisions if this rule goes forward in the absence of specifics.

Right now it's really important for us to be able to message publicly about which programs people can continue to get without it impacting their immigration status, who can get benefits, whether it is likely to have an impact on that assessment.

And it is anticipated in the financial projections of the change, that there will be large-scale disenrollment from public programs.

And it is anticipated, I think that this will happen particularly among US citizens in mixed status families, among green card holders and naturalized citizens, due to either their connections to possible like family reunification or just misunderstanding and fear about how the rule could be used against them, even though under statute they are not supposed to be subject to it.

And, you know, programs that have long been exempted from public charge or that are often utilized by U.S.

citizen children, things like prenatal care, child nutrition programs.

I think there is a lot of questions about how public health, access to education services, and more may be impacted.

And I believe that's my last slide.

Correct.

Thank you so much, Lisa.

So we'll hear uh comments, questions from the committee, Supervisor Marquez.

Thank you to our presenters.

This was extremely informative, comprehensive, and I now have a better understanding.

So thank you.

And a lot of my questions were actually included in the second presentation, specifically when is the last day of the comment period.

So thank you for flagging that.

I just kind of want to have an open conversation with my colleagues since you sit on PAL.

Is this scheduled to come to PAL?

Do you know if we're going to be able to make a comment as a board?

I know the timelines are tight.

So I believe it was at the it may have been at the work session.

This did come up at last at the last PAL, and I believe at the work session too.

So when we have the federal and state updates, so the staff has already drafted something, it might have gone out, and I requested a copy go to all of the board members.

Perfect.

So I'll follow up on Monday at PAL.

Okay.

Thank you so much for that.

And then in terms of the uh speculative cost of medical, you know, this is really concerning because what it sounds like is people could just discriminate based off someone's size, like you are a certain height and weight.

So I'm gonna suspect you may have diabetes, high blood.

So is that really what's at risk here?

It is that broad in that concerning that that those type of decisions can be made.

Is that an accurate assessment?

I think.

Oh, go ahead.

I was gonna say that that is uh that is a very legitimate concern, right?

So um limiting the broad-based discretion in those considerations is something to identify as extremely concerning in any comments that would be going forward.

I would also advise the county that um under the OIRA process, in proposed rulemaking.

Um, if there is some significant, you know, sort of hard data from a cost perspective, economic burden that would be borne by the county or other local services as a result of this, although they all do uh target local and state resources as a potential definition of public charge.

Is that that uh you can schedule a meeting with uh OMB, uh OI, the office, um, and share with them the concerns about the impact, detrimental impact on the county and/or the community and stakeholders that you serve within the comment period, so and also after the comments are filed.

So that's just something for you all to take into consideration from a from a uh a DC policy advocacy perspective that OIRA um meeting and uh additional opportunity to present concerns is available.

I hope that we are doing that in coordination with our department heads.

Um so thank you for flagging this.

We'll continue to track it and clearly once a decision is made, I think it's gonna be imperative that we are aligned with messaging and letting the public know the result of the of these decisions to so that way we could equip people with accurate information, make sure that they could still access services.

And um, you know, it's unfortunate that we continue to deal with these hits from the federal administration, but I really appreciate you flagging it for us so we could do as much as we can to protect our vulnerable communities here.

So thank you.

Thank you, and thank you to our presenters.

Uh, this has been very informative.

The threat of rescinding the current public charge rules are really potentially devastating to our immigrant community.

Uh immigrants to serve services and benefits provided by the government without it impacting their status, uh, as we all know, uh, because we are a welcoming county.

Uh immigrants strengthen our communities and are true part of both our neighborhoods, our society, and also our economy.

So we have to make sure that we are supporting them.

Obviously, we are in the rulemaking phase or comment phase on the rulemaking.

Once that deadline passes to submit comments, what is typically the timeline for the next phase of the rulemaking?

How much time do we have before this potentially gets finalized?

So there really isn't uh a hard and fast rule uh or requirement again, the OIRA process, the interagency clearance, the vetting of all of the public comments received, so that should they go final, and quite frankly, there's no requirement that they even go final in anything.

I mean, we do anticipate that the rescission will occur, but the question of um ensuring that, and we've seen a lot of this in the regular, you know, in in the incredible amount of regulations that have been coming that we've been engaged in, is uh, a great deal of time is spent on making them uh challenge-proof by the careful review of the public comments and then refutable arguments and justifications for whatever comes forward in a final format.

So it can take some time, but it can also hence hence the issue of are they going to rescind and not replace and then discretionary and policy guidance can take place at any point.

So um, so that's not a very precise answer, I'm afraid, um, supervisor, but but there is no strict timeline, and it'll be at the agency's uh vetting process, if you will, as they go through public comments, and the more public comments there are, the longer it takes.

Okay, thank you.

So, definitely something we have to continue to monitor, and certainly immigrants are already fearful of picking up groceries, sometimes going to school or to work, and so this is one more thing that may be very impactful.

Um, during the first Trump administration, I remember how the local community was really galvanized around this issue.

Um, this question might be more for Lisa.

Do you have a sense of how the community is organizing and what type of advocacy is needed right now?

So I will say um with everything that is going on in our communities.

Um I have not heard as much about public charge right now as I did in say 2018-2019.

Um, so we're not getting as many questions specifically about this.

Um, I think it's important to contextualize public charge as a very specific application at a very specific point for some people in their immigration process, and it's also coming in the context of larger changes, such as changes to non-citizen eligibility rules, um, which are impacting um CalFresh and MediCal.

It comes in the context of concerns about data sharing and privacy.

It comes in the context of kind of, you know, larger questions about what is going on in our community that is impacting the lives of our immigrant members and their families.

So there are certainly folks who are involved in um looking at the rule, commenting on the rule.

Um I do think it is very helpful for counties to make sure that people have information about what the rule is and isn't and how it impacts them to the extent that that is knowable, um, once any changes are finalized, um, and and for example, just knowing who is and isn't subject to it has been a really important factor for folks in um, you know, making sure folks who aren't impacted by the rule are not losing uh programs that they need to stay healthy and economically stable.

Thank you so much, uh appreciate that comment.

So this is certainly something that we will continue to monitor.

Um we will take public comment after the next item, which is uh on food security.

So thank you to all of you for staying with us.

If you're able to continue to stay on, please do.

If not, we understand you've got time constraints.

Um, and so at this point, we will go to the second part of this item, which is on food security.

So our committee has spent a considerable amount of time addressing the issue of food security, and we heard a very comprehensive support in this committee in early September and advanced proposals to the board to fund a system that will serve our entire county amidst the current federal cutbacks.

And in fact, we proposed a historic $10 million dollar increase in food security funding that was supported by the board.

And since July 1st, we've been able to raise an additional, well, a total of 18.5 million, 16.5 million from the Measure W, Essential County Services Fund, and 2 million from outside sources.

So today we'll have an opportunity to hear from two community experts on the issue of food security.

We've invited them to discuss how we were able to support individuals and families during the government shutdown and what we are facing in terms of the imminent cuts to CalFresh due to the federal budget bill HR1.

So our first speaker is Reggie Young, who is the executive director of the Alameda County Community Food Bank, who led a valiant countywide effort to respond to the impacts of the shutdown.

Thank you for joining us, Reggie.

I hope you can hear me now.

Okay.

Thank y'all for having me.

It's such a pleasure to be here to talk about the response to the crisis that we're seeing in community at this moment.

And uh, you know, just hearing about the the public charge comment, uh, it is interesting that you're not hearing more about the issue of public charge, and that is something that impacts a person's access to food security as well.

Uh but the reality is that there is so many issues that we're hearing in the environment that all of these important things that we're seeing some sometimes can get drowned out by all the other issues that are happening in this moment.

And this is something that we saw early on in the year because uh back in even in March, uh, we as well as our partners were seeing uh really increases in the amount of folks that were coming to pantries, and we were actually seeing pandemic level uh food insecurity well at the beginning of this year, and it was a challenge to be able to share with folks about it because there was so much noise in the space to where it was hard for people to understand it.

So I'm so appreciative of you all and your support during this time frame, because it just so happened that when we were able to get food security approved with measure W funds, it just happened to be right at the time when the government shutdown was coming up.

So, so appreciative of that.

I wish I had great news for you all.

I wish we could say that food security has uh been managed here in Alameda County, uh, but the sad reality is that it's still a huge challenge here in Alameda County.

One of the things that we are very thankful of is our network of partners and the response that they were able to do during this time frame.

Once the government shutdown came about, a lot of our partners were sharing with us that they were seeing increases at levels that they had never seen before, including during at the peak of the pandemic.

Some of them, actually, many of them were saying that they were seeing about a third more people coming to their pantries.

All of our partners saw an increase in the number of people coming to their different locations.

And a few of our partners were sharing that they were seeing even 50% to 100% more people coming to their pantries during that time frame.

The great thing about the response both from this board, but then also from philanthropy was that we were able to get additional resources to provide 1 million more pounds of food in the month of November over the same time period as of last year in the same time.

So that was great news for a lot of our network members and a lot of the folks that were receiving the items.

One of the challenges though, and you can see if you if you look at the slides, you can see that spike in the number of people that were coming to our website to identify places that they could get food.

We did a survey in which we talked to folks, not only during the government shutdown, but afterwards as well to identify what is it gonna look like for them to move on beyond the government shutdown.

What does it look like for them as a component of the recovery?

Because a lot of the way that is framed right now is that government shutdown is complete.

SNAP benefits are back, and this issue is no longer there.

However, what we heard from folks that we surveyed was that half of them, half of them were reporting higher levels of food insecurity than the same time period in which we looked at this last year.

Last year was a third that reported that they were food insufficient.

50% of those respondents said they were food insufficient at this point.

About half of them also indicated that they thought it was going to be much more harder for them in the next few months to recover from this challenge.

So when we think about the folks who were experiencing food insecurity for the first time, about 21% of those respondents said they had never been to a food distribution before in their lives.

It was the first time that they were accessing those resources.

And we don't see that actually dropping that much going forward.

A lot of our network is sharing right now that they are seeing declines in the number of people as it relates to the height of the government shutdown, but still at levels that are even higher than before the government shutdown actually occurred.

The way that we are framing the government shutdown is essentially from the standpoint that this gives us an insight into what the permanent HR1 cuts means for us going down the line.

This was a window into the challenges that our communities are experiencing, and particularly here in Alameda County, where you have about 170,000 people who rely on SNAP benefits.

The HR1 cuts, the particularly the permanent HR1 cuts, the reason why we initially came to this group to ask for funds for Measure W, it's gonna be tens of thousands of people who are going to be not eligible for SNAP benefits at all, but beyond that, most people who have been receiving SNAP benefits in the past are going to see a cut.

And that is a challenge right now.

The response that we did with our network was really just trying to fill in gaps.

So if you look at the pictures, we also did distributions at SSA sites.

We did four distributions, more than four distributions, four distribution sites at SSA sites, but we also did gift cards at places there in the Tri-Cities as well as in the Tri-Valley area.

Through those efforts, we were able to distribute about 100,000 pounds of food in those different locations.

But the main thing that we wanted people to know, particularly when they were coming out of those sites is where to access food now, because that's the thing that people are really trying to understand.

Where do I access food now?

The thing that we hear a lot, and we continue to hear, is that it's not all about the food.

It's about what the food offsets for the other costs that they have in their daily lives.

When we were talking with federal employees, they were saying, thank you, because we have this food, now we can offset our costs because we are paying for child care, we're paying for rent, and we're paying for gas to come to work with no pay.

For a lot of the families that are coming to pantries, they're sharing that they're utilizing the resources of the food to offset their rents, the utilizing the resources of the food to offset their medical bills, the utilizing the resources from the food to offset all these other costs that people don't necessarily think about when you talk about food insecurity.

Food is the variable that they have flexibility in, the monetary value of the food, the nutritious value of the food, particularly for those folks in our community that have a chronic condition like diabetes, to try to figure out how do I manage this without access to healthy resources that we need.

We can go to the next slide.

So right now, as we're thinking about what does it look like today?

What does it look like for the next six months?

The one thing that I will say, the silver lining in all of this is that people know how important SNAP benefits are in our communities.

In fact, to the level in which I would suspect if the HR1 cuts were up now, that they would not have gotten approved.

Now, the challenge right now that we're seeing, and the question that we're asking ourselves, the question that we're asking community, the question that we're asking philanthropy, the question that we're asking our partners is how do we ensure that this issue, with all the noise that's happening around us, how does this issue stay front and center for people to still recognize that we can do something about it, not just today, but permanently.

We also have the audacity to believe that food security is something that is something that we can actually achieve in this county.

What I loved about the response, both from our partners, from this board, as well as from philanthropy, was that we could see how impactful when we come together, we can be in support of our community.

Our safety net is fragile, as we saw during that time frame.

However, we have the resources, we have the intellect, we have the funds of knowledge in this county to be able to do things that have a long-term impactful change as it relates to this issue.

And it's important because this is a solvable issue, and it's connected to so many other issues that we're dealing with.

It's connected to education, it's connected to housing, it's connected to health care.

In this moment, we believe there's an opportunity to leverage the awareness, the public awareness that folks have about how fragile our safety net systems are, and turn that into some long-term gains for our community.

With that, I will pause.

Thank you so much.

So our second speaker is Melanie Moore, who is the CEO of Oakland Thrives and also a food systems expert who administered the rapid response fund that supported dozens of community organizations during the government shutdown.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you, Supervisor Fortunato Bass, Supervisor Marquez.

Really excited to present some results from the Rapid Response Fund that was rapid.

It all took place within the last 30 days or so.

And in response to the uh horrific uh pause of SNAP benefits that took all of us, if not by surprise, certainly, dismayed and and uh and and shocked us all.

Um, as you know, um the rapid response fund was generated at a time when community-based organizations, as Reggie pointed out, were already reeling from increased demand for uh available accessible food, and even prior to knowledge of HR1 impending cuts and conversations had been going on in many of our uh community member organizations for some time about the need for additional resources, additional food to provide to community members because lines were longer and families were indicating a need for more support.

Um, and in that mix, uh all of a sudden we all learned uh that SNAP benefits because of the government shutdown would be paused on November the 1st.

And many families would be completely without any uh spendable cash on their EBT cards if that was a benefit that they had to uh procure food.

So the community, I think it's fair to say, fell into a bit of panic.

Um, our community-based organizations who provide that support, also feeling incredibly stretched and looking every which way, including creating GoFundMe's, you know, taking their own using their own money out of their own bank accounts to be able to purchase food so that they could provide it for community members in need.

Alameda County stepped up, other stakeholders stepped up to really start a conversation and develop not just a rapid response fund, but really a coordinated response across community-based organizations across all neighborhoods in the county, philanthropic partners, and government sector leaders to really zero in on okay, how do we need to move at this time?

And with some muscle based on the pandemic rapid response, people were able, I think, to mobilize pretty quickly to understand what needed to happen.

We needed to raise some funds very quickly and get it out the door to last mile providers.

And that's exactly what happened.

So within just a couple of days, we can go to the next slide, thank you.

Um with support from you, Supervisor Fortunato Bass, Alameda County Office of Education, Superintendent Elise Castro, and Oakland Thrives, we were able to generate a fund of $500,000 at Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, which seeded the Rapid Response Fund.

And immediately thereafter, knowing that we had a little bit of funding to be able to provide community organizations, our Oakland Thrives team was able to actually set up a review committee and an application process so that community organizations could apply online through the philanthropic ventures website.

They could provide a very basic application, it was not tremendously burdensome.

They could provide some organizational budget, and then those proposals were reviewed quickly by a committee of organizational leaders, including representation from our food bank, some of our community organizations who were not planning to apply to the Rapid Response Fund, as well as staff of Oakland Thrives.

So there was care taken so that there was a representative review panel for these funds.

Along the way, we ended up in a conversation with many funders, and we had additional donations of another 500,000 from philanthropic organizations in the immediate aftermath of setting up the fund.

And then just recently, we've had an additional contribution of 100,000 from another philanthropic organization, bringing the total of the Rapid Response Fund to 1.1 million dollars that we've raised and mostly dispersed within about 30 days.

So we're incredibly grateful for the support of you all of our other stakeholders who contributed.

All in all, the idea was to provide these grants to organizations that were on the front lines.

We were prioritizing organizations that were smaller grassroots organizations that were providing that last mile support.

Many of them had no paid staff, really volunteer-based organizations.

The average grant size for the organizations that I'm sorry, the average budget size for the organizations who applied was about a million dollars.

So that tells you that there were some that had larger budgets, but many that had smaller budgets.

So these are very small grassroots organizations who applied.

So we did have an informal cap of about 15,000 per grant.

There were a few instances where we granted up to 25,000 dollars to organizations that served in multiple regions of the county in multiple settings, but for the majority of the grants, they were between 5,000 and $15,000, and the majority of them were $15,000.

These were to community organizations, educational entities, faith-based organizations, all of which are fighting food insecurity.

81 applicants, 74 grants were funded for an 87% approval rate.

The review process included verifying that these organizations were 501c3s, that they had boards of directors, that they had, you know, enough formal process and financial capability to absorb a grant.

We noted in some cases where an organization had requested 15,000 and yet their total budget was maybe around that amount.

We opted to provide a smaller amount of funding so as not to swamp the organization with funding that they might not be prepared to absorb.

And so that was some of the ways in which we thought about making these grants in a way that we're gonna distribute the funding broadly as well as represent the important contribution that these organizations are making to ending food security and security.

So total funding distributed to date is 882,000, but we have additional grants that have been approved, and so $998,900 is encumbered or spent, and those funds are on their way out the door to the organizations that have applied.

We did close the fund on November 26th in recognition of the fact that this the impetus for this fund really was the SNAP freeze.

And yes, SNAP funds are flowing again.

So this particular intervention has come full circle.

That is not to say, as my colleague Reggie shared, that we have addressed food insecurity, that we're done.

We're far from done.

In fact, we're expecting the demand for food support to continue and only increase, especially as the impact of HR1 is felt in our communities.

So we're really, really proud of the effort, and we recognize this is a was a moment in time.

So we can go to the next slide.

Just a bit of a window into who was funded.

These are organizations that did have a track record of providing food support.

These are neighborhood-based grassroots organizations, as I mentioned.

They're serving a variety of populations.

We asked in the application process: are they intentionally partnering with schools, with libraries, with other organizations, so that we were not just looking at organizations that are standalone but ones that are integrated within a system of care.

And we did look geographically across all five county districts and at all of our cities in Alameda County, and the applicants, the awarded applicants are these percentages from our various cities, 44% of awards going to Oakland and 11% to Hayward, 8% to Fremont, unincorporated Alameda County received 8% of grants, Berkeley received 6%, and San Leandro 6%.

Go to the next slide.

So a bit of a view of some of the ways to look at the grantees, the geographies of the supervisorial districts, the types of populations served, and the types of food distribution that organizations engage in.

And all of these add up to more than 100% because organizations actually serve multiple populations.

They serve multiple geographies, and they will do, you know, home delivery and food pantry work.

So many of them ticked off several of these boxes when asked.

One thing to note is that the majority of these grants were given to food pantry or organizations that provide food pantry services and home delivery, and that's in keeping with the intention of this rapid response grant.

It was get food purchase, get it out the door.

I'll also note that many of these organizations are also in partnership with Alameda County Community Food Bank, and these grants enable them to, in partnership with the food bank receive those food resources and then also purchase additional or perhaps put gas in their car, you know, provide some funding support for their staff and do other things that are needed in order to get that food out the door.

There are fewer organizations that provide vouchers, for example, for market match for organizations that are food hubs that provide supply chain work, procuring food from the Central Valley, bringing it into our ecosystem.

So it's not that those categories of activity are less important.

It's just that there are fewer organizations that engage in those activities.

Which leads me to my final concluding comment, which is as we think about what's next, this rapid response fund is wrapped.

However, we still have a need to invest strategically in our food resilience system.

And I say food security, we are in a period where we're not food secure.

We're not food secure at the family level, and we're not food secure at the community level because of the threats that we're facing to our basic safety net, and frankly, to our economy from many of the impacts of recent policy decisions.

And that said, we have the capacity within Alameda County where we grow our own food.

We have health systems that are talking to our individuals about how to eat healthy, how to support their families' health.

We have an incredible public health system that is talking with new mothers about how to access WIC benefits.

We have an amazing social services agency that enrolls families in SNAP when SNAP is available and when families are still eligible.

And this food system also includes many last mile providers who are getting that food moved around the county to places where it needs to go, providers that are preparing meals for individuals who are unhoused or who otherwise can't prepare meals themselves, organizations that are providing congregate meals or who are farming within Alameda County.

So all of those organizations and efforts together form a resilient system, and the resiliency will be increased when we can provide coordination, making sure that those supply chain organizations are partnered with our organizations that are getting the food out the door, are partnered with our farmers and our health care centers and our schools.

So there's an opportunity, I think, in the coming months for us to continue a coordinated response to the threats that we're experiencing in our policy system around food.

And I'm really pleased to continue the partnership with the Board of Supervisors with Alameda County Community Food Bank and the many, many community-based organizations that are part of a food system roundtable, Supervisor Fortunato Bass that your team has convened.

And I think through additional strategic investments in that resilient food system, we can withstand these threats that we face, and our families can continue to be provided with food.

But beyond that, our families can actually feel a sense of confidence about where their next meal is coming from.

It's going to come from our local safety net that we've been developing and can solidify and strengthen.

That's all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Melanie.

We do have a final set of slides we want to go through just to share a little bit more about the investments in food system and food security.

Oh, Melanie, the last slide that had the map, the sort of heat map.

Did you did you want to?

Yeah, why don't you share that so it's part of the video?

Well, map of the locations of the grantees in the rapid response fund.

You can see the distribution and the key is not on this map, but if you click on the link in the materials, it will provide you with an actual clickable map with a key.

But the the blue dots, which are the predominant number of dots, are community-based organizations, and then you have some faith-based organizations, some parks in rec and some food hubs also.

And you can see, of course, the majority hug that 880 corridor with some also out in Livermore and other parts of the county.

Just a quick question before we go to the next set of slides.

Do you have a sense of whether this is similar to the map of where the most Calfresh recipients are?

That's a great question.

I would say similar, yes.

And just glancing at this map and thinking about what I know of Reggie, you probably have a better sense of that overlay.

Or Tony is.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's go to our last set of slides, then we'll have a little discussion before we get to public comment.

Okay, so we wanted to share some of the investments in food security.

It's been a relatively short amount of time since the federal HR 1 budget bill passed, the September presentation on food security, and now.

So there's been a total of 18.6 million in county as well as private investment in food security in Alameda County.

It's been distributed or allocated towards food procurement and the amount of 7.3 million prepared meals and the amount of 4.7 million, and that's prepared meals for seniors and our unhoused neighbors.

Food system partners have been allocated $4.4 million.

So that is the network that partners with the food bank, all of those sort of medium to small sized organizations that support our food security system with the food bank, and then 2.2 million towards nutrition, which is our food as medicine program here at the county, as well as market match.

So that gives us a sense of what the allocations are towards food security.

Next slide.

As was mentioned, there have been a number of funders who have really stepped up in the past few months.

Our board of supervisors here at Alameda County has allocated 16.5 million, and the final slide will go through how that's distributed.

1.6 million has been raised from foundations, 300,000 from other government entities, and I believe that portion of 300,000 is the Alameda County Office of Education, Superintendent Castro's contribution of 200,000 in my office's contribution of 100,000, and then nonprofits 200,000 from Oakland Thrives.

And so again, this is all funding since July 1st due to the federal impacts, but we also know there was also the double impact of ARPA funds sunsetting.

And of course, we heard a request, which was actually for 20 million dollars at the September Act for All meeting, and we're able to move forward a request, which the board funded of 10 million.

And just briefly to touch on the 1.6 million from foundations, I'll just read off a list of the foundations who contributed to that investment.

That includes 500,000 from crank start, 500,000 from Eat Learn Play, 500,000 from an anonymous donor that came in after the response fund was set up, which myself and others helped to secure 200,000, as I said, from Alameda County Office of Education, 200,000 from Oakland Thrives, 100,000 from my office, and also a hundred thousand from the Haas Junior Fund.

So again, this is all money that came about very quickly because of the crisis of the government shutdown and the pause and cal fresh benefits on November 1st.

And then if we go to the final slide, this is Alameda County's funding allocations from the Board of Supervisors.

And so the 16.5 million that we allocated between July and October went or is going towards food procurement, 6.3 million, our food system partners, again, that very, very vast network of organizations across our county, that's $4 million, meals for seniors, $2.7 million, meals for unhoused neighbors, $2 million, our food as medicine program, 1 million, and our food recovery programming, which is a half million.

And so again, our food system partners includes organizations across the entire county that distribute food, provide meal delivery, and it was good to see that the rapid response fund funded meal delivery, which is more and more in demand given the immigration crisis we're undergoing.

And it also includes pantries, food recovery, market match, and our local farms.

So I hope that information is helpful.

And at this point, we'll go to any comments or questions.

Supervisor Marquez.

Thank you so much for this comprehensive, detailed and really short turnaround.

So just thank you to everyone who is instrumental in leading in the space.

Our community has really benefited from your leadership, your vision, and your tenacity.

So we can do great things when we communicate and we dedicate time and energy to make things happen.

I really appreciate the funding breakdown because I've been asking for a memo.

There's so many numbers out there, and just wanting to be really clear, and from what I'm understanding, this is all of the allocations affected July 1st, which some of this had to do with our budget process, some of it had to do with measure W.

But am I correct to flag that this doesn't include existing contracts?

This is all like additive.

Is that correct?

That's what I'm I'm also not clear about and want to have clarity in terms of I know SSA has a long-standing contract with the food bank.

So I don't expect an answer, but it just would, if you have it, that's great.

That is correct.

So the 16.5 is an allocation from Measure W.

So it was um all in this current fiscal year, including during our budget process, as you said, as well as during our measured measure W deliberations.

Okay.

And then Reggie, do you know that the current existing contracts, like let's just say pre-June 30th, what was the existing contract with SSA and the food bank?

2.5 for food procurement.

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

And then with respect to the spread of the grants throughout the entire county, that is impressive.

Um that is often some of the feedback we get from the community in terms of high concentration in certain areas.

We want to make sure that we're addressing the needs of food security countywide, every possible neighborhood that we can.

So really appreciate the heat map that demonstrates that commitment.

Um, and I know this is an inter an integral process, more work is going to come, but just uh wanting to get a sense of were there any discussions about capacity building.

You mentioned so many organizations that are primarily volunteer-led, very low budget.

Is that also being considered in terms of next steps like how do we provide technical support and um strengthening the capacity of these smaller organizations, also introducing organizations to one another, right?

That integration.

So I don't know if you have any comments uh related to that, and um really want us to be proactive and embed this into the work because as was mentioned, we are hearing practically from everyone we interface with how expensive it is to live here.

We love this community, we love the diversity, but it's becoming more and more challenging.

So I hear you loud and clear in terms of people having to go to the food pantry, access food so that way they can fill up their gas tank, charge their vehicle, pay rent, pay the deductible for a medical appointment.

So thank you for flagging that.

We we really need to get ahead of this issue.

So I'll pause there and yeah, so uh one of the the great things about the 8.3 million that we have not received yet, uh working on the contracts for that, is that some of that can be utilized for capacity building for partners within the network.

And one of the great things about Oakland Thrive's model uh is that we brought community members to come in to think about the allocations of those resources.

So we're partnering with Oakland Thrives specifically to do exactly that same type of thing for the next allocation of resources that would go out into our network.

The idea being that one, we do get that spread, just like you're talking about in regards to the heat map throughout Alameda County.

We do it in a way that is community-led, but we also are addressing some of the other things that people are dealing with because it's not just enough to provide the food, uh, if you don't have the capacity to be able to allocate the food in a way that you need to.

And so that could be additional refrigeration, that could be additional manpower and so forth.

Because that does bring a wide array of different types of partners to the table.

So the idea being that we can build from that foundation to create more spaces for partners to engage with each other, learn from each other, collectively move this work as a group.

Some other thoughts that are coming to mind is, you know, this is something that occurs throughout the county, but I will just be very candid.

Many people in my district, I also hear it in unincorporated the thoughts and concerns around street vendors.

So I'm also thinking of how is there a way we could bring those individuals into the fold and get them license permitted?

Um, how can we work with our local restaurants?

My family's owned a restaurant for 59 years.

If there was a mechanism where we could package the food that's not used, I mean, there's just so much we can do here.

So just um thank you.

Thank you for convening the people, but I am gonna ask that we think even broader, like this can really touch upon so many issues we're grappling in the county.

So I'm just really thankful that all of you are at the table, but I think um more work to be done, but you've um you've piloted this and you've um executed it well.

So I'm just really really excited and thank you all for doing that.

Um on the topic of capacity building, I did want to lift up that just yesterday there was a meeting of the food system partner round table, and we had some small group breakouts, and people were talking about in my particular breakout room how to partner better with schools and libraries or and schools broadly defined colleges as well as ECE centers.

And there was a uh you know, food entrepreneur on the call who started talking about the way that he was able to engage uh a volunteer in his organization who works in AI, and then also some interns to actually develop a system by which families can log in to an app and uh on the island of Alameda, find exactly where there are food distributions happening in any given day or time, and they can sign up for notifications.

So, so that's an example of his individual um uh organization developing this capacity, and on that call, he wanted to share it with everyone.

So he's a single organization in Alameda, wanting to share it with 75 organizations around the county.

That may not be the best thing for everyone, but the but the innovations are happening at the ground level.

And so I do think part of capacity building is being able to resource and provide that support and also just do the convening so that organizations can learn from each other.

I love your suggestion around restaurants.

I think certainly um food retail, including restaurants, is an under-leveraged opportunity to provide additional um food support to communities.

Some informal relationships exist, and I think what we want to do with a better system coordination or you know, countywide network, is to take some of these informal collaborations and formalize them or spread them, replicate them so that it's not just, oh, you happen to know the person who runs the restaurant down the street and you're gonna go pick up the food after work, um, but then there is a way in which that's being systematized, and there's some great organizations like Stop Waste and others that are starting to do that work.

Um, and one quick correction for the record, um, Supervisor Fortunato Basta, 100,000 um most recently came from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, which is used to be known as Haas Senior Fund.

Thank you for that clarification.

I know there's at least two of them.

Yeah, okay.

So the Has Senior Fund, Senior Fund.

Thank you for that.

And can I just ask has the uh topic of street vendors come up at all in terms of how do we incorporate the needs of those individuals that are just trying to provide food for their own families?

Um, I haven't seen it brought up formally in the in some of these conversations I've been in.

However, when I have interviewed um Councilmember Noel Gallo as well as Chris Iglesias from Unity Council on these topics, they bring up um street vendors immediately and say that a principal way that many people are are sourcing food in the fruitvale community is from street vendors, and that it's um it's actually an important part of the food system.

So I appreciate you lifting that up.

Thank you.

Thank you for those uh very good comments and questions.

Um I'll try to be brief so we can get to public comment very soon.

Um I do want to note that, you know, it was already said at this meeting as well as in September, not only that food is a human right, but the need for food is growing, continues to grow even post pandemic.

And so, you know, I'm personally very interested in partnering with our broader community in making sure that we are creating a system that can weather this current federal administration and can really uh systemically create a system that is providing food security, providing food sovereignty.

You know, we're Alameda County, we have farmland, we have urban farmland as well, so we should be able to really feed our residents.

So I do want to just take a point of privilege here and ask my staff person, Alisa Cosmi to talk a little bit about the food system roundtable, maybe just touching very briefly on how it came up and how we've been trying to convene and utilize that space to really bring folks together so that we can continue building out a system that will work even better for the entire county.

Thanks, Alisa.

Thank you, Supervisor for the record, Elisa Cosmi, community partnerships director for the Office of Supervisor Fortunato Bass.

Um, so we have been really fortunate to convene over the past few months a total of over 60 partner organizations, and this really came up in September, really late summer onwards because we saw that especially with the impacts that are coming with HR1, that it was more important now than ever to continue the conversations with the food bank, continue conversations with other larger organizations and coalitions, and also be intentional about bringing in small to medium sized CBOs and ensure geographic representation because although there's a lot of common threads, we know that you know South County versus unincorporated area and East County and North County have different dynamics, and so um we really appreciate all of the different CPOs who have been active in that space, and I think one of the um you know pieces that's really come up is this desire to partner and collaborate more to achieve stronger impact.

And like Reggie was saying, you know, think about sustainability and how we can continue to meet people where they're at in this growing crisis and also think long-term about how to strengthen our countywide food system.

So we've had some pretty in-depth conversations just over our first few Zoom calls around various aspects of the circular food economy, including producing food, procuring and recovering food, um, aggregating and processing it, and then of course, all of the different distribution, creative distribution methods, you know, leveraging kind of maybe more new and emerging partners, and to supervisor Marquez's point, you know, unfortunately, we are also seeing different immigrant community members literally losing their already um limited access to food because of concerns about going to work or going to um, you know, food distributions, and I've personally seen more people kind of thinking about their food entrepreneurship or um their just volunteer capacity, frankly, and being able to access food that way.

And so we definitely have a very resilient community, a very united community, and people are um willing to come together, and that's so promising, and I really look forward to continued conversations in this round table space, especially the breakouts.

Uh, we were talking about that yesterday, you know, um, people kind of self-select into different strategic topics every month, and from there we're slowly building some metrics that we're going to continue to align around to say, like by the end of 2026, 2027, you know, how do we want to be able to demonstrate that we are tangibly increasing our partnerships and collaborations for impact?

Thank you.

And I'll just add that it's really important in everything that we do to ensure geographic diversity as well as equity, and so um we have been reaching out to board offices for your feedback on who else to include in this round table.

But if you have additional feedback, we certainly welcome that.

And my office is happy to play a convening role, but you know, this is really something we are co-creating with everyone because it's something that is really based on the principle of food sovereignty as well as food security.

So I'll just make a final comment, which is that you know, I think the work that this committee has been doing since our first meeting in February has really shown the need to invest in our safety net.

Um HR1 is certainly the most obvious way that our safety net is being impacted, but we're certainly seeing with various policy decisions with budget impacts that the state is bearing because of the federal administration, that there are impacts on access to health care, on mental health, on our LGBTQ community, our immigrant community, reproductive justice, those are topics we have covered here.

And so as we look forward to next year's budget process, I think it will be very important that the Measure W Essential County Services Fund is laser focused on our safety net.

Um there's much, much more need than we are going to be able to cover with the balance of what's in Measure W for our essential county services.

I believe the balance is 182 million.

And so that money does need to go towards the basic needs that people have, is my personal opinion.

Um so I look forward to that conversation in the new year, as well as the staff proposal on the five-year plan.

Councilmember Mark has any final comments before public comment.

Supervisor, you call me council member.

Oh, I'm sorry, it's okay.

We're so um connected to our former positions.

But uh no, just I really appreciate the work and um tying it into the evolving work with Measure W.

So this is uh really good background data uh for us to bring forward and I concur, as was mentioned repeatedly, it is becoming more and more difficult to live and survive in this community, so we have to find ways to meet every community member, especially the most vulnerable populations, their basic needs.

So I'm excited about the opportunity to expand the work that you've already started.

So thank you for um bringing this forward.

Thank you.

So at this time, we'll entertain public comments on our agenda item, which included public charge, food security, and if anyone would like to comment on the HUD homeless funding, we'll entertain those comments too.

Got it.

Thank you, Supervisor Fortnite.

Before we start, I just want to give instructions on how to participate.

Um, if you're participating in person, please fill out a speaker card and hand it to me.

Um, if you're online, please raise your virtual hand.

It's at the bottom of the Zoom screen.

I do see we have a call-in speaker.

If you'd like to speak, please dial star nine to raise your hand.

Thank you.

Um, first speaker will be Tony Panetta.

Thank you.

Tony, go ahead.

Sorry, Tony, it seems that we have some mic issues on your end.

We're going to move to Mariselo Kinoez.

Good afternoon, Supervisors.

Marcelo Quinone is here with the Alameda County Office of Education.

I wanted to provide a brief update on Alameda County Office of Education initiatives that my colleagues have reported on during prior committee meetings.

Uh recently, ACOE distributed 5,500 gift cards for uh groceries to support foster youth and homeless youth.

Uh, those cards were distributed to our 18 local school districts.

We also wanted to provide a brief update on the safe pathways project.

We will be communicating next week with school leaders about the availability of supplies for that project to ensure students and families feel safe in dropping off and picking up their students at local schools.

Carler, go ahead.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

This is Tony Panetta with Alameda Health Consortium.

Sorry about the technical issues previously.

I want to thank the committee for holding this discussion today and for these agenda items for the earlier speakers.

I'd like to speak on the public charge item and to note that within the Safety Net Healthcare Provider Network of the Federally Qualified Health Centers that Alameda Health Consortium represents, we are seeing a suppression effect of policies under this administration and expect that the new proposed public charge rule will exacerbate the suppression effect that we're already feeling.

We appreciate that this committee is familiar with during the first Trump administration that research showed that 25% of low-income immigrant adults in California avoided Medi-Cal and other benefits from 2018 to 2020, and wanted to put for the record findings released from Kaiser Family Foundation in November of this year that more than 40% of immigrant adults nationally and nearly 77% of likely undocumented immigrants have reported negative health effects targeted to immigration related peers since January.

Locally, we have already seen a decline in immigrant patients who are choosing to enroll in Medi-Cal, and we also have seen an increase in no shows amongst our patients.

So we appreciate the consideration of the effects of the revised public charge rule on top of notices at CMS that the federal level has shared personally identifying information with the U.S.

Department of Health.

I'm sorry, U.S.

Department of Human Services that is likely being used for immigration enforcement activities.

We encourage the county to submit comments on the proposed public charge rule and to continue pursuing as much flexibility as possible to enroll in benefits, such as the use of digital signatures and repealing the use of wet signatures if possible.

Thank you.

There are no more speakers.

Thank you so much to Tony from the Health Consortium as well as to Marcelo from ACOE for those updates and that information.

At this time, if there's anyone who wishes to share public comment on items not on the agenda, please go ahead and raise your hand or fill out a speaker card.

There are no speakers.

Okay.

Well, thank you everyone for a very robust discussion.

We appreciate your time and participation.

And at this time, the meeting is adjourned until January 15th.

That's our next meeting.