Report to Mayor and City Council
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Consent
SUBJECT:
Title
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF AMENDED MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING (MOU) BETWEEN THE CITY OF CARSON AND NORMS RESTAURANTS, LLC FOR THE CARSON ESSENTIALS-TO-GO 2.0 PROGRAM (CITY COUNCIL)
Body
I. SUMMARY
On April 21, 2020, the City Council approved Resolution No. 20-072, amending the Fiscal Year 2019-2020 budget to allocate funds in an amount not to exceed $150,000 to support the Carson Essentials-To-Go program. This initiative was a collaboration between the City and Norms Restaurant, LLC to provide a variety of subsidized grocery packages for Carson residents. A total of 1,656 packages were delivered through that program. This program has enabled Carson to help minimize food insecurity for its residents, which has been a documented problem in the region. The National Library of Medicine has conducted numerous recent studies highlighting the affects of the pandemic on food insecurity on households with children. Notably, these studies revealed that 21.8% households had food insecurity that exceeded pre-pandemic hunger thresholds. Of those surveyed, monthly income of 80.6% of the households fell below the poverty line and monthly income decreased in more than half of the households during the pandemic. Food insecurity increased 2.5 times when the households comprised workers or self-employed individuals, increased 3 times when the monthly income of the households decreased, and increased 2 times when total monthly income of the household fell below poverty line during the pandemic. In short, the pandemic has exacerbated both poverty and food insecurity issues in many American cities.
On November 17, 2020, the City Council accepted an allocation of CDBG funds in the amount of $171,000 to be used towards a new program - Carson Essentials-To-Go 2.0 - which provided these same packages to Carson residents who are of a specified age or income. These additional funds exceeded the $150,00...
Click here for full text