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With the expansion of social services in the Tri-Valley, including the recent opening of the Vineyard Resource Center in Livermore and forthcoming projects like the Open Heart Kitchen Food Bank, it becomes more apparent that need exists in the region despite its affluence, particularly as it relates to food insecurity.
The Tri-Valley has needed 14% more food from the Alameda County Community Food Bank (ACCFB) in this fiscal year so far — which includes July 2023 to February 2024 — compared to the first eight months of last fiscal year.
“The increase in food is a direct reflection of the demand from our agency partners,” wrote Michael Altfest, director of community engagement and marketing at ACCFB. “It’s safe to assume the demand for food assistance is increasing.”
Among ACCFB’s Tri-Valley partners are Open Heart Kitchen and Tri-Valley Haven, two nonprofits whose work overlaps in addressing food insecurity — or the lack of consistent and dependable access to food that is nutritionally adequate and safe, or compromised ability to get that food in “socially acceptable ways,” as defined by the USDA.
Since 2022, an increasing number of people have sought help at TVH’s food pantry. The organization offers low-income Tri-Valley residents free groceries at the pantry and specializes in providing shelter and support to adults and children who have experienced sexual assault, domestic violence or houselessness.
TVH served 5,045 unduplicated individuals (the term for tracking unique, separate people) from Livermore, Pleasanton and Dublin in the 2023 fiscal year from July 2022 to June 2023. This was an increase of nearly 20% compared to the previous fiscal year from July 2021 to June 2022.
The rise is anticipated to continue this fiscal year (July 2023 to June 2024), where TVH expects to serve 17% more unduplicated individuals than last.
Demand at the food pantry is directly correlated with food insecurity, according to Juliana Schirmer, director of development and communications at Tri-Valley Nonprofit Alliance (TVNPA), a coalition of nonprofits that includes OHK, TVH and more.
Christine Dillman, executive director of TVH, reasons that recent losses of pandemic-era government relief, like the end of rental moratoriums in March 2022, likely contributed to the boost in demand for food assistance at TVH.
Also reflective of the growing need for food assistance in the area was the near-doubling of Tri-Valley residents receiving CalFresh — a food assistance program in California that subsidizes low-income residents to purchase fresh, quality food — from 4,987 people in April 2020 to 8,133 people in April 2023, according to a report by TVNPA.
Livermore resident and 32-year-old mom, Kalyssa Roddewig, is among those in the Tri-Valley who have struggled to put food on the table.
Over five years ago, while living in her car and expecting her first child, she applied to CalFresh. She told Embarcadero Media Foundation that this was the second time she’d enrolled in the program and it allowed her to buy the food she needed.
Now she lives in low-income housing in Livermore and enjoys buying healthy food for her growing family with the help of CalFresh. She said she also leans on OHK’s meal services in Livermore once, twice or sometimes more every week.
Food insecurity is also a significant issue at the county level.
From 2019 to 2021, Feeding America estimates food insecurity as affecting between 134,800 and 154,830 Alameda County residents, according to its national study called Map the Meal Gap. This accounted for 8.1% to 9.3% of county residents.
“An important caveat here — this data does not account for cost of living at the county level compared to the state. As such, many food banks in high cost of living areas —ours included — consider these numbers to be significant underestimates,” wrote Altfest.
Also, statistics on food insecurity don’t account for unauthorized residents or those who don’t fit in the federal guidelines, according to Yu-Ling Chang, assistant professor of social welfare at UC Berkeley. So the actual number of people experiencing difficulties obtaining consistent and nutritional food is likely higher than reported.
According to Altfest, about one in four residents of the county experience or are at risk of hunger.
The ACCFB’s statistic is based on a broader definition of need than the USDA’s, accounting for people who are “marginally food insecure,” or those who “at times had problems with or anxiety about accessing adequate nutrition,” according to a report by the food bank and Urban Institute.
Racial disparities related to food insecurity exist in Alameda County too. In 2021, an estimated 18% of Black households in the county experienced unreliable or inconsistent access to food, an estimated 11% of Hispanic households and an estimated 4% of white households, according to the study by Feeding America.
Elevated rates of food insecurity can be caused by racially discriminative structures, including minimal grocery store access in some communities, according to Chang.
The elimination of CalFresh’s Emergency Allotments (EAs) has contributed to growing difficulties in accessing food in Alameda County, Altfest wrote.
Beginning in March 2020, CalFresh recipients received EAs, which meant they were offered the maximum allowable aid for their family size. The last EAs rolled out in March 2023.
Conclusion of the emergency aid meant a decrease in CalFresh benefits to households by an average of $89 per month, according to the ACCFB website.
The organization estimated more than 100,000 households in Alameda County would see a reduction in benefits starting April 2023, estimated as a loss in 3.1 million meals per month in the county.
At the current rate of monthly benefits, CalFresh does not cover the cost of groceries in Alameda County, Chang explained. Whereas a household of one receives an estimated average monthly benefit of $202 from SNAP in the 2024 fiscal year, the estimated cost of food for an individual in the county is about $419 per month, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“While we can’t 100% tie (the increase in number of individuals served) back to elimination of the CalFresh extended benefits, the timing certainly correlates that more people are struggling to meet their financial obligations and they’re definitely struggling with food,” Schirmer said about the change in demand at TVH’s food pantry from 2022 to 2023.
Despite thousands of Alameda County residents who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, the problem is not often ascribed to the Tri-Valley, according to John Bost, executive director of OHK.
“At the end of the day, when people do not have enough money in their pockets, they are going to make cuts within their budget. And it just so happens that food, out of every sort of item in a family budget, tends to be the most flexible,” Bost said. “So people will almost always strike food, or the type of food or the frequency of food that they can get before they’ll cut anything else.”
Some Tri-Valley residents, including service workers, new graduates and seniors on fixed income, battle high cost of living, inflation and wages that don’t keep up, Schirmer said.
OHK, which specializes in providing equitable access to nutritious meals to Tri-Valley residents, including seniors and other community members, served 418,292 meals between July 2022 to June 2023, a drop from the 454,829 meals it served from July 2021 to June 2022.
Further decline is anticipated for fiscal year 2024, when OHK projects it will serve around 400,000 meals.
Bost said they expect to produce less meals this fiscal year than last because of recent program elimination and cutback, like the end of to-go meals at senior centers last July, the cessation of dinner service at Ridgeview Commons senior apartments last June and the decrease in weekly street outreach visits.
To-go meals were eliminated to encourage seniors to socialize, dinner services ended at Ridgeview Commons to stop duplicating the service offered at Pleasanton Senior Center and pandemic-era outreach was reduced as other services returned post-pandemic and the Vineyard Resource Center opened, according to Bost.
“I don’t feel that our raw data tells the complete picture just yet,” Bost said. “We don’t yet have enough data to know if there is an increase or decrease just yet. We will have more data to work with to make that determination next year, after things level out a bit.”
He emphasized that regardless of the downturn in the number of meals served by OHK, need still exists.
In the face of any level of need, Bost emphasized that the charity food sector requires funding, as equal amounts of support are required to meet growing and declining demand, to “not lose ground” on the work they’ve already done.
“Nonprofits, in general, cannot take their foot off the donor pedal in raising funds and development,” Bost said.
More information about Open Heart Kitchen or Tri-Valley Haven can be found at openheartkitchen.org and trivalleyhaven.org.
