News Details
City Council Expands Meal Program Funding
April 23, 2020
Last night, the Oceanside City Council approved an additional nearly $30,000 funding for meal programs to assist Oceanside’s most vulnerable residents during the pandemic. This program serves to support some economically-impacted small businesses, as well as community members in need.
On March 18, 2020, the Oceanside City Council directed staff to provide additional support to the community through an increase in a hot meal program. At its meeting on March 25, the Council appropriated over $500,000 for community food resource assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff quickly developed a program which funded and paired various local restaurants with non-profit community-serving groups to provide daily meals to recommended group homes and vulnerable Oceanside seniors. An additional program by the City funds services by O’side Kitchen Collaborative, working out of the City’s newly constructed Green Oceanside Kitchen at El Corazon, to prepare meals which are picked up curbside by homeless-serving groups and other non-profits for dispersal.
To date, well over 28,400 meals were distributed through O’side Kitchen collaborative and over 1,700 restaurant “to go” meals were provided per week by local businesses. Further, 290 food boxes have been distributed per week through the City’s Resource Centers, and the City’s contract with Serving Seniors provided an additional 180 meals each day.
Other City actions to assist the community include the development of a Business Loan Program, a temporary ban on both commercial and residential evictions, a rent deferral program for City-owned properties, a Utility Relief Program for businesses impacted, and the novel delivery of Library materials to Oceanside residents (over 100 deliveries each day). Other City services continue online, including Development Services, with possibly the only City in San Diego County to perform all types of building plan reviews in-house with an electronic plan review process.
Food and other COVID-19-related resources may be found here.
