To: Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
Department or Agency Name(s): Office of Equity, Emergency Management
Staff Name and Phone Number: Alegria De La Cruz, 565-8709; Jeffrey DuVall, 565-1152
Vote Requirement: Majority
Supervisorial District(s): Countywide
Title:
Title
Essential Workers Immediate Needs and Low Wage Disaster Pay Programs
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Recommended Action:
Recommended action
Receive an update on recent Emergency Financial Assistance efforts.
end
Executive Summary:
During the FY2022-23 Budget Hearings, the Board dedicated $2 million to a Sonoma County Disaster Immediate Needs Fund and $1 million toward Low Wage Disaster Pay initiatives. Discussion related to the scope of the services to be provided with these funds also took place as part of the Board’s consideration of an Agriculture Access Identification Card program at a Board of Supervisors Policy Workshop in July 2022 and again in August 2022.
The Office of Equity (OoE) and the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) were directed to return with next steps regarding defined purposes, scope, and use parameters for the two funding allocations. This item provides information on the Immediate Needs funds used related to the January 2023 Storm Event and provides considerations for the usage of the remaining Immediate Needs and Low Wage Disaster Pay funds.
Discussion:
As wildfire, floods, and other disasters in Sonoma County (“County”) continue to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change, the immediate and cumulative impact to residents and communities that have been traditionally underserved has generated significant interest and need for novel solutions and resources. This also serves as an example of the many challenges communities and residents face related to the implications of climate change.
This item focuses first on the Sonoma County Disaster Immediate Needs Fund, including an overview of uses of this fund to date and recommendations for future use. It then focuses on recommendations associated with how to best utilize the funds set aside for a Low Wage Disaster Pay Program.
Sonoma County Disaster Immediate Needs Fund ($2 million)
1. Uses to date - Recovery Support Center Efforts in the January 2023 Storms
The 2023 Winter Storms impacted county residents with power shutoffs, spoiled food, inability to get to work due to flooded roads, closed businesses, lack of heat, lost wages, inability to get gas for cars, RVs and generators, and other impacts. Over 4,600 customers were without power as of January 10, 2023. While the storms did not result in a major disaster declaration from the Federal Government, low wage workers experienced food insecurity and threats to housing stability due to work stoppages and power outages from ongoing storms. In the Recovery Support Center (RSC) effort, through the Emergency Operations Center, the County Board of Supervisors approved funding and partnered with community-based organizations (CBOs) worked together to provide emergency financial assistance to those most affected.
Through the collection of demographic data, the County and its project partners gleaned important information about those affected that can feed programmatic elements in future recovery efforts to help families move forward post-disaster to a new and better level of sustainability. The Office of Equity (OoE), Department of Emergency Management (DEM), and County Administrator’s Office (CAO) partnered with Sonoma County Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD), to create a pilot solution to address community post-storm needs.
Distribution Logistics:
The County entered into contract with Community Action Partnership (CAP) Sonoma for the period from January 12, 2023, to April 13, 2023, in the amount of $631,713, for CAP to order and distribute the gift cards.
To undertake this task, CAP Sonoma set up a calendar of weekly distributions at three locations: Guerneville, Healdsburg, and Santa Rosa. Prior to the distribution days, CAP staff called, emailed and/or mailed letters to 1,080 eligible individuals who had registered at the RSCs to inform them about the distribution days. CAP staff were available in Guerneville on three sequential Mondays, in Healdsburg on three sequential Wednesdays, and Fridays in Santa Rosa during March. Overall, response was high and some days CAP accommodated people who were not able to travel or attend distribution days by traveling to their homes.
As of June 20, 2023, CAP Sonoma distributed $575,600 in gift cards to 1,054 people in Sonoma County. There were 26 people who have not been reached after several modes of contact and CAP has these funds remaining available for future needs. The remaining $41,000 was retained by CAP for administrative overhead (approximately 8.4%).
CAP also received an additional $25,000 from the Immediate Needs Fund to provide long-term disaster case management services.
Applicants for EFA must have met the following requirements to qualify for emergency financial assistance: applicant had to be impacted by the storms, including impacts from power outage, evacuation warning, flooding, road closures, loss of wages, additional expenses, and/or displacement from their permanent residence; have experienced increased food or housing insecurity as a result of flooding emergency/rainstorm; and be income eligible - either at or below 60% Area Median Income (AMI), or receiving specific forms of financial assistance to support daily living, or at or below 80% AMI and proof of having experienced unemployment. Twelve criteria were used to assess the household’s disaster impact. A score of one or higher would make a household eligible for assistance. Funding was provided in the range of $250 to $800 dollars. The County approved 39 households to receive $250 (score>0), 305 households for $400 (score >3), 680 households for $600 (score >6), and 73 households for $800 (score >9). Total of 1,097 participant intakes were done at the RSCs, with 1,054 ultimately receiving EFA as discussed above.
Outcomes of CAP Distributions:
The initial tranche of Immediate Needs funds distributed through the Recovery Support Center effort included a significant effort to collect and analyze demographic data to assist in future planning efforts. Those results are provided in Attachment A.
Expanded Program:
At the January 31, 2023, Board meeting, the Board authorized an additional $371,250 to be distributed to geographic areas outside of the work undertaken by the EOC and CAP. CAO staff worked to identify community-based organizations in the Petaluma and Sonoma Valley areas that would be willing and able to distribute the funds in a timely manner. After considerable outreach, Petaluma People Services Center (PPSC) agreed to distribute $308,287 through outreach to targeted areas as well as through countywide applications. The remaining $62,963 was distributed through the Sonoma County Grape Grower’s Foundation to employers with affected employees. PPPSC distributed a total of $96,140 as follows: $70,000 in rental assistance, $17,400 for food, and $8,740 in indirect expenses. PPPSC received 280 applications, of which 152 were funded.
The Sonoma County Grape Grower’s Foundation provided an additional funding match of $30,800, and following administrative fees, distributed a total of $89,000 by providing $250 gift cards to 356 individuals.
A total of $812,853 of the initial $2 million allocated for the Immediate Needs Fund have been used, leaving a remaining available balance of $1,187,147.
2. Future Uses of the Remaining Sonoma County Community Disaster Immediate Needs Fund
In May of 2022, the Board awarded an American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) planning grant to DEM, OoE, Communities Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD), and the COVID-19 Urgent Relief and Assistance (CURA) Project to facilitate recommendations regarding culturally responsive disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. In that effort, OoE staff held interviews with various community partners to ask about their experience with disaster emergency financial assistance (funded through the county as well as other sources of funds). Some community-based organizations (CBOs) had experience during the 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020 fires, and some also had experience in the 2023 Winter Storms. Interviews took place in July and August 2023 with the following organizations: CAP Sonoma, UndocuFund, Catholic Charities, Corazon Healdsburg, West County Community Services, La Luz, La Plaza/CURA, Sonoma County Economic Development Board, and Legal Aid of Sonoma County.
Key Interview Findings:
• CBOs primarily serve a majority of low-income, Spanish-speaking clients.
• The majority of clients work in wineries, agricultural operations, housekeeping and janitorial, day labor, construction, and hospitality.
• Outreach is done by word-of-mouth, social media, door-to-door knocking, radio, through promotora networks, WhatsApp groups, local parks, places of worship, tabling around the community, and food distribution sites.
• To deliver disaster aid, CBOs pivot away from regular programming, which puts them at jeopardy for losing other grant funds, and County administrative/indirect fees are typically insufficient to cover realized costs.
• Household and/or individuals’ funding needs included rent, utility payments, gasoline, temporary shelter, and to replace spoiled food.
• Funding amounts in the range of $600 to $1,200, and up to $3,000 in some cases, are estimated to be the appropriate level to provide meaningful assistance to residents.
• CBOs need flexibility to deliver aid in a way that is requested by the individuals and families they serve, either checks or gift cards.
Next Steps:
Given lessons learned from the January 2023 storm event, and the difficulties in getting financial assistance out to those in need in an efficient and timely manner throughout the county, OoE staff will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) process to seek and secure CBO partners who would be able to identify and distribute funds to those in need expeditiously following a disaster event. Engaging CBO partners to distribute EFA recognizes the importance of leveraging community relationships with CBO partners to reach residents who experience institutional marginalization from County, State, and federal systems and resulting benefits and supports. These contracts would also utilize the Anti-Racist Results Based Accountability framework, assessing the impact of our funding on underserved and underrepresented communities who are disproportionately impacted by disaster, and working backwards towards identifying and implementing solutions to create better outcomes that are felt and experienced in these communities.
The RFP would propose following a similar process and eligibility criteria as that used for the January 2023 storm event process, as informed by community engagement, and as further refined by staff.
OoE staff will initiate the RFP process and return to the Board with recommendations for as-needed contracts to distribute the funds remaining in the Immediate Needs Disaster Fund to ensure quick and efficient distribution to spur recovery efforts by facilitating access to resources.
Low Wage Worker Disaster Pay Program ($1 million)
Staff continues to evaluate the best use of these funds. As a County, we do not have sufficient on-going funding sources to finance a meaningful, on-going disaster relief and EFA program. As such, staff recommends efforts be undertaken to influence and support state and federal programs that would more appropriately address, on a statewide level, the needs of essential workforce during disaster events that disrupt the livelihood of households with income levels either at or below 60% Area Median Income (AMI) or receiving specific forms of financial assistance to support daily living, or at or below 80% AMI.
Legislative Advocacy Program
At the state legislative level, there have been various grant programs and bills introduced related to essential workers and disaster recovery and resiliency. Staff are currently tracking various bills, including SB 262 - California Farmworkers Drought and Flood Resilience Pilot Project, which would provide supplemental pay for eligible households, AB 408 - Climate-Resilient Farms, Sustainable Healthy Food Access, and Farmworker Protection Bond Act, which would provide bond issuance to fund related programs, and SB 227, related to unemployment for workers currently excluded from unemployment insurance programs.
Staff anticipates that Low Wage Disaster Pay program funds be used to implement a legislative advocacy campaign to advocate for unemployment insurance expansion for essential as well as undocumented workers and work lost due to a disaster, and to advocate for expansion of current USDA insurance coverage provided to agricultural/livestock producers to provide for lost pay upon proclamation of a local or state disaster.
As such, CAO staff plans on engaging with our current legislative advocacy partners on available resources to pursue this work, and if needed, will issue an RFP for dedicated, specific legislative advocacy and program development work.
Investments in Community Partnerships
As noted above, OoE, DEM, CURA, and COAD are working together on an ARPA-funded project to create equitable, sustainable, unified, community-based disaster preparedness, response, and recovery platform development to rapidly assess communities’ needs, implement solutions, and deliver targeted and relevant resources for disaster and recovery, grounded in best practices and lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery effort.
This work is explicitly linked to a goal of providing assistance to low wage workers during disasters. While the use of Emergency Financial Assistance is one element of this work, the broader project includes a thorough evaluation of how best to engage and leverage community organizations in disaster response. The ARPA project includes significant community engagement.
Staff anticipates that many valuable recommendations will be generated from the ARPA project which are expected to be completed and presented to the Board before December 2025; however, those outcomes are currently in process. As a result, staff is recommending strategically reserving the remaining Low Wage Worker Disaster Pay Program funds, which remain after the legislative advocacy program allocation is determined, as a potential source to fund recommended actions coming out of the ARPA-funded project, expected to be complete in December 2025.
Additionally, other agricultural counties in California have worked to develop specific approaches to addressing the unique needs of farmworkers in their communities through Farmworker Resource Centers, Farmworker Advisory Commissions, and Farmworker Resource Fairs. Should the Board be interested in pursuing any of these initiatives, staff resources would be required to further investigate the feasibility of such initiatives in Sonoma County, including engaging the farmworker community.
Strategic Plan:
This item directly supports the County’s Five-year Strategic Plan and is aligned with the following pillar, goal, and objective.
Pillar: Racial Equity and Social Justice
Goal: Goal 4: Engage community members and stakeholder groups to develop priorities and to advance racial equity.
Objective: Objective 2: Collaborate with community members and stakeholder groups to develop racial equity strategies for County emergency response, economic recovery and resiliency planning efforts.
Pillar: Healthy and Safe Communities
Goal: Goal 1: Expand integrated system of care to address gaps in services to the County’s most vulnerable.
Objective: Objective 2: Identify gaps in the Safety Net system of services and identify areas where departments can address those gaps directly, and seek guidance from the Board when additional resources and/or policy direction is needed.
Racial Equity:
Was this item identified as an opportunity to apply the Racial Equity Toolkit?
No
The ARPA Culturally Responsive Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Project and the Emergency Financial Assistance criteria have the Office of Equity staff in a leadership role, and, as such are grounded in equity principles and practice. The work done through engagement with CBOs as well as with community members disproportionately impacted and underserved during disasters, will help to inform and identifies gaps and areas of need in these populations.
Prior Board Actions:
1/31/23 - Board ratified County Administrator usage of funds for the January 2023 Storm Event, and allocated additional funds for this event.
FY 2022/23 Budget Hearings - Board utilized the Disaster Response Fund to create a $2 million Sonoma County Community Disaster Immediate Needs Fund, and allocated $1 million for a Low Wage Worker Disaster Pay Program. The Office of Equity and Department of Emergency Management staff were directed to return to the Board with updates and future uses for these funds.
FY 2021/22 Budget Hearings - Board approved the creation of a one-time Disaster Response Fund in the amount of $3 million.
Fiscal Summary
Narrative Explanation of Fiscal Impacts:
Staff will include request for appropriations as part of the RFP award recommendation processes discussed in this item once final funding needs are known.
Narrative Explanation of Staffing Impacts (If Required):
None
Attachments:
A: January 2023 EFA Distribution and Demographics Data
B: PowerPoint Presentation
Related Items “On File” with the Clerk of the Board:
None