Foster City contemplates its role related to food insecurity

Even after the reopening and resumption of food stamp benefits, however, the Foster City Council decided to discuss the issue at its meeting Nov. 17.

Councilmember Phoebe Venkat brought forth the issue, citing the overall issue of food insecurity among the community, regardless of the current shutdown lift.

“While that’s really great news, we still have people that are food insecure and have been food insecure and will continue to be food insecure in our communities,” Venkat said during the council meeting. “I think we all understand that it’s not necessarily a city’s job, especially a city the size and scope of Foster City, to be directly responsible for addressing food insecurity … that being said, we have food insecure people in our city.”

Nearly 700 city residents receive SNAP, she said, however, many more still struggle with paying their grocery bills.

Vice Mayor Art Kiesel was apprehensive, stating he didn’t want to set a precedent for such efforts, especially given the SNAP benefits have been reinstated and that providing such services or offerings are out of the city’s purview.

“We have other agencies. We have the county that are responsible for doing these things,” Kiesel said. “Each year we go and make a donation to the nonprofits in hopes that with that money, they can help the community, as well as create donations from businesses, from other nonprofits, from other clubs and service associations.”

The council entertained a few different options, ranging from donations to gift card distributions — ultimately settling on partnering with Samaritan house to set up donation bins outside city buildings including City Hall and including more resources on its website.

Mayor Stacy Jimenez said she was in favor of offering support but didn’t want it to burden limited staff resources.

“I don’t know that taxing our city and using our resources is where I’m leaning at this time,” Jimenez said. “The fact that the benefits have been restored. I think there is less of a need for us to step into the gap because there really isn’t a gap, so it now then becomes our onus is to be representatives of our community, to see those needs and figure out what they are and to come together as a community.”