Basic Needs Minutes 9/26/18

Basic Needs Committee

  • Wednesday, September 26, 2018
  • 1:00-2:00pm
  • Russian River Valley Room

Agenda

  • Welcome
  • Introductions
  • Schedule Review (attachment)
  • Celebration – Chico Grant
  • Goals Areas & Updates
  • Develop food insecurity programming; pantry, catered food distribution options, meal share
  • Grant requirements: CalFresh Outreach & Implementation; websites, media
  • New initiatives: Housing needs; ICanHelp
  • Sub-Committee Option

Notes:

Members Present:

  • Toni Borracchia
  • Erik Dickson
  • Jesus Garcia-Valdez
  • Sue Hardisty
  • Stacy Heldman-Holguin
  • Stacey Murray

Members Absent:

  • Yatziri Aguilar-Carbajal
  • Maria Fuentes
  • Allison Goodwin
  • Karen Herrera Cruz
  • Nancy Keller
  • Gabriella Morin
  • Talena Sanders
  • Karen Vielma-Cortes

Co-Chair Holguin commenced the meeting at 1:10p. Since everyone in attendance already knew each other, she skipped the first two agenda items.

Holguin provided a recap of the CSU Basic Needs Initiative, now in its 4th year, which was developed to address students’ basic needs. Responses to a 2016 survey revealed that 40% of students reported food insecurities, and 10% reported housing insecurities at some point in the educational career. The housing insecurity data was based on how often a student has been without a permanent place to live, which includes couch surfing during academic breaks, so it is has a much broader scope than the food insecurity category.

Some campuses report higher percentages of basic needs challenges as compared with national averages.

The first year of this initiative we focused on what we had available and the 2nd year we focused on opening the Food Pantry. We have received the first year grant. This brings us to where we are today.

We had a Health and Wellness fair today. We have a flyer with Health and Wellness information that we’ll update this year. We have a resources web page on the Student Affairs website which we’ll be updating this year, as well. The BNI meeting schedule (attachment) includes committee meetings, webinars, CalFresh Training, CalFresh Outreach, and the BNI Conference in Spring 2019.

The committee is tasked this year with making CalFresh more available on campus. We have a consultant from CalFresh twice a month to help students sign up. Most students who are Pell eligible are likely CalFresh eligible. If a student is eligible for A or B Pell grants, they are automatically eligible for CalFresh.  The Chico grant will allow the committee to have a SSU CalFresh representative on campus and we’ll train students who can also help with applications.

We are also working with county agencies and colleges in the area to produce a newspaper to help with destigmatizing basic needs and provide information about how to get assistance, etc. We have money in the Chico grant to help with this. These can be distributed throughout the campus.

We are also working with the Petaluma Health Center Rohnert Park clinic to help students to transfer out-of-area Medi-Cal benefits to this area and sign them up for CalFresh, all at once. We would invite them to come to campus, possibly during Summer Academy, for mass sign-ups, and we could include information in the newspaper.

An aside, Kaiser takes Medi-Cal patients but if from southern California, they need to get a Northern Kaiser medical number and then they can access services here. Medi-Cal has an ombudsperson to assist with special circumstances. If you can get their name and contact info, you will get things done!

BNI Conference presentations from last year are on the CSU BNI website.

Borracchia asked if the grant allows us to create something to help students make better food choices. Holguin answered yes. In addition we could offer healthy cooking classes, trainings or materials on how to shop, how to read labels and more.

Action: Hardisty will send the invitation to CalFresh Outreach Training to the committee (Oct. 30, 8:30a-3:00p), along with these meeting notes, and last year’s SSU Basic Needs Resources Flyer.

Schedule Review

Holguin reviewed the schedule for the year. Webinars are optional—we just need one member in attendance at these training sessions. Members noted there were no faculty or student members in attendance. We may need to change the meeting times to accommodate faculty and student reps.  Sue will follow up with a Doodle poll to find a more suitable time. 

Celebration - Chico Grant

Chico is the home base for all campus grants including to the UC. The purpose is to use the money to help us get students signed up for CalFresh.

Cal Grant and Pell Grant recipients are a target audience for the CalFresh program. Cal Grant students receive a letter letting them know they are eligible and to go to CalFresh but they don’t tell them how or where to go. We can table at Orientation with information about how to sign up. You must apply and then renew each year.

Garcia-Valdez asked if CalFresh is available for undocumented students. There may be a matching program through AB 85 for undocumented students. AB540 students are probably not eligible.

Having student peers share about resources can have a greater impact on students getting the assistance they need than if they hear about such resources from faculty or staff.

Goals, Areas and Updates.

Last year we have 300 unique users and 700 visits to the Food Pantry. A little over 100 have a meal plan. One third live on campus. We’ll need to figure out how to analyze this and use the information to improve services.

We also want to figure out how to get information out about leftover food at events.

We have $5000 to purchase meal cards to give out at different locations. Students could also donate a meal. We need to figure out how to implement some of the ideas for services we have.

We have not really addressed long term housing instability. We do have through AS emergency housing options. Students who were not eligible through the AS program, we could assist with the AB85 funds.

If someone learns that a student is sleeping in their cars, they can either call Police Services or Student Affairs and they can put a flyer on the car windshield with available resources without being invasive of the student’s privacy. Some students stay in the Police Services parking lot because they feel safer there.

The ICanHelp program has started and we now need to figure out how to make it sustainable.

Subcommittee Options:

Does the committee want to create sub-committees to begin to address how to implement some of the ideas presented here?

Notes from this meeting will be distributed to the committee with a request to let Holguin, Dickson and Hardisty know if members are interested in working on a subcommittee or projects to improve services in meeting basic needs.

Meeting adjourned at 2:10pm.

Notes submitted by Sue Hardisty, staff support.