San Diego County

Nonprofit providing meals to San Diego flood victims says it ran out of money

The president and founder of the Harvey Family Foundation said his organization and San Diego County couldn’t come to an agreement about financing the endeavor

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The Harvey Family Foundation primarily gives back to the community by providing youth and family services.

Armon Harvey, the president and founder of the local nonprofit, said his organization moved full speed ahead in providing services for people affected by the storm that flooded many parts of the city of San Diego on Jan. 22.

“We are close to about 100,000 meals since the beginning, and it continued to climb until we stopped our process on Friday,” Harvey told NBC 7.

Harvey said they stopped providing meals because his organization and the county couldn’t come to an agreement about financing the endeavor.

“They put together a $3 million budget to continue feeding until May 11. They did it on a budget of $8.50 per meal, which came out to $25.50 per day per person,” Harvey said.

Harvey said that wasn’t enough and asked for a higher fixed rate before the county decided to go elsewhere.

“We continued to go back and forth, and as of April 8th, they sent a discontinue letter stating that we will no longer be negotiating on this contract, moving forward they will be dealing with Uber Eats,” Harvey said.

San Diego County is in contract with Uber Eats to provide meals for people in the “Emergency Temporary Lodging Program” the county said in a statement to NBC 7.

“Vouchers can be used to purchase food from restaurants, fast food locations and grocery stores. Participants can skip delivery fees by picking up their order,” a county spokesperson said.

The digital voucher’s amount is determined by several factors:

  • The number of people in the household
  • If their hotel is providing breakfast to program participants
  • If the participants are receiving food from other organizations that are partnering with the county
  • Each meal credit is $8.50

The Uber Eats program is well-received, according to the county spokesperson.

The Harvey Family Foundation will continue its work for the community in other ways.

“To make sure we clean these houses out and get these families from these hotels and back into their houses, so the work isn’t going to stop. Though the feeding is going to stop, we are going to continue to work with these families to make sure that they’re made whole,” Harvey said

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