Federal money was made available through the CARES Act for communities to apply for and be awarded money to spend on food security and/or ensuring safety for seniors at local senior centers. Dutchess County manages this money, and in a press release sent 12/22/2020, announced that all of the municipalities who applied for the money were awarded money, which was “based on the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) income guidelines, for efforts to promote food security and safety at local senior centers to enable them to be open for seniors.”

Beacon applied for and was awarded $25,000 “for assistance to a local food bank to purchase food for distribution to low- and moderate-income households,” according to the press release. Beacon’s Director for Parks and Recreation, Mark Price, is the point person for the spending of this money, and says that spending the grant money is not so simple.

Because the money is federal, they require an “income survey” in order to prove the need a municipality says they have in their population. Says Mark: “The County was willing to fund a food purchase only, for moderate to low income families in Beacon. We have to give assurance to them that they are giving us money and we're using it for the population we say we are. Because we are using Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money, there is usually a map that identifies the low to moderate areas (Editor’s Note: like with the small business Microenterprise Stabilization Grants currently available). When you use Block Grant monies, you are to use those to those areas. That map is slowly shrinking in Beacon. However, COVID funding doesn't use a map.”

How Does A Municipality Find The People To Prove The Need?

For this article, we asked Mark how he is going to find the people for the survey that identifies low to moderate income households. “We are hopeful that our Wednesday 9am free food distribution at Memorial Park, which serves 150-200 cars per week, in addition to our Wednesday 9:30am Beacon Recreation Center distribution to 75 families, will be a one-shot way to survey the need.”

The number of organizations who are offering food security services to people in need in Beacon has increased since the pandemic started in March 2020. “Of the groups in Beacon who work in food security, everyone would need to give assurance. They would each need to do an income survey. At this point, we are thinking that this one distribution location could be the most efficient way of getting a good sampling for the income survey. Some independent food security groups may need to do sampling for a month to get a good sampling.”

How Other Municipalities Proposed To Spend Money

Other municipalities made proposals for federal CARES Act funding based on the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money guidlines, and were awarded. Ideas differed, and are included below:

City of Beacon: $25,000 for assistance to a local food bank to purchase food for distribution to low- and moderate-income households.

Town of Beekman: $20,000 for touchless bathroom fixtures for the Town’s senior program

Town of Dover: $17,200 award for substantive meals and home-keeping necessities for homebound seniors.

Town of East Fishkill: $20,000 award for HEPA sterilization units and UV air purifiers at the senior center.

Town of Hyde Park: $29,500 award for plexiglass partitions, air purifiers and UV-C lights, Wi-Fi network upgrades and 7 laptops at the senior center, as well as tent for outdoor programming.

Town of Poughkeepsie: $15,950 award for plexi-glass barriers, hand sanitizing stations, wall-mounted thermometers, HEPA filter, air purifiers, gloves/wipes/masks for the senior center.

Town of Pine Plains: $26,542 award for support to Willow Roots food pantry to purchase food for distribution to low- and moderate-income families.