Thumbnail image: Marina MacNeil and Dominique Richcreek, staff members at Pacific Pantry, visited Smith River in this photo from September 2024 with the pantry’s mobile market. Pacific Pantry is supported through CDBG funding from the city. | Photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews
Though her organization’s main funding source, the Community Development Block Grant, is set to pause for two years, Christine Slette said she’s not totally freaking out.
With a year and a half left of its 2024 allotment, Court Appointed Special Advocates of Del Norte may be OK, its executive director told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday. But if CASA is unable to renew its application in 2026, the number of foster youth its volunteers work with will decrease, Slette said.
“It feels like we have to spend more time fundraising and doing grant management than we do serving the children,” she said. “It’s frustrating. But we have such an amazing community (that) always steps up and helps us through tough times. But it’s a strain and it’s so unfortunate.”
CASA isn’t the only local service organization preparing for a two-year gap in the CDBG dollars that get filtered to Crescent City and Del Norte County from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
In addition to allocating funding to CASA, the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors typically grant CDBG dollars to the Del Norte Senior Center’s nutrition program every two years. In July 2025, the Board awarded $280,374 to each organization, though Del Norte Administrative Services Manager Toni Self said HCD was operating off of the 2024 Notice of Funding Availability, or NOFA.
Meanwhile, the Crescent City Council on Monday authorized staff to seek $300,000 in 2025 CDBG dollars for the Family Resource Center of the Redwoods’ Pacific Pantry. According to City Manager Eric Wier, the FRC met the CDBG program’s requirement of expending 50% of their prior allocation before reapplying for funds.
The Pacific Pantry has about a year left in its current CDBG allotment from 2024, Food Bank Director Marina MacNeil said. According to the city’s staff report, the FRC spent 50% of that allocation by purchasing non-perishable items.
Last week, MacNeil told the City Council that the FRC served more than 7,000 individuals at least once during the last year. People visited the food pantry a total of 9,125 times, she said.
According to a Dec. 5 memo HCD sent Crescent City Grants and Economic Development Bridget Lacey, the department will focus CDBG dollars on large infrastructure projects in 2026 and 2027. This will allow HCD staff to focus technical assistance and monitoring due to the reduced number of contracts to manage.
The memo emailed to Lacey also mentioned reduced Congressional appropriations and “customer feedback” that state and federal dollars for infrastructure and community facilities are limited while construction costs continue to rise.
“This change allows the expenditure of existing planning and public services awards and an opportunity to come back in for these types of awards in 2028,” HCD Community Development Branch Chief Felicity Lyons Gasser wrote in her email. “We understand this is a big shift and that is why we wish to advise applicants now…”
With the food pantry, city staff initially worried there would be a funding gap of about a year and a half before the FRC could seek additional CDBG dollars, Lacey told Councilors. However, the 2028 allocation likely won’t be released until the following year, she said.
“It’s really hard to tell (because) we never know when they’re actually going to release the NOFA or if they’re going to be on time with the funds rolling out,” Lacey said. “At most there might be a six-month gap, but we’re hoping there won’t be any at all.”
According to Wier, CDBG dollars come to the city in different buckets. In addition to funding awarded for public service providers, CDBG money is used for economic development programs and infrastructure projects, or “over-the-counter projects,” the city manager said. A total of about $4.3 million in CDBG dollars paid for storm drain improvements on F Street and improvements to Front Street, according to the staff report.
Crescent City also received a total of $1.5 million to fund a business assistance loan program, Lacey said. That program will be paused until HCD releases the 2028 NOFA, she said.
“We didn’t push the loans,” she said, adding that the city hasn’t yet spent 50% of its most recent award. “Those take time to get through the process whereas it was a little bit easier to get to that 50% expenditure point with the food pantry.”
So far, the city has loaned a total of $560,000 to eight businesses, Lacey said. According to the staff report, the city has spent about 40% of those grant dollars to date.
CASA and the senior center’s nutrition program also has to expend 50% of their CDBG dollars before they can reapply for additional funding, Self told Redwood Voice. The $280,374 the Board of Supervisors allocated to each organization should last them through April 2028, she said. But sometimes the senior center expends those dollars faster.
Self said she hopes the 2024 funding will hold both organizations through until HCD starts accepting applications for public services again.
This isn’t the first time that CASA has had to figure out how to function without CDBG dollars, Slette said. The organization’s 47 volunteers and 3.5 employees have become adept at fundraising and at working on hardly anything, she said.
Its big fundraisers are the Crystal Ball, a benefit gala that will be held March 21 this year, and its annual golf tournament that will be held in July. There are smaller fundraisers, community outreach sessions and proceeds from the sales of Slette’s picture book, Big Hearted Dudley.
Of CASA’s 47 volunteers, 23 are officers of the court, helping children in foster care navigate their way through the legal system. Slette described advocates as the eyes and ears of the court, advocating for the child’s best interest so they don’t fall through the cracks. But there aren’t enough, she said.
“Off the top of my head, there are approximately 83 cases with no CASA assigned,” she said. “Right now, off the top of my head, we have at least five kids on our priority wait list that we can’t assign a CASA to because we don’t have one available.”
Between serving Del Norte’s most vulnerable citizens and raising the funding needed to continue that work, Slette said CASA is continuously recruiting volunteers. They go through free training and are sworn in as an officer of the court.
“If you invest in this child, you’re investing in your own community, in the future,” she said, “and it’s such a big thing to pass on a legacy like that.”
Del Norte Senior Center Executive Director Charlaine Mazzei couldn’t be reached for comment.
