Santa Clara County wants to make changes to the region’s disaster aid pipeline — raising alarms for the nonprofit that has run it for decades.
Emergency resource leaders are scratching their heads at the county’s efforts to restructure the region’s state-recognized Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster. The network of community groups is managed by Collaborating Agencies Disaster Relief Effort (CADRE), which coordinates local churches and nonprofits to deliver food, shelter and other urgent aid to residents during pandemics, wildfires, destructive storms and prolonged heat waves.
The county moved to repeal a resolution recognizing CADRE as its designated organization in early November. But the Board of Supervisors delayed the decision after backlash from organizations like the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, which called out a lack of public outreach and transparency around their plans.
“Neither CADRE’s nonprofit network nor other local cities in Santa Clara County were engaged, and we are not aware of any outreach to faith-based organizations,” Kyra Kazantzis, CEO of the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, wrote in an Oct. 31 letter.
County representatives said they would continue to work with CADRE.
“(Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) works because it brings community partners together quickly, connects public and private resources and helps make sure people get support throughout every stage of a disaster,” a spokesperson for the county Office of Emergency Management told San José Spotlight. “As disasters become more frequent and complex, strengthening the county’s (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) network is essential to ensuring a resilient, equitable and community-focused disaster response.”
Critics say the proposed restructuring could disrupt a delicate rhythm between resource networks that have served Santa Clara County for years.
“If the county takes over, then all the cities are going to be beholden to them for any assistance that they want from nonprofit agencies. That wouldn’t be a good situation,” Frannie Edwards, former director of San Jose’s Office of Emergency Services from 1991 through 2006, told San José Spotlight. “I really don’t understand why they would want to do this, because as far as I can tell, there’s no immediate financial benefit to them. The county’s constantly claiming that they have this enormous deficit, and it’s only gotten worse now that the federal government has stopped paying things.”
CADRE formed after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake to manage disaster efforts between donors and volunteers. It functions as a central point for scattered networks of aid groups to communicate with the county and its individual cities, and allocate food and supplies as needed.
“People mean well — they offer to come help and donate things. But often they don’t understand how,” Edwards said. “In the midst of a disaster, the last thing a government needs to do is have to worry about how to manage all that.”
While CADRE has helped with emergency aid for more than 30 years, a series of complex and compounding disasters since 2019 has led county leaders to believe they need a stronger approach.
The COVID-19 pandemic strained public health systems and social services. Mass evacuations from the county’s massive Lightning Complex Fire of 2020 — one of the largest fires in California’s history — highlighted the need for emergency shelter coordination and services exceeding the government’s capacity. It also required county emergency workers to establish a non-traditional assistance center in a rural, remote community.
CADRE Executive Director Marsha Hovey spent a decade as director of the county’s office of emergency management. She said she was thankful CADRE existed while she held the office, because the county lacked the bandwidth to organize at a similar scale.
Hovey questions why the county would want to add to its work when it already struggles with some communication aspects of emergency services. She points out that while the county office of emergency management oversees notification messages for residents, those lifesaving alerts, such as evacuations for wildfires, only go out in English. County alerts usually come with a link to multilingual information on the county’s website.
“There are other solutions,” Hovey told San José Spotlight. “CADRE is working on developing a group of nonprofits that can do that translation.”
County officials maintain their language access services have been widely recognized for their strength during disasters.
“The county will continue to provide comprehensive emergency response information in all of the county’s most frequently spoken languages,” the spokesperson said.
The takeover would also affect cities who already have relationships with CADRE.
“San Jose remains committed to working collaboratively with CADRE, our emergency response partners from local governments and other community organizations as part of our emergency operations plan, to ensure that San Jose communities are supported during emergencies and that our approach to disaster coordination remains inclusive and effective,” Kari Chinn, spokesperson for the City Manager’s Office, told San José Spotlight.
District 5 Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga and Board President Otto Lee, who represents District 3, are listed as past financial supporters of CADRE. Abe-Koga said the public outcry shows more outreach needs to be conducted.
“Nobody likes being surprised,” Abe-Koga told San José Spotlight. “Whenever changes are made, the community needs a chance to fully understand how it would affect them. … Community members need the ability to weigh in. Any change that is proposed needs to be aired so that people can understand its impact. The board would also have to consider how this would affect our current budget situation.”
Lee said takeover plans won’t move forward until the county does its due diligence.
“The item has been deferred to a date uncertain,” Lee told San José Spotlight. “We continue to work with county staff to ensure all constituents will receive alerts in the various community languages in case of disaster.”
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.