San Mateo County to commit $1 million to fight loneliness
San Mateo County will commit to allocating at least $1 million to fight an epidemic of loneliness, Supervisor David Canepa said in a forum Wednesday on the topic in Redwood City. This is the first financial commitment made by a county official to address loneliness as a public health concern two months after the Board of Supervisors declared it a public health emergency. “I’m here to announce that the County of San Mateo has committed to Peninsula Family Service $1 million. The bottom line is we cannot have our nonprofits doing the work if we don’t invest in the nonprofits,” Canepa said during the event, hosted by Peninsula Family Service, a nonprofit based in the city of San Mateo. “We are committed to doing that.” Canepa told this news organization at the sidelines of Peninsula Family Service’s forum “Overcoming the Epidemic of Loneliness: A Community Challenge” that the budget will be proposed and voted on by the board sometime in September. He said it would be a “one-time allocation” that would be sourced from the county’s budget or Measure K, a local sales tax fund