Community Action Council builds lasting solutions for housing and hunger

As communities grow, they share in both the lift of prosperity and the strain when the outlook tightens. Nonprofits often shoulder the heaviest burdens — housing, food, and access to essentials — while building models that neighbors and public agencies can emulate. Ward Media spoke with Alan Walker, executive director of the Chelan-Douglas Community Action Council (CDCAC), just after he met with U.S. Representative Kim Schrier, who was visiting to talk about the current strained outlook due to federal cuts.

Walker spoke to us about what resilience looks like on the ground through the model of the nonprofit he oversees, and what it will take to sustain it.

“Our mission has remained relatively the same for the past 60 years: To alleviate poverty by empowering people to help themselves and each other,” Walker said. “We encourage people to identify what their success in life looks like, how to be an advocate, and support them on their journey.” That empowerment lens extends well beyond CDCAC’s staff. “We encourage our neighbors in every community to take action, be involved in making a difference in the lives of others,” he added, noting that the organization engages hundreds of volunteers — “the 485 volunteers I referenced [during the visit with Schrier]” — and works alongside “thousands more” through partner efforts.

Pressed on what’s changing locally, Walker points to realities that don’t always show up in statewide dashboards. “Rural isolation is real,” he said. “Most of Douglas and large portions of Chelan County is a food desert. People need to travel (by car or bus) to access a grocery store, making food access a challenge for many. The rural nature also creates barriers to health care — dentists, eye doctors, mental health.” The economic picture for small producers is adding new strain. Citing the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture, Walker said that across Chelan and Douglas counties there are 1,330 farms, “of which 273 (21%) are less than 9 acres in size, and 728 (55%) have annual sales of less than $50,000. This is not a sustainable income for a family.”

The two sharpest pressure points CDCAC is managing now, of course, are housing and food. “Housing people is a real challenge,” Walker said. “Finding ‘decent’ affordable housing is becoming more difficult. As new apartment buildings are constructed this creates a new ‘normal’ range of higher rental rates, pushing all rates up. We have seen elderly people come in whose rent just doubled. They can no longer afford to pay rent and are forced out, adding to the homeless crisis.” On food, the math is unforgiving. “Food is another resource under increased demand as grocery prices increase, along with all other basic costs of living [like] housing, fuel, insurance, child care, etcetera. With the reduction in SNAP benefits and the potential for SNAP benefits stopping November 1, this is a real concern for all.”

Avoiding duplication and closing gaps across a two-county service area requires choreography. CDCAC uses a mix of contracts, shared logistics, and formal referral pathways to make it work. “Upper Valley MEND is a subcontractor for us to support access to food in the Leavenworth area. We make weekly deliveries of food and provide financial support,” Walker said. “There are 12 food pantries we support this way. We coordinate and work collaboratively with dozens of service providers in the two-county region. Through agreements, each party knows what the other is doing, how to address unmet needs or to refer people who could receive help from others. Not a perfect system, but well coordinated and communicated.”

That coordination matters even more as federal and pandemic-era funding shifts. “It is a challenge,” Walker said. “We manage over 40 different grants of mostly public funds, but private as well. We constantly seek other sources of funding, we have good private donor support, and we work with others to help fill a gap in service. Our staff are good at identifying funding sources that align with our mission to support our neighbors.”

If the near term is about triage, the long term is about trust — and infrastructure. “CDCAC has been a part of our community for nearly 60 years,” Walker said. “We have worked hard to develop trusted relationships and partnerships with public, private, individual, corporate entities, and elected officials regardless of political affiliation. We have proven ourselves to be accountable and unwavering in our dedication to helping others, either those in need, or those wanting to fill a need.” He added that those relationships have allowed CDCAC to invest in the physical and organizational backbone it needs to last: “One strategy — through these trusted relationships we have built the facility and capacity to continue our mission for our community for the next 60 years.”

In a region where a trip to the grocery store can be a 30-mile bus ride and a small farm’s annual sales don’t cover a family’s budget, CDCAC’s playbook is pragmatic: Empower people, knit together partners, chase every aligned dollar, and keep one eye on the horizon. As Walker put it, the work is about helping neighbors define and achieve their own version of success “by empowering people to help themselves and each other” and making sure the system around them is strong enough to help when they can’t.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media