La Puente reports sharp rise in demand; crisis-prevention funding credited with keeping households housed

Wilson Hamilton, development director for La Puente Food Bank, told the Alamosa City Council on April 25 that the agency’s Alamosa pantry served “2,512 unduplicated households, comprising about 6,000 unduplicated people” in 2024 and distributed roughly 30,000 food boxes.

The numbers came during a joint presentation to council about the food bank’s work and the organization’s crisis-prevention services. “That is a sharp increase from 2022,” Hamilton said, adding that the Alamosa location now serves nearly half of the valley-wide network’s clients.

The nut of the presentation was twofold: the food bank is seeing rapidly rising need, and crisis-prevention funds the city provides are producing measurable housing stability. “We used the $2,000 grant we received for a single household,” Sean Wyland, director of crisis prevention, told council, describing a case in which short-term rent assistance kept a single father housed until he returned to work. Wyland said the household has been stably housed and employed for six months following that intervention.

La Puente’s written figures, submitted to council, break client demographics out further: about one in four individuals the pantry served in 2024 was a child; about one in five was 61 or older; roughly 25 percent of clients live with a disability; and 30 percent rely primarily on a fixed income. Hamilton told council roughly 85 percent of clients were stably housed when they visited the pantry.

Wyland said crisis-prevention funding is being exhausted faster than in previous years. “We are burning through that funding at a higher rate than we ever have,” he said. He attributed the trend to a destabilized rental housing baseline: when rental housing no longer provides a stable foundation, families fall behind on rent and food and medical needs follow.

The presentation also noted programmatic developments. La Puente opened a new Alamosa location that staff and volunteers say has reduced barriers to access. The food bank also received unrelated grant dollars for “culturally responsive foods” that help it stock items clients both need and prefer. On employment, Wyland said a new partnership made La Puente a pass-through grantee for Colorado’s Rehire program, which subsidizes wages to encourage employers to hire people with high barriers to employment.

Councilors thanked the La Puente team for the work and asked follow-up questions about demographics, partners and how larger food-bank networks interact. Wilson Hamilton explained that Care and Share operates as a regional food bank that supplies bulk product, while La Puente operates as a local pantry and, in some cases, as a hub for smaller valley pantries.

Why it matters: Council’s budget and community-stability efforts rely on accurate demand data. La Puente’s presentation provided the council with both a snapshot of rising need in 2024 and examples of how modest city prevention funding can produce durable housing outcomes.