Hunger can be found in every county, congressional district, and state in the country. Photo: Richard Lord
If you ask someone to imagine what hunger looks like, many people conjure up the images they have seen on TV—starving and malnourished children with distended bellies living in foreign lands. While hunger in the United States may not look the same as those images displayed on TV, hunger is an all too prevalent reality facing many of our neighbors right here at home. As Feeding America’s recently published Map the Meal Gap study shows, hunger can be found in every county, congressional district, and state in the country.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the number of people at risk of hunger increased by nearly 12.6 million during the recent recession—from 36.2 million people in 2007 to 48.8 million people in 2010. This spike mirrored the dramatic rise in unemployment: the 111 percent increase in the number of unemployed people from November 2007 to November 2010 was mirrored by a 61 percent increase in participation in SNAP (formerly food stamps), the largest federal nutrition program, over that period. Likewise, food banks saw a 46 percent increase in clients seeking emergency food assistance between 2006 and 2010.
As a result of widespread unemployment, many people who previously considered themselves to be comfortably middle-class found themselves in need of assistance to provide enough food for their families. For many of those in need of food assistance, charity is often the first place they turn to for help. As the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, Feeding America annually serves more than 37 million people through a national network of more than 200 food banks and the local agencies they support—more than 61,000 of them, including food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and others. Of these, 55 percent are faith-based. Together we now serve one in eight Americans.
Unfortunately, we are increasingly being called upon to provide more than short-term food assistance. Struggling families often turn to local charities as both the first line of assistance when they fall on hard times and the last line of defense when other supports are exhausted. As Map the Meal Gap shows, only about 55 percent of the food-insecure population have income levels eligible for SNAP. Newly unemployed people are often income eligible but exceed the limit on household assets to qualify for federal nutrition programs. Many working families have some employment, but lack the hours and wages necessary to be economically stable. These workers either do not qualify for federal nutrition programs, or do not qualify for enough assistance to fully meet their family’s nutritional needs. In both cases, they have nowhere to turn but to the charitable food network to make sure their family has enough to eat.
While we rely heavily on generous charitable contributions, Feeding America would be unable to maintain its current levels of service without the support of federal nutrition assistance programs. The most critical program to food banks and the local agencies they support is The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). TEFAP is a means-tested federal program that provides food commodities at no cost to low-income Americans in need of short-term hunger relief; it’s distributed through organizations like food banks, pantries, kitchens, and shelters. Healthy and nutritious food commodities provided through TEFAP make up approximately 25 percent of the food distributed by Feeding America food banks; they are an essential resource for the emergency food system. Food banks combine TEFAP commodities with privately donated foods to maximize TEFAP benefits far beyond the budgeted amount for the program. In this way, food banks exemplify an optimum model of the public-private partnership.
Another critical federal nutrition program is the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), operated by more than one-third of all Feeding America food banks. CSFP provides nutritionally balanced food packages to approximately 604,000 low-income people each month, nearly 97 percent of whom are seniors with incomes of less than 130 percent of the poverty line (or approximately $14,000 for a senior living alone). CSFP provides important nourishment, helping to combat the poor health status commonly found among food-insecure seniors. CSFP leverages government buying power so that the $20 federal cost of each monthly food package provides a $50 retail value to participants. CSFP food packages are specifically designed to supplement nutrients typically lacking in participants’ diets, such as protein, iron, and zinc; they play an important role in meeting the nutritional needs of low-income seniors.
An increasing number of Feeding America food banks are conducting outreach to inform clients of their potential eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP is the cornerstone of the U.S. nutrition safety net, ensuring families have adequate resources for groceries until their household economic conditions stabilize and improve. SNAP outreach connects clients who require more than short-term emergency food relief with the longer-term benefits they need. Were SNAP benefits not available, even greater numbers of people in this country would be at risk of hunger, and even greater numbers of people would be forced to rely solely on the charitable sector to meet their food assistance needs.
Feeding America food banks also operate an array of programs aimed at the nearly one in four children at risk of hunger in this country, providing nourishment to children during out-of-school times when they might otherwise go without meals—after school, in the summer, on weekends, and during long school holidays. Many food banks receive federal funding for after-school and summer feeding programs. The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) help defray the cost of providing meals and snacks, enabling food banks to leverage private resources to reach even more children and families in need of food assistance.
For the one in six Americans at risk of hunger, food banks and their local agency partners are truly the first line of defense, and many times the only resource standing between being able to put food on the family dinner table and going to bed with an empty stomach. However, the charitable food assistance network cannot meet the needs of these families alone. It is only through our public-private partnership with the federal government—through programs like TEFAP, CSFP, CACFP, and SFSP, and sustained support for SNAP and other programs in the nutrition safety net—that we are able to protect families from hunger.
Vicki Escarra is the president and CEO of Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, serving 37 million people each year. The Map the Meal Gap study can be found at www.feedingamerica.org/mapthegap.
| < Previous Article | Next Article > |
|---|
