Editorial: Consider giving to the food insecure working poor, after the holidays

Nationwide, one in five people are behind on the rent. That’s better than the one in seven people reported in January. Still, more than 10 million people continue to remain behind on their rent while accumulating debt.

These same people are generally also experiencing a food hardship, especially those with school-age children. As of the end of March, despite employment rising and strains on household budgets easing in recent months, there were still about 10 million people who are months behind on rent and late fees, according, to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The nonpartisan research and policy institute reports that it’s able to track hardship challenges thanks to nearly real-time data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and other sources.

We checked in with Feeding Northeast Florida to get a sense of how people are doing in this area since the pandemic hit. We learned that while people tend to be more charitable during the holidays, the need to help others is ongoing all year long.

If you want to play a role in feeding others in Northeast Florida, contributing money to Feeding Northeast Florida is one of the best ways to do that. It’s the largest food bank, serving eight counties: Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam, and St. Johns Counties.

Susan King, president, and CEO of Feeding Northeast Florida said that about 240,000 people in those counties are food insecure. “That means that they don’t necessarily know where their next meal is coming from,” King said. “There’s different levels of food insecurity though. It might mean that only the kids are eating or you’re eating once or twice a day instead of three times. Or it might mean that you’re taking half of your prescription medicine.”

“If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it takes one speed bump, like a car repair, a job loss, or an illness to find yourself in trouble,” King said. ”When 55 to 60 percent of your wages go towards housing, these families don’t rebound immediately.”

Right now, it’s an interesting time with the pandemic, King said, because people are tired of COVID-related problems. That’s her takeaway considering the food bank was blessed with lots of donations in 2020, but there was a big reduction in donations in 2021.

The one message she’d like the community to understand is that the needs are real, and yet donations dropped nearly in half in 2021.

And because this food bank is part of a national network with 250 local retail partners, the organization generally picks up end-of-life food or dented cans from grocery stores two to five times a week. They pick up food from grocery distribution centers less frequently. Often that food consists of excess orders.

Basically, the food bank is more of a distribution organization that even coordinates pick-ups from local charities so that the food can get to people in need much quicker.

“I get asked a lot about supply chain issues. Well, our fuel costs have gone up 58 percent, and we’re an organization of trucks drivers and warehouses,” she said.

“There’s been a big reduction in donations,” King said. “We don’t want people to be buying food. If you give me a $1, I can turn it into six meals because of our relationships, but they can turn it into a loaf of bread.”

When COVID hit the food bank’s supply dropped by about 90 percent.

“It was a bit of a panic moment. No, it was a big panic moment, King said. “We were purchasing food and distributing it free of charge."

A federal assistance program helped tremendously, but that ended in May.

So what are the needs now? Well, there’s an increase in demand at the same time that funding has dropped significantly.

“I think that people see help wanted signs everywhere and wages going up and they don’t get it because $15 an hour just can’t support a family. You have to pay someone to take care of your kids in order to work, so it becomes cost-prohibitive. We serve the working poor.”

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Consider giving to the food insecure working poor, after the holidays