As working Americans are increasingly seeking assistance to feed their families due to inflation, long queues are once again seen outside food banks across the country.
Many individuals are seeking free meals for the first time, and more are doing it on foot, as a result of rising supermarket and gas prices.
Gas prices have been rising since April 2020, with the national average momentarily reaching $5 per gallon in June. Inflation in the US is at a 40-year high. Rents that are rising quickly and the cessation of federal COVID-19 aid have both had an impact on people’s finances.
The food banks are failing to meet the latest need even as federal programs offer less food to distribute, grocery store donations dwindle, and monetary gifts don’t go nearly as far as they once did. The food banks had begun to receive some respite when individuals returned to work after epidemic shutdowns.
Tomasina John was one of the numerous families lining up in multiple lanes of traffic one recent day outside St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix. John claimed that because her husband had effortlessly supported her and their four children with his construction employment, the family had never before used a food bank.
John, who was traveling with a neighbor to split the cost of gas, stated, “But it’s absolutely impossible to get by anymore without some help.” They were idling beneath the hot desert heat. “The costs are completely out of line.”
Also in line was Jesus Pascual.
It’s a battle, admitted Pascual, a janitor, who estimates he spends several hundred dollars each month on food for himself, his wife, and their five kids, who range in age from 11 to 19.
A similar sight is happening all around the country as food bank staff forecast a challenging summer to keep up with demand.
Food costs have soared as a result of state governments ending COVID-19 disaster declarations that had temporarily enhanced SNAP payments, which are provided through the federal food stamp program that serves 40 million Americans.
According to Katie Fitzgerald, president, and chief executive officer of the national food bank network Feeding America, “it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better overnight.” Demand is actually complicating the supply issues.
Despite a slight decline in demand late last year, charitable food distribution has continued to exceed levels distributed prior to the coronavirus outbreak.
Although second-quarter data won’t be available until August, according to Feeding America officials, anecdotal reports from food banks around the country indicate that demand is rising.
According to St. Mary’s spokesman Jerry Brown, the primary distribution site of the Phoenix food bank sent food packages to 4,271 families during the third week of June, a 78 percent increase over the 2,396 households served during the same week the previous year.
Every workday, more than 900 people wait in line at the distribution facility to receive an emergency government food box filled with items like canned beans, rice, and peanut butter, according to Brown. In addition to food donated in cash, St. Mary’s also includes items like bread, carrots, and pork chops from nearby stores for a total of around $75.
According to marketing director Michael Altfest, distribution at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Northern California has increased since reaching a pandemic low at the beginning of this year, from serving 890 households on the third Friday in January to 1,410 households on the third Friday of June.
An average of 610,000 pounds of food are currently distributed daily at the Houston Food Bank, the largest food bank in the United States, down from earlier in the epidemic when distribution levels momentarily peaked at a stunning 1 million pounds per day.
That’s an increase from the 500,000 pounds each day prior to the pandemic, according to spokesperson Paula Murphy.
Murphy claimed that although cash donations have not decreased, inflation has made them less effective.
Executives at food banks claimed they were surprised by the unexpected increase in demand.
Since the economy had been doing so well, we had anticipated a decline in demand for 2022, said Michael Flood, CEO of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. “This inflation problem developed rather suddenly.”
Many of these are employed individuals who fared reasonably well during the pandemic and may have even had an increase in pay, according to Flood. But they have also seen that food prices have increased beyond their means.
A little less than the previous quarter, but still much more than the 22 million pounds distributed during the first three months of 2020, the Los Angeles bank distributed nearly 30 million pounds of food during the first three months of this year.
Fitzgerald of Feeding America is urging the USDA and Congress to find a mechanism to recover commodities valued at hundreds of millions of dollars that were recently lost due to the termination of various temporary programs to help feed the hungry. USDA commodities, which typically account for up to 30% of the food that banks distribute, made up more than 40% of the food that the Feeding America network delivered in the fiscal year 2021.
The public sector urgently needs to buy more food right away, according to Fitzgerald.
In a program that contributed the majority of its proceeds to food banks during the Trump administration, the USDA spent multiple billions of dollars on purchases of pigs, apples, cheese, potatoes, and other things. In order to assist American farmers hurt by tariffs and other trade partner policies, the “Food Purchase & Distribution Program” was created. However, it has now come to an end. For the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years, respectively, $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion in authorizations were made.
During the height of the pandemic, a different temporary USDA “Farmers to Families” program that offered emergency help distributed more than 155 million food boxes to needy families around the country before expiring on May 31, 2021.
A USDA representative stated that the organization is using $400 million from the Build Back Better initiative to create agreements with states, territories, and tribal governments in order to purchase food from local, regional, and underserved producers that can be distributed to food banks, schools, and other feeding programs.
According to Michael G. Manning, president, and CEO of the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank in Louisiana, there is currently enough food, but there may not always be. He claimed that increasing gasoline prices make gathering and distributing food much more expensive.
According to spokesman Altfest, the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which included Farmers to Families, was “a boom” for the Alameda County Community Food Bank because it provided 5 billion pounds of goods in just one year.
Losing that, he continued, “was a major hit.
According to Altfest, up to 10% of those looking for food right now are first-timers, and an increasing number are walking rather than driving to save petrol.
In order to pay for additional expenses like gas, rent, diapers, and baby formula, he said, “The food they get from us is helping them conserve already-stretched resources.”
As a result of rising food prices, the bank’s food purchases have increased from an earlier monthly average of $250,000 to as much as $1.5 million. According to Altfest, the bank had to boost its fuel budget by 66 percent as a result of skyrocketing petrol prices.
The food bank needs to be more aggressive with procurement because of concerns with the supply chain.
According to Altfest, “We used to reorder when our inventory fell to three weeks’ worth, but today we reorder up to six weeks out.”
During the busiest time of the year, Thanksgiving, the food bank has already ordered and paid for whole chickens, stuffing, cranberries, and other holiday feast goods it will distribute.
Workers at the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation in Montebello, east of Los Angeles report seeing numerous families as well as elderly persons lining up on foot, like Diane Martinez recently.
There were cars parked nearby for some of the hundreds of primarily Spanish-speaking recipients. They traveled with cloth bags, cardboard boxes, or pushed pushcarts to collect their food parcels from the Los Angeles bank’s distribution center.
Martinez expressed her gratitude for the bags of black beans, ground beef, and other items, saying, “The costs of food are so exorbitant and they’re rising up higher every day.” “I’m really happy that they can assist us.”
