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Long term unemployment, 1967-2011

Packed Oklahoma prisons, rising costs

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Given Oklahoma’s population of 3.75 million, and assuming that households experiencing food insecurity are the same size as the average of all households, some 607,000 Oklahomans live in households that struggle with access to adequate food.  Imagine that on a Saturday afternoon this fall, the population in households that experience food insecurity in Oklahoma were all invited down to Norman and Stillwater to attend the football games.

The food insecure could fill OU’s Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium (capacity: 82,122) AND OSU’s Boone Pickens Stadium (capacity: 60,218)  four times over… with enough people left over to fill University of Tulsa’s H.A. Chapman Stadium (capacity: 30,000).

To find out ways to help fight hunger and food insecurity in Oklahoma, contact the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma or the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.

May everyone have a joyful and healthy Thanksgiving holiday.

Note: This is an updated version of a blog post we first ran in November 2010.

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The economic downturn continues to strain family food budgets and increase demand on both private charities and public programs for food assistance.  Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program) increased by 44.9 percent between February 2008 and February 2011, adding 187,506 participants.  Programs like SNAP not only serve a social welfare role by providing families with food, they also have a significant impact on Oklahoma businesses, pumping millions of dollars each month directly into the grocers, markets, and convenient stores of local economies.

Hunger issues especially affect children, and several programs focus on trying to ensure that children in economically disadvantaged families are adequately fed. The largest is the free and reduced-price school lunch program, which provides meals to children in families with income up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level.  In FY ’10, 449,213 Oklahoma school children participated in the program, while 218,249 participated in the school breakfast program.

What happens, though, when school lets out? During the school year, an increasing number of schools, in conjunction with the state’s two regional food banks and other charities, operate weekend feeding programs that sends kids home from school on Friday afternoons with a backpack of food.  During the summer months, however, the situation becomes most worrisome. The federal government and State Department of Education administer the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which resembles the school lunch and school breakfast programs in making meals available to kids in low-income families. In 2010, the program served an average of just 11,665 children each day in its peak month of July, or only about 1 in 38 children served when school is in session.  Low enrollment in SFSP is a persistent problem and the state has seen almost no increase in the program in recent years.

The challenge is getting enough sponsors and sites to operate summer feeding programs, and getting the kids to the participating sites to be fed. Sites can be schools, churches, or non-profit organizations running summer programs for children and youth.  Sponsors are reimbursed on a per-meal basis, but there is no funding for transportation, and most school districts, especially in rural areas, choose not to participate in the program because they don’t have enough participating children to cover their costs.  This summer, 372 SFSP sites will be serving meals to kids across the state of Oklahoma, according to this list from the Department of Education.

The Food Research Action Center (FRAC), a national anti-hunger advocacy group, recommends several changes to the SFSP in their annual Summer Nutrition Hardship Report. One recommendation is for reimbursement rates to be restored to 1996 funding levels, when rates were cut 10 percent, and additional funding for outreach and to cover transportation costs.  Improving access to summer nutrition programs for kids is critical. Hunger and inadequate nutrition are year-round problems that are not tied to the school schedule. Our public programs, with the active involvement of community-based organizations and faith groups committed to keeping children adequately fed, need to keep developing more creative, effective ways to rise to the challenge.

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I arrive at the Church at 8:30 just as a line-up of some 75-100 people is being led through the outside doors to the medium-sized dining room. Iron Gate actually serves two meals each morning: a breakfast at 8:30, followed by a lunch starting around 9:00 (on weekends they serve a single morning meal). The guests – as they are always called – eat well at Iron Gate. I am quickly put to work dishing out large helpings of  Cream of Wheat and biscuits for the first meal, which goes along with sausages and applesauce. Once the sausages run out, the second meal quickly materializes – chicken pot pie, a green salad, and a croissant, along with fruit salad and a donut for dessert. Their food comes from a variety of sources – baked goods and fresh produce from Reasor’s, canned goods from the Food Bank, meat and other supplies from donations.

Tuesday turns out to be a relatively slow day at Iron Gate. The volunteer I am serving with, Mark, explains that things are always slower early in the month when workers have been paid and families have received their food stamp benefits. By the end of the month, demand increases substantially. The week before, they went through 12 casseroles in one day, each of which can serve 125 people. But they’ve never run out of food.

As the guests came through the line, Mark, greets many of them by name and spends time bantering with them about what’s going on in their lives.  A retired Marine and data processor for American Airlines, Mark has been volunteering once a week at Iron Gate for 12 years. He tells me that as he has gotten to know the folks who come there to eat, he has grown to understand that he is truly no different from the people on the other side of the food line. Recalling his own life experiences, he says, he realizes that the simplest occasions in our lives can make the difference between being successful and needing help. Most of the regular guests at Iron Gate struggle with chronic health problems, mental illness and substance abuse issues; some are former felons. However, since the onset of the economic downturn, they have seen a sharp rise in the number of families with children who are turning to Iron Gate for short-term help.

Even though it is my first time serving, some of the guests quickly become familiar as they return for second and third helpings.  At Iron Gate, guests are invited to come back through the line to eat as much as they want. The idea, explains Ernest, the program’s Operation Manager, is that no one should ever leave hungry. Some of the guests may be fed dinner at a shelter in the evening, or prepare other meals for themselves at home, but for some, this will be the only meal they eat this day.

Ernest, who holds court over the dining room like a master of ceremonies, explains to me that 95 percent of their guests come every day. They come for the togetherness and friendship, and because they know they will be treated properly. “Just because you’re standing in that line, doesn’t make you any less of a person or less deserving of respect”, he says, echoing Mark. One of the other staffers tells me that when people who first started coming to Iron Gate while homeless move on to find work and shelter, they will often come back just to check on their friends and get caught up.

When I leave, it’s 11:00 and the food line has been shut down for 20 minutes. A young man walks in carrying a plastic bag that looks to contain all his wordly possessions. “Sir, did you eat anything today?’, Ernest asks. “No”, says the man. “You stay right here,” says Ernest. He heads into the kitchen to find some leftover food to feed one more hungry Oklahoman.

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Iron Gate is a soup kitchen and food pantry in downtown Tulsa. It was started 26 years ago by parishioners of Trinity Episcopal Church who made sandwiches for the downtown homeless. The food was handed out in the church’s cloister garden which had a decorative iron gate.

The word quickly spread: If you’re hungry, go to the church with the iron gate. The name stuck.

The organization is still located in the basement of Trinity, but it has grown into a separate 501 ( c ) (3) nonprofit organization.

Our mission is simple: We feed people.

We feed anyone who comes to us, which indicates they are hungry. We have no identification requirements; we offer no educational or religious programs. We serve a hot, nutritious meal 8:30-10:30 a.m. every day of the year (10 a.m. on weekends and holidays.) We distribute grocery bags every week.

Last year 146,000 people came through our soup kitchen line. Last year, we distributed 5,200 grocery bags.

We call the people who eat with us our guests, because we invite them. Our philosophy is that we are all guests on this earth and that guests treat one another with courtesy, kindness and respect. We work to make sure that Iron Gate’s dining room is a friendly and welcoming place where guests can relax, visit with one another and escape the pressures awaiting them outside.

Our mission is simple: We feed people. Sadly, it’s a big job getting bigger.

• Last week, we served 2,813 people.
• Yesterday, we served more than 500. (Mid month, our numbers increase as people run out of food stamps and/or their monthly disability checks.)
• Now that school is out, we have more children coming to eat with us.
• In this depressed economy, we continue to see more families with children—often newly unemployed families. Sometimes, recently evicted families—young couples squatting in abandoned buildings, women and children staying in shelters.

Luckily, food help has arrived for the summer.

As reported in the Tulsa World, the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma has received a $2 million federal grant for supplemental food boxes for families. Iron Gate is one of the recipients.

Every week through September we will receive 100 food boxes and 50 household boxes (soap, toilet paper, etc). The guidelines are that these boxes are to augment the emergency grocery bags we already distribute and that the boxes go only to families with children. We began distributing the boxes June 18.

One of Iron Gate’s new initiatives is to get more food to kids. We have received grants to start a Kids’ Pantry at Iron Gate that is stocked with kid-friendly food. Every child who comes to eat with us receives a plastic bag of kid snacks and a small grocery bag of kid-friendly food.

We changed our grocery distribution schedule from once a week (Fridays) to twice a week (Fridays and Saturdays) so we can be more accessible for working parents.

We distributed fliers about this distribution schedule and the supplemental food boxes to Emergency Infant Services, Catholic Charities, Indian Health Care Resource Center, Veterans Association, Baptist Caring Center, HOPE and the Salvation Army.

Because of these efforts, we have seen a substantial increase in the number of families with children coming to get the food available for them.

The supplemental food box project dovetails perfectly with our interests in getting more food to families in need (especially families with small children) and collaborating with other social service agencies.

Iron Gate’s kitchen is known for producing delicious food. Come see for yourself. Stop by some morning and eat with us.

Disclaimer: The opinions stated above are not necessarily the opinions of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

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I have been in Food Banking for 28 years and just finished my 20th year as executive director of the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma. I have never seen the need for emergency food programs so prevalent or the increase in requests so high.

Emergency food programs were originally established to provide food for a short period of time to families who temporarily lacked enough money to meet all of their basic needs. Providing food allowed them to use their resources to pay a utility bill, put gas in the car to get to work or buy medicine. Families usually needed help two to four times per year, occasionally six times. Over the last two and a half years, not only has the number of people requesting help increased by 40 percent in the 24 counties served by the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, but, more and more families are relying on these emergency food programs to make it through each month.

Three recently released reports both confirm that hunger is a real problem in Oklahoma and provide a clearer understanding of who is affected by hunger and food insecurity.

According to numbers gathered in the spring of 2009 and reported in Hunger in America 2010 issued by Feeding America, 11.4 percent of Eastern Oklahomans are using emergency food programs, up from 10 percent at the time of the last study four years earlier. Forty-four percent of clients seeking food assistance are children, an increase of 6 percent. Monthly checking of information collected from emergency programs indicates both of these numbers have increased. Almost half of the seniors using emergency food programs reported having to choose between buying food and paying for medical care or medicine. 65 percent of households had monthly incomes of less than $1,000.

In November of 2009 USDA issued its annual report on food security showing Oklahoma as the fourth hungriest state in the nation with 5.9 percent of our population classified as having very low food security. Oklahoma ranked sixth in food insecurity with 14 percent of the state’s residents lacking money for food at times during the year. USDA information was collected at the end of 2008.

The latest report, using information collected most recently and from the largest sample, is the Food Research and Action Center’s (FRAC) Food Hardship: A Closer Look at Hunger. This report revealed that 22.2 percent of Oklahomans did not have enough money to buy the food that their families needed. According to the report Tulsa has the 21st and Oklahoma City the 12th highest rate of food hardship among the 100 largest metropolitan areas. Congressional District 2, covering most of Eastern Oklahoma has a food hardship rate of 25.4 percent, making it the 32nd highest district in the nation.

The root of hunger and food insecurity in Oklahoma is income and not having the resources to meet basic needs. Food, regardless of the body’s need for wholesome, nutritious energy to live a healthy productive life, is the first basic need to go when money is tight.

I fear it is about to get harder. Cuts in the current state budget, particularly in senior nutrition programs, resulted in requests to the two food banks in the state to make up the loss of food because of the loss of state funds to these programs. Emergency food programs that serve cooked meals have been asked to take on new clients with the closing or reduced hours of state funded senior nutrition sites. Now it is possible that the next fiscal year’s budget will require state agencies to take an 8 to 12 percent cut (on top of this year’s cuts). So far, most emergency programs have been able to step up to the challenge when it involves food. How much more they can do is a question to be answered.

The opinions stated above are not necessarily the opinions of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

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The economic downturn is creating added pressures on family food budgets and leading to unprecedented demands on both private charities and public programs for food assistance. As we’ve noted in our monthly Numbers You Need bulletins, participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program) has increased every month over the past year and has now reached an all-time high, with 450,000 Oklahomans having received SNAP benefits in March 2009. The Committee was reminded that programs like SNAP not only serve a social welfare role, but also have a significant impact on Oklahoma businesses and communities by providing families the resources to buy food at local grocery stores. SNAP payments in Oklahoma exceeded $48 million in the month of March; since then, the stimulus bill provided a 13.5 increase in monthly SNAP benefits.

Children are especially affected by hunger issues, and several programs focus on trying to ensure that children in economically disadvantaged families are adequately fed. The largest is the free and reduced-price school lunch program, which provides meals to children in families with income up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level. Just under 425,000 Oklahoma school children participated in the program in FY 2008, while just under 200,000 participated in the school breakfast program.

What happens, though, when school lets out? During the school year, an increasing number of schools, in conjunction with the state’s two regional food banks and other charities, operate weekend feeding programs that sends kids home from school on Friday afternoons with a backpack of food.  During the summer months, however, the situation becomes most worrisome. The federal government and State Department of Education administer the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which resembles the school lunch and school breakfast programs in making meals available to kids in low-income families. In 2008, the program served an average of just 11,686 children each day in its peak month of July, or only 1 in 36 children served by the School Lunch program.

The challenge is getting enough sponsors and sites to operate summer feeding programs, and getting the kids to the participating sites to be fed. Sites can be schools, churches, or non-profit organizations running summer programs for children and youth.  Sponsors are reimbursed on a per-meal basis, but there is no funding for transportation, and most school districts, especially in rural areas, choose not to participate in the program because they don’t have enough participating children to cover their costs. (There were 125 SFSP sponsors in the state of Oklahoma 2008 according to this list from the Department of Education; the list doesn’t tell us how many sites were operated by each sponsor).

The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma is thinking hard about how to get more sites involved and children served in the parts of the state they cover. Their efforts are currently focused on providing meals in low income areas where summer food is not offered by school districts. Last summer, the Regional Food Bank served 1800 children in central and western Oklahoma. On the worklist for the coming year is a summer feeding toolkit, which will make it easier and more financially feasible for small schools, particularly those in rural areas, to operate their own summer meal programs. The food bank is looking at planning menus, bulk purchasing food, publicizing food service sites, and providing technical assistance to schools as strategies to get more sites and more kids involved.

The Food Research Action Center (FRAC), a national anti-hunger advocacy group, has developed recommendations for the Summer Food Services Program, along with other federal nutrition programs. They call for reimbursement rates to be restored to 1996 funding levels, when rates were cut 10 percent, and additional funding for outreach and to cover transportation costs. But they also call on Congress and the Administration to “streamline the various child nutrition programs to enable schools, local government agencies, and non-profits to feed children 365 days a year through one seamless child nutrition program”:

The current family paper application process requires a tremendous amount of administrative work by schools and parents, and keeps some low-income families from participating in the program. Congress should begin a process of changing this outdated process. A good place to begin is with large school districts serving many high poverty areas.

This approach is critical. Hunger and inadequate nutrition are year-round problems that are not tied to the school schedule. Our public programs, with the active involvement of community-based organizations and faith groups committed to keeping children adequately fed, need to keep developing more creative, effective ways to rise to the challenge.

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