Chronic Hunger Is a Growing Problem in California, Study Finds

[Rose Siding]

Hunger and poor nutrition are increasing in California, with nearly 3 million low-income adults reporting that they struggle each day to keep food on the table, according to a study released Tuesday by UCLA researchers.

Nearly 34% of low-income adults in 2003 said they had to make a daily decision about whether to eat or pay for other necessities such as shelter or medical care, up from 29% in 2001.
...
"The elderly, the employed, the unemployed, families with children — no matter how you cut it there were increases in their inability to obtain food, and that indicates a systemic problem in the state rather than a localized one," said lead investigator Gail Harrison, a public health professor at UCLA.

Harrison said several factors may be at work, including growing housing and healthcare costs, low wages and difficulty in obtaining federal food stamps. The study concluded that the Food Stamp Program has been particularly underutilized in California. Of those adults who were eligible and reported episodes of hunger, fewer than 18% received food stamps.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hunger8jun08,1,1390090.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Yesterday-

Hunger Advocates in D.C. to Rally for Legislation to Feed Nation's Hungry

Distribution Source : U.S. Newswire
Date : Tuesday - June 07, 2005

National Hunger Awareness Day 2005 "Rally Against Hunger." More than 1,500 supporters from all 50 states and Puerto Rico will gather in Washington, D.C., in observance of National Hunger Awareness Day
...
WHY: For 36 million Americans, including more than 13 million children, having enough food to eat is a daily struggle. They must depend on a patchwork of government and charitable hunger-relief programs. Too many people find that their earnings, if any at all, don't meet the day-to-day costs of living; rent, day-care, utilities and medical costs far exceed the wages they bring home or the benefits they receive. For these millions of families, food insecurity is a way of life. This is why we need every American to volunteer their time, donate food or funds to a local food bank, or organizing an event to raise both funds and awareness.

http://press.arrivenet.com/pol/article.php/649345.html

[mbperrin]

1. If they'd only pray hard enough, they could solve this!

Right? "Give us this day our daily bread" or somesuch as that...obviously, Cali is filled with non-believers!

It really does make me angry that in the world's richest country by any measure of physical goods, that ANYONE is hungry! In fact, with the MOUNTAINS of food stockpiled, where one of the problems is that it will ROT by being used for price supports, it is quite enraging that ANYONE on the planet doesn't have enough to eat every day!

[Redstone]

19. Second that. There is indeed NO excuse for ANYONE

especially kids, to be hungry in this country.

Redstone

[meganmonkey]

2. And not just in California

This is a serious and growing problem across the country, media ignores it, and too many Americans think hunger only happens to people who are 'too lazy to work' or something....but most of the people we feed (I work for a food bank/food rescue) are elderly or children. I get calls all day from elderly folks who can't make ends meet because of medical bills, or parents who are worried about feeding their kids since school breakfast & lunch programs aren't available in the summer.

VOLUNTEER VOLUNTEER VOLUNTEER!!!!

Hunger is a year-round problem - not just at Christmas and Thanksgiving when people are thinking about sharing. It frustrates me how many well-intentioned people call because they want their kids to volunteer at our soup kitchen on the holidays - what about the other 363 days a year?! They seem surprised that they are the 10th offer we've had that day and we don't need anymore help on Christmas, and very few of them take me up on the idea that maybe they could do it a different day...Like it doesn't mean as much if it is January 8th or July 17th.

Donate your time, your money, your food! Even if it is just a few hours a month it means a lot to your community!

[MountainLaurel]

4. Amen, Megan

A friend did her master's thesis on a program in WV designed to fill the summer gap for school-provided meals, and extended the program to include enrichment activities, summer study sessions, etc. And, it extended the food and educational program to parents and other children as well, under the presumption that parents who don't have to worry about feeding their kids are less likely to beat the hell out of them (a serious problem in this locale) and more likely to be the sort of parents that children need to succeed in school.

[shanti]

20. sacramento has

a summer lunch program for kids on summer vacation. it is well attended too.

[Mountainman]

3. Well it looks like the right wing agenda is working. Those lazy loafers

won't be getting handouts from the good and decent productive working folks.

Never mind them it's there own fault.

Folks this is just the beginning. This is what the right wing agenda is all about. No social safety nets at all. No middle class. Just the rich ruling class and the working poor.

"Are there no prisons or work houses?" "If they would rather die, let them be about it and help reduce the surplus population."

[getmeouttahere]

15. Right! The difference between this country...

and so many in Western Europe (and of course Canada) is that there is a social safety net. And if we had our priorities in order, we could do it better than anyone, with this countries resources.

When our economy finally collapses, which is inevitable IF we continue on this current path, it's going to be UGLY! With no significant social safety net, what will another depression look like for the U.S.? In the meantime, all of us should do everything we can to help those less fortunate than us. I myself plan to inquire about local food banks and how I can volunteer my time. It's not enough to sponsor a child in Africa anymore...I need to help my neighbors too.

[Strawman]

16. yep

[ckramer]

5. Yet 300 billion was spent in Iraq for nothing

Hungry? Well too bad, the oil wells in Iraq needed the money!

You can always sell your organs in Ebay.

[realFedUp]

7. Republican priorities in the wrong place...

[readmylips]

6. My neighbors are middle income or used to be....

after the husband lost his 20 year job at 55 yrs old. He was let go with a few dollars of gift pay. The husband can't find a job that makes over $9.00 an hour, and it's only temporary work. Nobody wants to hire people over 50 and companies are getting rid of that age group, just before retirement.

Hungry, yes they go hungry right here in my upperty-ass neighborhood, and they are republicans. The wife has a sickness that requires a pretty large bill of monthly medicines. She works part-time and can't get health insurance. That bill eats up the husband's $9.00 an hour job. They are not only hungry but they are depressed, hopeless after following the AMERICAN DREAM...work hard. They not only worked hard, they lived a frugal life-style in hope of having a better retirement.

FOCK little george bush.

[unhappycamper]

8. With the exception of a VERY few, do you think any congress critter cares?

Really? If we are lucky, the foreign press will tell the story of Murika slipping into the third world for our poverty, hunger, homelessness, and imprisonment.

About the only positive thing that may come out of our slide into oblivion is that civilized nations who are watching us might choose to avoid the path we have taken.

[meganmonkey]

9. Not hardly - I remember during the primaries last year

there was hardly any mention of poverty in the US. Edwards talked about it some, but most of the other candidates didn't even mention it. Admittedly I had no TV back then, so I may have missed a lot but I was struck by the lack of concern over this issue.

:(

[Arkansas Granny]

12. I, too, found the lack of discussion on this topic

to be a little strange. With all this talk about "ownership" and "personal responsiblilty" a lot of people have the feeling that if you can't take care of yourself and your family that it's somehow your own fault for being lazy, shiftless or irresponisble. Since the economy is "strong and getting stronger", what else could it be? We're adding jobs, unemployment is down. What's the problem?

What they don't see is that the unemployment rate doesn't count people who have dropped off the unemployment roles due to their benefits running out. The don't see the people who have taken jobs paying much less than the jobs that they had based their budget on. They don't see people trying to raise a family on minimum wage jobs. They want to pretend that hunger is something that happens only in third world countries. If they don't see it, they can ignore it, and it just doesn't exist.


The fact that chronic hunger exists in the richest country in the world is appalling. The fact that our government is pulling the safety net out from under the segment of our population who needs it most borders on criminal negligence.

[readmylips]

10. Little Humor on something not Funny.....

Chronic Hunger Growing Problem in California. I thought the article was about Mrs Maria Schwartzagroper's role model influence. California people have taken to just eating carrots, like the Mrs.

If people in California, one of the richest states, go hungry, how are the people in less affluent states surviving? Compassion and Christianity really runeths over in the USA.

[DBoon]

11. "Hungry in the [San Fernando] Valley"

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200%257E20954%257E2907650,00.html?search=filter

The number of San Fernando Valley adults on the verge of going hungry jumped 16 percent from 2001 to 2003 -- double the rate of Los Angeles County -- primarily due to high unemployment and housing costs, a UCLA study being released today found.

An estimated 166,000 Valley adults were considered at risk of going hungry in 2003, about 10 percent of the Valley's entire population and more than one-third of its low-income adults.

High housing costs mean less money to buy food. Poverty is relative to the cost of living.

or as they said during the 1980's housing boom: "Making a killing in real estate is not a victimless crime"

[Rose Siding]

13. A report from Iowa (pantry's need doubled in 4 yrs)

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 12:06 PM CDT
Hunger report states that assistance isn't enough
WATERLOO --- Government assistance isn't enough to alleviate hunger, which may increase the burden on local food pantries without additional funding, according to a University of Northern Iowa assistant professor.

At a Monday press conference at the Northeast Iowa Food Bank in Waterloo, Maureen Berner presented her findings in the report "Hunger in the Heartland: A Portrait of Need in Northeast Iowa." Iowa Fiscal Partnership, a budget and policy analysis initiative, released the report in time for National Hunger Awareness Day, which is today.
...
The number of food pantry clients that held jobs or received government assistance such as Social Security was higher than Berner expected. She found one in four was employed; one in four received Social Security benefits; four in 10 received food stamps.

Also, one in five sought food assistance due to an unplanned expense; three in 10 seeking emergency assistance had recently lost a job.

http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2005/06/08/news/politics/8ae5391f53dc917186257019004e4055.txt

[BrotherBuzz]

14. Horatio Alger is dead

It's a myth to think that if you work hard you will become successful. If it was true, the good souls that toil in the Central Valley fields growing our food would be millionaires. Too bad we don't measure wealth by how much hard work we do. The gap between the haves and have nots is growing, and this new shake-up of the class system is directly connected to the republicans' cavalier attitude and callous lack of social responsibilities - I got mine!

[cthrumatrix]

17. media ignores the outrage across america

[kineneb]

18. count us amongst those folks

quietly sliding into poverty...I go to the commodities handout at the beginning of the month...we live on $300/wk, no benefits, no vacation, no sick leave...if Mom didn't help with some of the bills, we would be deeply in the hole...cost keep going up, income stays the same

I shop the sales and grow some of my food...never much money left at the end of the month...sometimes Mother Hubbard's cupboard is kind of bare here...add extra noodles to boxed noodles and cheese...

Hubby has diabetes, chronic kidney disease and congestive heart failure...have to re-qualifiy every three months for CMSP/MediCal

[TomClash]

21. Eat the rich nt