Food insecurity on rise in Pierce County. ‘We’ve actually never seen higher numbers’

Food bank leaders sounded an alarm about worsening food insecurity at the Pierce County Council meeting Thursday, saying that more than one in 10 county residents struggle daily with having enough food to eat, as do one in six kids.

Michelle Douglas, the CEO of Lakewood non-profit Emergency Food Network, told the council her organization and its partners have never seen so much wide-spread poverty and hunger in Pierce County, even during the height of the pandemic.

“What I would want you to know is that these are pretty rough times,” Douglas said. “Many of us thought we’d seen the height of food insecurity during the COVID pandemic. And what I can tell you is we’ve actually never seen higher numbers than we’re experiencing at this point in time.”

Douglas and others at the meeting said economic insecurity has forced tens of thousands of residents to make daily heart-wrenching decisions about whether to spend money on things like food, housing or medical needs. Given the high cost of living and housing rates in Pierce County, many go hungry to make ends meet, Douglas said.

Feeding America, a non-profit organization that serves as a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, estimates one in 10 people in Washington suffer from food insecurity and malnutrition (which equates to about 94,860 adults and children).

“I can tell you if we were on the ground today, it would be higher,” Douglas said. “It might be closer to one in eight.”

People of color, active military members, seniors, children and families with children are more likely to face food insecurity nationwide due to a variety of factors, including pay disparities, housing and rental prices, child care costs and access to affordable and healthy food, she said.

Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and other people of color who live in Pierce County were 1.5 times more likely to be food insecure than white residents, according to the results of a survey of about 400 people conducted by the University of Washington and Washington State University.

A state-wide survey also conducted by the University of Washington and Washington State University found that 55% of households surveyed used at least one type of food assistance within the past month and 31% of households with children reported “very low food security.” Groceries were reported as the leading expense of concern for all income levels.

Aging adults in Pierce County ranked food as their top need/priority, according to a survey from Pierce County’s Aging and Disabilities Resources division. Adults with disabilities ranked food as their fourth highest need.

‘It is staggering, that level of hardship’

Between February 2022 and February 2023, food prices rose 10.4% in the Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue area, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Currently, food pantries and food banks are seeing more people using their services who’ve never had to before, Douglas said. The Emergency Food Network has seen 100% more visitors now than in 2019, she said.

“It is staggering, that level of hardship … At one point we had a statistic that most visitors to the food pantry would [visit] at most about three times a year. What we know now is we see many of those same working families every single week,” she said. “So as their budgets have gotten incredibly, incredibly stretched, it has become impossible every week to be able to feed your family. And I don’t think that’s what we want for our community.”

In Pierce County, the fastest-growing group of people visiting the food pantry is parents who have one to three jobs in their household, Douglas said.

More than half, 52%, of Pierce County students qualify for free and reduced lunch, Douglas said in her presentation. Many families didn’t know they needed to sign up for free and reduced-cost lunches because they didn’t have to during the height of the pandemic, she said.

“I want to really highlight what we saw in 2022. It’s the biggest year emergency food services in Pierce County has ever seen. We’re not a grocery store. We don’t like it when we sell more, right? We find it devastating,” Douglas said. “In 2022 there were 2 million visits to the network, just in our community. And not every food pantry that’s located in Pierce County is part of the Emergency Food Network.”

Douglas said her organization gets an average of five calls per week from food pantries telling them they’re out of food.

“And this is not about ‘we need to stretch it further,’ or mismanagement. It is about a level of need that we have literally never experienced before,” she said.

What’s being done

At Thursday’s meeting the County Council unanimously approved a resolution proclaiming May 2023 as “Hunger Awareness Month” and council members thanked the Emergency Food Network and its partners for their work in the community. An average of 172,813 people visit local food pantries each month and the Emergency Food Network distributes more than 12 million pounds of food to its more than 75 partner food pantries, meal sites and shelters every year, according to the resolution.

Council member Robyn Denson said she met with some community organizations who serve children on the Key Peninsula that morning. Denson said a major topic of conversation was summer approaching and concern about where and if children will be able to access food when they cannot get free or reduced meals at school.

“During COVID kids got free food in school and that has ended, at least for our school district,” Denson said. “Our school districts have seen a drop off in the families that are applying for free and reduced lunch. So getting those families back online is important, not only so their kids can eat but also so that the school district gets the funding it needs to feed the kids.”

Denson said healthy good quality food is essential for children’s growth, learning, happiness and development into successful and productive members of society.

Council member Jani Hitchen said it is heartbreaking to see students try and learn on an empty stomach. Hitchen said in publicly acknowledging food insecurity she hopes it will motivate more people to donate food and other goods to help their neighbors in need.

Douglas said the geographic size of Pierce County is huge, “so we need food pantries where people are.”

The Emergency Food Network has been doing work to reduce barriers to food access in Pierce County in a way that preserves residents’ dignity and health, she said. The network also is working to offer food that residents want to eat and know how to prepare, including cultural foods and fresh produce grown locally at Mother Earth Farm.

With no food pantry on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Douglas said, her organization has been trying to help the “staggering quantity of active duty military members needing access to food pantries” with home delivery services and events along the borders of the base.

Douglas emphasized the importance of partnership and collaboration in addressing food insecurity.

“What I’m really telling you is that hunger is not going to be solved in Pierce County by Emergency Food Network. It’s not going to be solved by any of our partners. It’s going to be solved by all of us working together,” Douglas said. “It is going to take every single one of us to make an impact.”

Douglas said recent loss of benefits and cuts to temporary social service programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP benefits, threatens to worsen the hunger crisis and contributes to long-term impacts of poverty, including poor health outcomes, low quality of life and homelessness.

“Many of the supports that we saw in 2020, they’re gone. Government food assistance is down by 60%. The amount of donated product is down significantly across the entire country,” Douglas said.

With fewer food donations recently, Douglas said, “we’ve been buying food at record rates, over $1.6 million worth of food, which is over a million pounds of food.”

Anika Moran, a special advisor to the director of Pierce County Human Services, said the county addressed food insecurity in several ways during the pandemic, including the SNAP Market Match program, which increased SNAP benefit recipients’ purchasing power at farmer’s markets.

Food-related programming is also embedded into other services offered by Pierce County, including Aging and Disability Resources, Community Action Programs, Veterans Assistance Programs, Washington State University Extension and Ukrainian Arrival Contracts, Moran said.

Douglas thanked the Pierce County Council for funding food operations at the Emergency Food Network and other affordable housing projects, but said there is still dire need. Pierce County allocated $960,000 in the 2022-2023 budget to the Emergency Food Network.

“We have never been busier. Every month this year, so January, February, March, April – I just keep thinking we’re going to hit a slowdown, right, that has to come? But instead, every month we’re up 40% over last year’s numbers. So in a way the level of need is even so much more significantly high right now than it was in the height of the pandemic,” she said. “We want a community that is not just barely surviving. We want a community that is thriving.”

For more information on ways to get involved or donate to the Emergency Food Network visit their website.