In the past year, Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio has seen a 32 percent increase in food pantry visits.
A study by the Ohio Association of Foodbanks is showing this is a trend, not only happening locally, but throughout Ohio.
The findings are from a survey of 2,301 folks who had visited Ohio foodbanks in April and May.
The study shows that many residents are finding they must choose between buying food or paying for other essential household expenses such as transportation, medicine and utilities.
Second Harvest president and CEO Julie Chase-Morefield said having access to food from Second Harvest and partner charities gives community members more food to eat, healthier food choices and allows those limited dollars to be spent on other necessities.
“We distributed a million more pounds of food to our neighbors than we did last year, but the need keeps increasing,” Chase-Morefield said. “We have to continue to serve our neighbors and create pathways with other organizations to come up with solutions to help with the difficult decisions our community is facing.
“I’ve been at food banking for a long time, so I’m not surprised at the study results. I think it confirmed the things that we thought. It’s having the data to be able to confirm the things we’re anecdotally hearing from that the neighbors that we’re serving to be able to put numbers with those and then be able to communicate that back out to the public to say these are the real numbers.
“This is the hardship that exists in our communities right now, and these are things that we need to take steps to address.”
Record visits
According to the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, which commissioned the study, after enduring over a year of above-average inflation and rising costs for food and other essentials, paired with the expiration of coronavirus pandemic-era Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in March 2023, Ohioans are visiting Ohio’s foodbank network at record rates.
Nearly two-thirds (65.2 percent) of Ohio Association of Foodbanks’ neighbor households reported that the adults in their households skipped meals in the past year because they did not have enough food, including more than a third (34.9 percent) that reported doing so every month or almost every month over the past year.
Nearly three in five households surveyed are not participating in SNAP.
For those that are participating, nearly two-thirds report that their SNAP benefits are exhausted in two weeks or less each month.
Findings also underscored that most Ohioans who are able to work, are working.
Of those households without current employment, they reported multiple reasons for not working, with some reporting more than one reason.
More than half (58 percent) said they were not working because they were ill or disabled; 40.9 percent said they are retired; and others said they were taking care of their home or family (9.6 percent), going to school (6 percent), or were looking for work or had been laid off (4.5 percent).
Not enough money
Second Harvest is not finding that requests are stemming from poor family budgeting practices, but rather and quite simply a lack of money, Chase-Morefield said.
“If you just literally don’t have enough money, and I think some of the issues that were highlighted in the study come back to things people who aren’t working, is because they’re ill or they’re disabled,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of people who are seniors who are living on Social Security; they’re not able to work, right, so I mean those things you know that creates a lot of issues.
“And, housing costs are through the roof. We did some community roundtables earlier in the spring, and at every single one of them in all four of our counties, the issue of housing was, it’s so expensive and also extremely hard to find. You can add to that the massive increase in property taxes this year.
“Yes, absolutely all of these things are creating pressure. If you’re making choices, 50 percent of the people said housing, whether it’s affording food or rent or mortgage. You need a roof over your head, so what are you giving up, you’re giving up. You’re giving up food right in order to pay your mortgage.”
When asked how often they expect to need to seek help from Ohio’s foodbanks in the next 12 months, 89.6 percent said they would need help as often or more often than in the past 12 months, including a third (33.7 percent) who said they would need help more often.
When Ohio foodbank clients were asked about whether they had to choose between paying for food or other household expenses, the study found 72.5 percent had to choose between food and transportation/gasoline; 65.2 percent had to choose between food and utilities; 57.8 percent had to choose between food or medicine/health care; and 49.5 percent had to choose between food and housing.
“The stark reality revealed by this study is a wake-up call for all of us,” said Joree Novotny, executive director for the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. “It is unacceptable that so many Ohioans are forced to make impossible choices between feeding their families and covering basic needs like transportation and housing.
“Ohio’s foodbanks are operating at full capacity, yet the demand continues to grow. The fact that so many people are skipping meals and struggling to balance essential expenses highlights the urgent need for action.”
Last year, the local Second Harvest had 380,000 instances of provided assistance in service area — Lorain, Erie, Huron and Crawford counties — and that clients use the food pantry on average five times a year.
“And that’s all we’re here for,” Chase-Morefield said. “It’s making sure that when someone is in a space where that stress is happening and how am I going to have enough food that they know that they can access food from a local pantry.”
Approximately a quarter of the food supplied by the local food pantries comes from federal food sources, while another quarter comes from the state of Ohio.
A third comes from donated sources, such as local grocers, farmers and other small markets, including local orchards.
Second Harvest also works nationally with Feeding America and national sources.
Second Harvest continues to ask and receive donations, and spends nearly $2 million each year purchasing food, which also helps the local farmers and small growers.
The results of the survey are being utilized for the Ohio Associate of Foodbanks to lobby for increased government allocated spending on these and other similar programs, such as The Farm Bill and The Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, known in Ohio as Ohio CAN (Community Agriculture and Nutrition).
