Posts by Bread For The City
Expanding Food Stamps In DC
Published June 15, 2009 @ 03:10PM PT
[Greg Bloom, of DC's Bread for the City, is guest-blogging here with a summary of reporting done on Bread for the City's blog, Beyond Bread.]
A new wave of food stamps is flooding into Washington, DC. And we sure do need it.
Even before the recession, almost a fifth of DC’s residents were living below the federal poverty line. DC also suffers from the urban food infrastructure problems often discussed here – like vast food deserts that leave entire communities without access to fresh, nutritious produce. As a result, some of our nation's worst food insecurity is found right here in the capitol.
And yet, DC also has one of the country’s highest levels of participation in the food stamp benefits program (now known as SNAP). Readers of this blog won’t be surprised to hear that food stamps aren't sufficient to ensure food security: the cost of living – and the swiftly rising cost of food in particular – just doesn’t match up to the meager levels of SNAP assistance. (Here at Bread for the City, we typically hear from our clients that their food stamps run out by the third week of the month.)
But you'll be encouraged to hear that steps are being taken in the right direction. This month, DC City Council passed legislation that will expand the breadth and scale of food stamp assistance in the District.
The legislation does a few different things, all fairly technical (you have been warned!):
The Nutrition Initiative
Published May 18, 2009 @ 12:40PM PT
By: Sharon Gruber, in-house nutritionist at Bread for the City.
Every month at Bread for the City, our clients receive three days worth of groceries from our food pantry. Most of these clients are elderly, disabled, or have small children. Their average income is under $7,000 a year.
Most of these clients also receive food stamps, but if your income is low enough to qualify to receive them, food stamps often still aren’t enough to keep food on your table week to week. Our provisions help clients cover that gap.
And recently, our provisions have been doing even more. In my first guest post here on Sustainable Food, I described our still-new Nutrition Initiative:
We know that it’s not enough to help hungry people eat. We must help them eat well.
And indeed, in the past year we’ve totally overhauled our pantry's menu.
Canned goods high in sodium and sugars are out; things like transfats and red meat are also out. Instead we provide fruits canned in their own juices; canned veggies without salt added; brown rice; and even fresh produce in every bag. We also cut out sugary cereals, pastry snacks, and candies (which are donated all-too-often by people with good intentions but maybe not nutritional consciousness). When we can, we offer things like canned tuna and salmon and ground turkey.
We did all this in the midst of skyrocketing food prices. The menu overhaul was really only possible because our food pantry staff have been doing this work for so long, at such a scale, that they're able to eek out those extra bits of savings and efficiency. In general, our clients responded positively: our food pantry coordinator tells me that one woman she’s known for years saw produce in her bag and looked up to say “it’s about time!”
