By Richard Wolf
USA Today
"There's pride in being able to take care of yourself," says the
Columbus, Ohio, resident, laid off last year from a mortgage company
and living on workers' compensation benefits while recovering from
surgery. "I'm not supposed to be in this condition."
Neither are many of the 27.5 million Americans relying on government
aid to keep food on their tables amid unemployment and rising
prices. Average enrollment in the food stamps program has surpassed
the record set in 1994, though the percentage of Americans on food
stamps is still lower than records set in 1993-95. The numbers
continue to climb.
Gist, 51, is the new face of hunger in the USA. She says she spent
most of her adult life working as a mental health counselor before
deciding to try real estate. "I'm a professional person," she says.
As economists nationally debate whether the country is in recession
and policymakers discuss ways to drive down gas prices, a new
category of Americans combats hunger.

Since 2006, soaring food and fuel prices have combined with lost
jobs and stagnant wages to boost the number of Americans needing
food aid. More than 41% of those on food stamps came from working
families in 2006, up from 30% a decade earlier, according to the
latest Agriculture Department data.
They are real estate agents and homebuilders hit by the housing
slump, seniors on Social Security, parents of students whose free
breakfast and lunch programs don't solve the problem of dinner.
Increasingly in recent months, they have signed up for food stamps
and shown up at food pantries, trying to make ends meet.
"This last year's been the worst," says Gladys Pearson, 76, a
retired corrections officer, as she leaves a Bread for the City food
pantry in Washington, D.C., a three-day supply of staples in the
basket of her walker. She likens it to the 1950s, when her husband
would come home with a small can of milk for their newborn daughter
because a big one was too expensive.
Officials on the front lines say the need is growing.
• At food stamp offices, employees are "seeing people from various
occupations that they have never seen before," says Vic Todd,
administrator of Oregon's Office of Self-Sufficiency Programs.

• At food banks, demand is up 15% to 20% over last year. Pantries
are serving "folks who get up and go to work every day," says Bill
Bolling, founder of the Atlanta Community Food Bank. "That's
remarkably different than the profile of who we've served through
the years."
• In schools, the school breakfast and lunch programs are serving
more than 31 million students, which soon will give way to summer
programs that serve just 3 million.
Kindergarteners in Baton Rouge are hoarding part of their lunches to
eat later at home, says Mike Manning, president of the Greater Baton
Rouge Food Bank.
In Reading, Pa., Peg Bianca, executive director of the Greater Berks
Food Bank, sees demand soaring for "weekenders" — backpacks of food
intended to help students stay nourished until Monday.
AMERICANS 'ARE REALLY HURTING'
"People are hurting," says Kitty Schaller, executive director of the
MANNA FoodBank in Asheville, N.C., where one in six people get
emergency food assistance. "They are really hurting in a way that I
think may well be unprecedented."
Hunger in America isn't new. The latest government data for 2006
show that 10.9% of households were "food insecure," a bureaucratic
term meaning they did not have enough food for a healthy lifestyle
at some point in the year. In 4% of households, no bureaucratic
jargon was needed; someone was going hungry.
Families with enough to eat spent 31% more on food than those who
didn't have enough.
The federal food stamps program has grown, shrunk and grown again
since its creation in 1964. It was cut by Republicans when they took
control of Congress in 1995. It has expanded during the past eight
years, fueled by two economic slumps, relaxed rules regarding assets
and an outreach campaign to sign up eligible families.
The program is restricted to households with incomes below 130% of
the federal poverty level, or $27,560 for a family of four. They
cannot have more than $2,000 or, in some cases, $3,000 in assets,
not including homes and, in most states, cars. The average benefit
is about $3 a day per person. Cost to the government: $38 billion,
rising to $40 billion in 2009.
It's the largest weapon in the U.S. government's 15-program food aid
arsenal, which now costs about $60 billion, up 76% since 2001. "We
do have a strong safety net available to help families in times of
economic distress," says Kate Houston, deputy undersecretary for
food, nutrition and consumer services at the Department of
Agriculture.
When the Bush administration proposed its 2008 budget in February
2007, it projected that an average of 26.2 million people would get
food stamps this year. By the time the fiscal year began in October,
however, enrollment already was 27.2 million and growing. For next
year, the administration plans for an average of 28 million.

Even so, only 65% of eligible recipients are enrolled. Among working
families, only 57% of those eligible for food stamps have signed up.
Gist joined the ranks of recipients after losing her job as a loan
officer. She says she was fired the day before she was to be paid
her $27,000 share of the closing costs for four loans she
negotiated. The mortgage company is now out of business and, in an
unfortunate twist, her home is in foreclosure.
She learned she was eligible for food stamps while having her taxes
done for free. "It's embarrassing," says Gist, who still hopes to
stay in her home despite a scheduled sheriff's sale Friday. "It's
humbling."
'REGULAR JOES' ON FOOD STAMPS
Yet it's not unusual. Kevin McGuire, executive director of
Maryland's Family Investment Administration, which runs antipoverty
programs, says many new food stamp clients are "regular-Joe working
Americans." His state saw enrollment rise 13.8% in the past year,
fourth-highest in the USA.
When they get on food stamps, these new recipients find that the
program doesn't keep up with prices. The inflation rate for items
they're encouraged to buy under the "thrifty food plan" is 5.6% —
more than the average 4.7% for food. Prices for basic items such as
bread and milk pushed food prices up by almost 1% in April alone;
bread costs 14.1% more than it did a year ago, milk 13.5% more.
Families with less than $10,000 in pre-tax income spend a larger
share of their income on food — 17.1% compared with a U.S. average
of 12.6%, according to a report last month by the Congressional
Research Service. Inflation hits them harder.
"Many of the people who are turning to food pantries today are
reporting that their food stamps aren't even lasting two weeks out
of every month," says Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the
Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.
The farm bill passed overwhelmingly by Congress last week partially
addresses those issues. It would invest $10.4 billion over five
years in the food stamps program and food banks. President Bush has
vowed to veto the bill because of its subsidies to wealthy farmers,
but the House and Senate votes indicate Congress is likely to
override him for only the second time.
In the meantime, more Americans will cut corners.
It doesn't "stretch as far as they say it does," says Brenda Tanner,
45, of Asheville, N.C., who raises two teenage daughters on $623 a
month in disability payments and $289 a month in food stamps. She
buys in bulk and no longer goes out to eat. "Milk is as high as
gas," she says. "That's crazy."
NEAR THE CAPITOL, NO MORE CEREAL
Even with one in every 11 Americans receiving food stamps, millions
who don't qualify also need help. They are joining food stamp
recipients at food pantries nationwide, where they receive bags of
food intended to last a few days. "Many people are in desperate
financial straits who are not eligible for food stamps," says House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who pushed to pass the farm bill.
Second Harvest, the nation's largest network of food banks, says
demand is up an average of 15% to 20% from a year ago.
More than 80% of its food banks reported in a survey completed this
month that they could not meet demand without trimming operations or
reducing the amount of food given out.
Donations are down, particularly from the federal government as well
as private companies. Farmers are selling their crops on the open
market at record prices, rather than giving them to the government
through price-support programs.
To compensate, the Agriculture Department has traded raw commodities
for finished goods that can be provided to food banks. Earlier this
month, it chipped in with $50 million in frozen pork patties.
Costs are up, particularly for diesel fuel needed to deliver food to
pantries by truck. Nearly half of the food banks now buy some of
their food or are considering doing so, rather than relying on
donations.
"It's really a perfect storm," says Maura Daly, Second Harvest's
vice president of government affairs.
At Bread for the City in Washington, less than 2 miles from the
White House and the Capitol, food and clothing director Ted Pringle
can't buy cereal anymore because of the price of grain, wheat and
corn. Fresh fruit jumped by 3.2% nationally in April. "It scares me
to buy fruit," Pringle says.
Food banks across the country are on the front lines as demand
increases and supply dwindles:
• In Oakland, the number of monthly calls into the Alameda County
Community Food Bank has risen 28% from last year. Since July, each
month has set a new record.
• In Tyler, Texas, the East Texas Food Bank has stopped buying rice
and pinto beans in bulk quantities because they're too expensive.
Some of the pantries it serves no longer can drive up to two hours
to the central food bank because of a 64% increase in fuel costs.
• In Detroit, executive director Augie Fernandes is seeing more
seniors on fixed incomes "who are very proud" come into the Gleaners
Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan.
• In Ponca City, Okla., the local food pantry is serving more than
500 people a month, a 20% increase from last year. As a result, it's
had to cut their monthly allotments from three bags of food to two.
• In Nashville, program services manager Kelli Garrett sees former
volunteers and donors arrive as clients at Second Harvest Food Bank
of Middle Tennessee. "They feel a certain level of shame having to
ask for help," she says.
• In Alaska, 15 remote food pantries have closed because they lacked
sufficient government commodities. "At one point, we were down to
vegetarian beans," says Susannah Morgan, executive director of the
Food Bank of Alaska. Things are better now: They have grape juice,
green beans and frozen apricot cups.
• In Orlando, Dave Krepcho of the Food Bank of Central Florida has
eight trucks and a tractor-trailer on the road full time, picking up
food from grocery stores. He worries about low-income children home
from school this summer.
Krepcho, the food bank's executive director, has been in the
business 16 years.
"This is the worst that I've ever seen it," he says, "by far."
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