Food pantries, once a temporary source of assistance for people in crisis, are now used regularly by thousands of Maine households to fill recurring shortfalls in nutrition and sustenance. For the Mainers who each month come up short on food, the charitable pantries are a godsend. The overreliance on donated food, however, points to larger problems, related to poverty and economic instability, that call for more comprehensive solutions.

Food pantry operators began noticing a shift in use from “emergency to chronic” about a decade ago, but the shift accelerated during the most recent economic downturn, according to a 2010 report by Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief charity. In 2008, the report found, 38 percent of food pantry clients nationwide used the pantry every month. Another 18 percent used a pantry regularly for at least six months out of the year.

RECESSION OVER, HUNGER IS NOT

That, perhaps, can be blamed on the onset of the Great Recession, and the record unemployment that followed. But the recession is long over, and by most indicators the economy, in Maine and across the country, has largely recovered. That makes the most recent findings from Good Shepherd Food Bank all the more troubling.

Good Shepherd, the largest charitable food supplier in the state, reported last week that its network of partner agencies serves 178,000 unique individuals each year, for a total of nearly 2 million visits annually. That means each individual is visiting a food pantry an average of 11 times a year, or almost once a month.

That’s a clear sign that food pantries are becoming a structural need, not an emergency crutch. It is also a sign that wider efforts to curb hunger are falling short.

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In fact, in 43 percent of the households that used a Maine food pantry, someone had been employed in the last four weeks, meaning a job doesn’t always keep someone from going hungry.

FOOD STAMPS ARE NOT ENOUGH

More than a quarter of the people using pantries are older than 60, meaning seniors’ fixed incomes in many cases do not meet basic needs. And 57 percent of the households participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – or SNAP, formerly food stamps – meaning that the primary federal program for fighting hunger is just not enough.

In addition, 68 percent of Good Shepherd’s partners reported an increase in people seeking assistance over the previous year, even with the economy ostensibly on the rebound. Only 4 percent saw a decrease.

That all points to factors that go beyond hunger and may be resistant even to growth in the economy – including stagnant wages, rising costs and the lack of good jobs in much of Maine.

Fortunately, Maine has the Good Shepherd Food-Bank and its partners, which distribute more than 13 million pounds of food every year, spread across all 16 counties, making sure tens of thousands of Mainers have something to put on the table.

But as people return to the food pantries month after month, it’s clear that the good work is treating a symptom of a much broader disease.


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