Groups promote awareness
about hunger
BY
TY JOHNSON THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD | Posted: Thursday, July 25, 2013 10:40 pm
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| Leonardo Treviño commits to fight for a living wage |
At first glance,
the United States’ issues with hunger and obesity appear to be at different
ends of the spectrum, but more than 40 people gathered Thursday in Brownsville
learned that government policy might be to blame for the nation’s 50 million
hungry citizens as well as its 23.5 million overweight children and teenagers.
Just hours
earlier, the Texas Food Bank Network warned that the problem appears poised to
worsen as Congress considers more funding cuts to the federal Supplemental
Nutritional Assistance Program on top of benefits already set to expire this
November.
Thursday’s event
at Paredes Reception Hall, hosted by Proyecto Juan Diego, was not intended to
coincide with TFBN’s unveiling of its 100-day countdown clock that ticks down the
number of days until SNAP benefits will decrease by about $20 monthly per
household, but Sister Phylis Peters said the upcoming reduction in benefits
correlates directly with the message contained in “A Place at the Table,” the
film her organization screened.
The documentary
showed how an increased emphasis on farm subsidies without focusing on feeding
the hungry in past decades had more than doubled the number of Americans going
hungry dating back to the administration of former President Ronald Reagan in
1980.
As the
government decreased its involvement in feeding the hungry, food banks — many
of them faith-based — had to step in to fill the void. The number of food banks
in the country grew from about 200 in 1980 to more than 40,000 today, the film
said.
“We cut all
these things,” Peters said. “We don’t learn from our past.”
The film
displays case studies where those receiving public assistance are forced to
stretch limited funds to feed their families and how minimum income
requirements mean that some who work full time are just as bad off, or worse,
than when they were unemployed.
Worse, Peters
said, is the fact that subsidies make fresh fruits and vegetables more costly
than processed foods, leading to poor nutrition, diabetes and obesity.
“The poor know
what they’re eating,” she said. “But they don’t have a choice.”
She said she
would like to challenge grocery stores to flip their pricing, making fresh,
nutritious options more affordable, claiming that the stores would increase
their customers and the community would become healthier.
She said she
hopes more innovative ideas like that will emerge from the committees formed
during the meeting, which invited those gathered to sign up to serve on two
boards focusing respectively on wage issues and food insecurity.
Linking
nationwide with 32 other organizations showing the film will allow for best
practices to be passed around, Peters said, adding she hopes it will solve some
of the food insecurity issues nationwide. But, Michael Seifert with the Equal
Voice Network said the problem lies with the priorities of politicians in
Washington.
“For me, the
relevant issue is the border surge,” Seifert said, noting that Congress members
were willing to spend billions on drones and border security, while shying away
from hunger issues. “You say two words about food insecurity and they run for
the woods.”
That scenario
seems to be playing out in Washington this year, too, as TFBN Chief Executive
Officer Celia Cole explained.
“Opinions are
divided about what’s going to happen next,” she said, noting that her staff
members visited federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the nation’s
capital this month. “It depends on who you talk to.”
The U.S. House
of Representatives removed SNAP from its version of this year’s Farm Bill,
which historically has packaged subsidies and nutrition assistance together,
she said, although it’s not clear if the Senate’s version will be taken up
instead.
The Senate
version contains a $4 billion funding cut to SNAP, a far cry from the
contentious $20 billion reduction the House bill proposed, leading to that SNAP
portion being removed to move forward the subsidies portion of the bill.
“What happened
is the House turned around and they were under intense pressure from the
(agriculture) lobby,” Cole said. “So they said, ‘We’re going to pass the Farm
Bill but take the nutritional part out of it.’”
The House could
take up the version that the Senate already passed, which includes both
nutrition and subsidies, but it’s not certain.
Compromise
between the Senate’s $4 billion cut and the House’s $20 billion cut also is
possible — perhaps an $8 billion to $12 billion reduction.
“All of that’s
up in the air,” Cole said.
Meanwhile, a
congressional stimulus agreed upon in 2009 is ticking toward its end, perhaps
leading to a decrease in monthly benefits.
The stimulus, an
increase in monthly benefits to help low-income people during the economic
recession, was set to be naturally phased out as inflation rose, but in 2010
Congress decided to simply eliminate the program in November 2013.
“As far as we
know there hasn’t been any advance warning,” Cole said, adding that while the
abrupt loss of $25 monthly might not seem like a lot to higher-income
individuals, it will have a serious effect on those most vulnerable. “That’s a
lot. It’s not something they’re really prepared for. We’re concerned about that
and the potential impact it can have.”
That’s why the
TFBN is promoting its countdown clock, which shows the time left before the cut
happens.
That knowledge,
like the film Peters screened, is intended to inspire citizens to get involved
and demand a halt to social program cuts, Cole said.
“We’re hoping
that other people will be outraged and there will be a public outcry,” she
said, noting that she hopes people will call their congressional
representatives to stop the spending cuts before it’s too late.
Peters said she,
too, hopes those who have the most at stake in the discussion — like those who
live in the colonias her organization focuses on — will speak out, too, and not
rely on others to make their case for them.
“I just think we
have to make people aware,” she said. “We need to make sure they know they need
to speak up, too, not just us.”
