Convenient access to food must be a right, not a luxury

As we move through the long-awaited rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, it feels like there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel. But the hunger crisis accelerated and exacerbated by the pandemic — undoing years of progress — will linger long after vaccinations create protection for many.

When I began working in food rescue more than five years ago, 1 in 8 people in the U.S. were regularly going hungry. In this pandemic, that number is now 1 in 5, and some projections show it will be 1 in 3. The worst is yet to come.

I can’t help thinking of the images I’ve seen of long lines of cars waiting for hours outside food pantries, while I only have to go to my front door to grab groceries I’ve just had delivered.

The dichotomy is clear.

The lines represent a national crisis — they also represent only a fraction of the families in need. Many people wonder how they’re even going to get to a food distribution point while people like me can order groceries without a second thought.

One of the exacerbating factors of food insecurity is lack of transportation access: 35% of people who live below the poverty line do not have access to cars, and that problem too has worsened, just as the number of people who are homebound has increased.

It is people affected by these challenges who need conveniences the most, and they are the least likely to have access to them. When products are targeted to people like me, worlds move to ensure it is easy for us to get that product: one-click ordering, social media integration, onehour or next-day delivery, timewindow options, chatting with my “shopper” — the list goes on. I’m not even expected to hop in my car and go to a store.

We’re already starting to see change, with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s Online Purchasing Pilot expanding to include large grocery chains in many states (although delivery fees are still not covered) and a new way to apply for food assistance by phone. But it shouldn’t take a disaster for us to bake convenience into systems designed to help people when they’re down.

We expect people in need to get to mass food distributions, some of which won’t accept walk-ups and many of which limit the number of families each car can take food for. Kids who cannot be in school right now are expected to pick up their free lunch program meals from their school buildings without school buses, which is how they were able to get to school in the first place.

I believe the convenience gap represents a failure of both imagination and leadership. The wellto-do enjoy a heap of technological advancements that smooth over every inconvenience, while a growing number of their fellow Americans struggle to make use of aid strategies that haven’t been meaningfully updated in decades.

Being poor is expensive and exhausting, and offering support that is expensive and exhausting to access will only leave people stranded.

We have to stop making households in need work so hard to receive help. An “if you build it, they will come” mindset is not what will ensure access.

We need to approach social service delivery with the same fervor for innovation as the companies that target people like me with their products.

For the social safety net to actually catch people, it has to be convenient. We cannot treat convenience as a privilege when it is actually a matter of survival.