More Americans are joining ranks of those going hungry
HOUSTON — It was 5 a.m., not a hint of sun in the sky, as Randy Young and his mompulled into the line for a free Thanksgiving meal.
They were three hours early. Hundreds of cars and trucks already idled in front of them outside NRG Stadium. This was where Young worked before the pandemic. He was a stadium cook. Now, after losing his job and struggling to get by, he and his 80-year-old mother hoped to get enough food for a holiday meal.
“It’s a lot of people out here,” said Young, 58. “I was just telling my mom, ‘You look at people pulling up in Mercedes and stuff, come on.’ If a person driving a Mercedes is in need of food, you know it’s bad.”
More Americans are going hungry now than at any other point during a Washingtonpost analysis of federal data found.
The problem has been created by an economic downturn that has tightened its grip on millions of Americans, compounded by government relief programs that expired or will
terminate at the end of the year.
Experts say there probably is more hunger in the United States today than at any point since 1998, when the Census Bureau began collecting comparable data about households’ ability to get enough food.
One in eight Americans, or nearly 26 million adults, reported they sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat in the past week, according to Census Bureau survey data collected in late October and early November. That number climbed to more than 1 in 6 adults in households with children.
“It’s beendrivenby the virus and the unpredictable government response,” said
Jeremy Everett, executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty in Waco.
Nowhere has there been a hunger surge worse than in Houston, with 7 million people.
Houston was pulverized in summer when the coronavirus overwhelmed hospitals, and the local economywas particularly hard hit by weak oil prices.
More than 1 in 5 adults in Houston reported going hungry recently, including 3 in 10 adults in households with children.
The growth in hunger rates has hit Hispanic and Black households harder than Anglo ones, a devastating consequence of a weak economy that has left so many people trying to secure food even during dangerous conditions.
On Saturday, these statistics manifested themselves in the thousands of cars waiting in lines outside NRG Stadium.
The people in these cars represented much of the country. Old. Young. Black. Anglo. Asian. Hispanic. Families. Neighbors. People all alone.
Inside a maroon Hyundai Santa Fe was Neicie Chatman, 68, who had been waiting since 6:20 a.m., listening to recordings of a minister’s sermon piped into large earphones.
“I’ve been feeding my spirit,” she said.
Her hours at her job as an administrator have been unsteady since the pandemic began. Her sister was laid off. They both live with their mother.
She planned to take the food to feed her family and share with neighbors.
Now a new wave of coronavirus infections threatens more economic pain.
Yet the hunger crisis seems to have escaped widespread notice in a nation where millions of households have weathered the pandemic relatively untouched.