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In our 55+ community my husband and I see signs of food insecurity on a regular basis. The line of cars picking up food boxes at a local church frequently fills the parking lot.
Earlier this year, two of the three local grocery stores started selling pork, beef and chicken sausages–made with scraps of meat trimmed away from higher end cuts–for 25 cents each.
After Thanksgiving, many residents began setting out their leftover food on the tables outside one of the recreation centers. It disappeared quickly.
The most telling sign of residents struggling to feed themselves comes from a report issued by a non-profit organization that provides financial help to members of our retirement community. In 2023, the fund dispersed nearly $290,000 in cash to residents. Recipients can request help for any number of reasons. They might not be able to make their mortgage or rent payment for a month or two. They may require an expensive repair to their air-conditioning unit. But increasingly the requests appear to be for help affording food. In 2023, the fund dispersed nearly $60,000 in food cards to residents who requested assistance.
Today I’ll be sending a check to our community fund. The way the fund is structured, any donations my husband and I make–up to $900–will reduce our own state tax liability. But more important is knowing we’ll be helping our own neighbors.
Kristine, I think what you describe is the benefit of a principle called subsidiarity where actions taken at the lowest possible political level are most effective. That is, help for those suffering from food insecurity is best handled when that assistance comes from the community rather than from the state or federal level.
Community members banding together best understand what their less fortunate members need rather than state or federal government bureaucrats. And the help these folks receive doesn’t involve filling out forms or meeting quotas.
I hope that your community and others like it across the country continue to assist your members directly rather than sit back and call for the government to “do something.”
Thank you for this comment–I wasn’t aware of the term subsidiarity. This ideal definitely appeals to my ‘smaller government is better’ beliefs.
As far as I know, our community fund doesn’t require much in the way of documentation from those folks who request assistance. While this could potentially lead to some amount of fraud, the fund has been around since 1982. If fraud was frequent, I don’t think it would have that kind of longevity.
In the short time my husband and I have lived here, we’ve seen numerous examples of neighbors helping neighbors. It’s heartening to see.
Thanks again for your thoughtful–and educational–comment.
You’re right to point out that the longevity of your community fund demonstrates that fraud is not widespread.
Perhaps a bit of fraud is tolerable if it enables a community program to effectively meet people’s needs with minimal overhead. And minimal overhead is likely a major factor contributing to the longevity of the program.
Besides, when run at the local level, anyone contemplating defrauding the program might think twice when a friend or neighbor is involved.
Can anyone explain to me, with data rather than anecdotal observations, why there is said to be “food insecurity” in this country when the Federal budge for SNAP (food stamps) exceeds $120 billion annually? Thank you in advance as I have long wondered about this paradox.
The American definitions of food insecurity and poverty would be considered well off in many countries in the world. I haven’t been to the worst places like Africa and SE Asia, but I have seen pretty bad poverty in the back country of Russia, mountain areas of Costa Rica, the West Bank in Israel, and South America and Mexico – dirt floors, glassless windows, begging rampant, etc. what we call low income housing would be a castle.
Totally anecdotal, but I recall being in a checkout line at a grocery store and the lady ahead of me was using a SNAP card to pay. What struck me was she buying Starbucks coffee and a few other high end products I had just put back on the shelf in favor of the store brand.
I definitely can’t provide any hard data on this subject. If I had to make a guess–and that’s all I can do–it would be based on the observations I have made in our community.
I suspect there’s a fair amount of paperwork, income documentation and bureaucracy surrounding applying for SNAP benefits. And, sadly, I think some number of elderly folks aren’t adept at dealing with these types of issues. Many of them may not even be aware they might qualify for such benefits.
I belong to a Facebook group made up entirely of residents of our community. It’s pretty clear from some of the comments I see posted on the group, a fair number of the residents are a bit unclear about various financial topics. At least some number of them don’t seem to understand Medicare, Social Security and/or basic tax-related topics. If these same folks needed to navigate the SNAP program, it might seem overwhelming.
You talk about $120 billion (actually $113 billion) as if it’s a massive amount. Against the food insecurity issue in America, it’s a drop in the bucket, just 1.8% of the federal budget.
Per government figures and outside studies, 17 million households, or roughly 13% of all Americans, are food-insecure. Only 55% of them are income-eligible for SNAP. Millions are ineligible for any federal help at all.
And SNAP is a pretty small lifeboat. The average monthly benefit next year will be about $6 per person per day. Hard to feed your kids on $2 a meal.
That’s the data you requested, but it’s a human problem more than a numbers problem. If you truly want to understand the extent of the issue, volunteer at a food bank for a day. Just one day. Talk to the workers and the clients who come in. It will no longer be a “paradox” for you.
Hi there,
I’m different in that I have friends and colleagues from different socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. When the topic comes up, my affluent friends often say they know someone who cheated or didn’t really need some type of housing, food or financial aid. Maybe it helps them feel better. Or maybe they just don’t know any poor people.
My answer is, so what? A few of your acquaintances stole snacks and table decorations from a meeting.
That’s no reason to think that there are no poor people in our communities. They tend to be people who work in entry level minimum wage jobs that we frequently depend on for our comfy lifestyles: the delivery person, the cleaning person, the ones who clean up our elderly relatives, the waitstaff at restaurants and banquets, and sadly those who take care of our children and grandchildren in preschools and day care centers.
My experience is that working class people are honest and hardworking and that they don’t have pension plans or even sick days.
When it comes to safety nets, we must have enough compassion to disregard the cheats. There will always be greedy and unethical people. Don’t let them stop us from helping those who deserve it. Yes, deserve it.
Warmest regards,
There is a great deal of truth in what you say, but let’s not make broad assumptions. Some of the jobs you mention are hard and most of us would not want to do them – some take a special kind of person, but don’t assume they are poor workers. Look at the data of who earns the minimum wage mostly single, part time young workers and consider than in some states the is pretty high, like $16 and hour in California plus tips. You also have to consider the household income, not just the individual worker.
I don’t deny the problems of low income Americans and the truly poor, or that they deserve assistance, but what you see on the surface often is not be the complete story.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
In our retirement community, many of the residents still work. There are multiple businesses that actively seek to hire the people who live here. From what I can tell, many work because they want to and many work because they have to.
I’m thankful our community has a fund that actively helps residents who need financial assistance. Perhaps not all the requests they receive are legitimate but, as you said, it’s more important to disregard the occasional cheat in order to help the majority of people who actually need the help.
Kristine, always enjoy your articles. I thought you might like to know of a sister program to Meals on Wheels that we have in Houston. Animeals on Wheels delivers pet food to the disabled adults and homebound elderly clients that Meals on Wheels serves, so they do not feel compelled to share their limited food and resources with their pets.
Thanks again for all your posts.
Thanks for your kind comment John. I am coming up on my eight year HD author anniversary (!).
I love the idea of “Animeals on Wheels”! Having four dogs, I know how expensive it can be to keep them fed and cared for. I also know how important animals can be as companions for the elderly. I hope I’m never in a situation where I can’t have a dog–I would be devastated without one.
I will have to investigate if there’s any similar program in our area. It sounds like such a worthy endeavor. Thanks again for your kind words.
Kristine, I’ve also witnessed this food insecurity in the community I retired to 6 years ago. We live in a relatively high cost coastal community with many seasonal jobs that don’t offer a steady year round paycheck. Young families not only find it challenging to find affordable housing, but the lack of good paying year round employment also makes it tough for some families to make ends meet. Fortunately, there are robust food pantries in the area that fill the gap for most if not all of these families. It was quite an eye opener to visit a local pantry and hear the stories of their typical client, which was likely to be a neighbor on my street…
Our community also deals with seasonal issues. Summers in the Phoenix area are brutal, so about 50% of the residents in our community leave for at least four months every year. I wonder how some of our local businesses survive since the customer base in summer is so small.
Thankfully, most of the resource centers for needy residents seem to operate year round.
Kristine, thank you for writing about your “neighbors helping neighbors” fund in your community. I enjoyed reading about it. Chris
Thanks Chris.
I’ve seen food insecurity close up on occasion, in Oregon while delivering boxes for the local food bank and now on my regular Meals on Wheels route here in Washington. Other than age — it’s always seniors — there’s no pattern to who needs the help. Some of the most open gratitude has come from people living in nice homes or well-maintained senior apartments.
Meals on Wheels is such an important organization. Our neighboring community has a very active Meals on Wheels chapter. In Arizona, many of the senior centers (run by the government) offer lunches to seniors five days a week. The suggested donation for a meal is usually $2.00 but they don’t turn people away if they can’t pay.
This really should not happen in a country that claims to be the richest in the world (actually it’s not). Just emphasizes that the social safety net is full of holes.
What I appreciate about our community fund is that it allows for those holes to be filled. “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” is the fund’s motto and it seems to work well.
Thanks for this Kristine. We live in a fairly affluent area of Central NJ, but there are always pockets of need. A neighbor throws a very nice Christmas Party, inviting the entire community, They have it catered and ask guests to bring a bag of food to be donated to a local food bank, in Red Bank, NJ, that they support. They typically get several thousand pounds of donations. The food bank also provides clothing, financial counseling, and job training. I’ve noticed that a number of our AARP TaxAide clients use the Food Bank’s address on their tax returns, indicating they are currently homeless.
What a great way for your neighbors to help out a local food bank!
Wow, that’s sad and shocking especially given the median income for even age 65 plus in the Phoenix area would not seem to warrant that level of need.
Do you think the relatively low living costs in your community – property taxes-attracts more of the lower income retirees?
Like any community, there is a huge variation in the income levels of the residents here. There are folks who have RV’s, sports cars, boats and appear to spend lots of money on housing upgrades. And there are folks who appear to have not much at all.
The community fund I wrote about sends out a letter each year with updates about the the requests they get. They state that many of the aid recipients are older women whose only income comes from Social Security. Given that a new AC unit can cost upwards of $12,000 (and many only last a decade), it’s likely that one major ’emergency’ is all it takes to significantly disrupt their finances.
Interesting. As I recall yours is a very large community so that kind of diversity even among 55+ is not unusual I guess. In NJ the 55+ communities are much smaller and tend to attract middle class seniors and with the property taxes plus HOA fees they pay, it’s a necessity.
Our population is about 26,000. Property taxes probably average $1500 a year and HOA fees depend on neighborhood. Our house isn’t governed by an HOA but some close by are. I think they pay about $250-$300 a month.
property taxes on an average home in a 55+ run $10,000 a year and up. Our condo is $13,600 a
year.
As an aside I spent many years working with seniors and based on observation many tend to seek out whatever is free needed or not.
When I attended our shareholder meetings they served sandwiches, but eventually stopped because seniors were loading plastic bags. The stage for the meeting was lined with pots of flowers. As soon as the meeting ended seniors rushed to the stage and took the plants- stockholders remember.
When ran retiree meetings we had to guard the food. Once I saw a retiree leaving with a shopping bag full of bagels he took off the table. These weren’t poor people or close.
There are obviously some people who are in need. Other people will always take whatever they can get for free even if they do not need it. R Quinn, I am sure your observations are spot on.
It strikes me that you are making some broad assumptions about those seniors/retirees who were taking food from the meetings. The circumstances may have implied they were ‘wealthy’ or ‘rich’ (pick whichever word you want). But you couldn’t possibly know everything about their personal financial circumstances.
Perhaps they were taking the leftover food to give to a hungry relative or neighbor. They may have assumed any leftover food would be discarded and feel like it would be a better option to take it and eat it later rather than have it go into a landfill.
You are being kind, but the pattern over several years indicated otherwise. These people were not in need of food. They had good pensions, SS and in the one case were stockholders.
I’m sure there are times when people in our community help themselves to freebies they don’t necessarily need. And it’s possible the community fund gives out assistance to people who may have financial resources they don’t disclose.
That said, in just the past few weeks, my husband and I have come across two residents who appeared to be surviving on a food budget that was incredibly slim. If our donation to the fund allows just one or two residents to eat a bit better than they might have otherwise, I’ll feel like we did our small part helping out.
People in need surely deserve help and providing it is the right thing to do. We regularly contribute to several food pantry’s and one food kitchen for the poor.