Grijalva, Mass. congressman tour Tucson food bank while working on national hunger program

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Posted on Aug 5, 2021 at 2:22 pm

Bennito L. Kelty

TucsonSentinel.com

A Massachusetts Congressman working on a “national hunger end effort” joined US MP Raul Grijalva on Wednesday on a tour of a Tucson food bank that doubled daily demand for help during the pandemic.

US MPs Jim McGovern and Grijalva toured the main center of the Southern Arizona Community Food Bank in Tucson. The east coast representative said he was gathering information in hopes of putting in place a plan to end hunger that would involve all departments of the Biden government.

The two democrats praised the table as a “national model” for fighting hunger because of its “holistic” approach. It solves hunger by supporting advances in other areas like economic security and nutrition education, along with the direct goal of providing people with food, McGovern said.

Hunger has not previously been a major national priority, said McGovern, a member of the subcommittee on nutrition of the House of Representatives’ agriculture committee.

“The aim is to provide the Biden government with a range of information to hold a White House conference on food, nutrition, health and hunger,” he said. “To tie everything together is also the hope.”

Congressional committees where bills begin isolate big problems, McGovern said, preventing them from being discussed in relation to issues in business, transportation, education, or any other policy area where problems can arise that can contribute to hunger.

“It’s not just about a program,” said McGovern. “We talk about economic security, energy, utility bills, housing costs and how they affect food insecurity, but everything is so isolated in Washington.”

The House Rules Committee, which he sits on, has held hearings on hunger affecting college students, elderly populations, and tribes in an attempt to bypass jurisdiction barriers McGovern said he would encounter when attempting to reduce hunger on the subcommittee for diet combat.

The Tucson blackboard should be a model, McGovern said, because in addition to the number of people it serves, it takes a holistic approach that, according to CEO Michael McDonald, can bypass that fragmented approach.

“I think there is silage everywhere,” said McDonald. “Everyone thinks they should stay on their own track, like the boards should only serve food. That is why we support an increase in the minimum wage, nutrition, health, housing. ”

The board is a major financial backer of the Tucson Fight for $ 15 campaign to raise the city’s minimum wage because “economic security is food security,” said McDonald.

“We always look at things like housing, food insecurity, economic insecurity as anything else,” he said. “Every dollar someone has on their food budget expands because they have to pay their utilities. It is hot. In Arizona, people die if they don’t pay benefits in the summer. ”

When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, the queues for food grew because people were already economically viable or safe to live in, which quickly led to food insecurity as jobs were lost and wages were cut, the head of the nonprofit in Tucson said. This included Community Food Bank employees, board members and community partners, as well as government employees who faced evictions and started getting grocery boxes to extend their paychecks.

In previous years, the food bank served around 200,000 people each year, but during the pandemic, the daily volume of food donations doubled to around 1,200-1,500 people per day. McDonald also said “persistent poverty” was a problem in southern Arizona.

More families are now receiving federal food aid

McGovern urges the Biden government to find a way to continue the 15 percent increase in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides an additional $ 27 a month to those who have received “food stamps” in Arizona since late December . The American Rescue Plan extended these benefits, which are due to expire in June, through September 30th.

“I think both Raul and I strongly support extending the 15 percent increase,” he said. “The average SNAP benefit is $ 1.40 per person per meal. I left Massachusetts this morning. It was 5:30 a.m. I have a dunkin ‘donuts coffee. It was more than $ 1.40, ”he said.

During the August recess of Congress, McGovern made on-site visits to Philadelphia and New York City before coming to Tucson for a firsthand look at the Community Food Bank, where the need for its services despite an increase in food aid federal government has risen during the time the pandemic has risen.

There are approximately 41,440,000 individual SNAP receivers in the country and approximately 816,000 in Arizona.

Approximately 13 million households in the United States have received SNAP benefits – formerly known as “grocery stamps” – in the past 12 months, which corresponds to about 11 percent of the estimated 123 million households in the country, according to US census data.

Pima County reflects that 11 percent figure, with 45,898 of the estimated 410,404 households here receiving SNAP. Approximately 32,059 of these SNAP receivers live in the city of Tucson – 15 percent of the estimated 217,993 households in the city.

Hispanic and Latin American households are more likely to receive such food aid than white households in the country, Pima County and the city of Tucson, according to census data.

Of the estimated 124,743 Hispanic or Latin American households in Pima County, 18 percent – 22,572 – have received food services in the past 12 months. Of the white households in the district, 6 percent – 15,468 households.

At the city level, 20 percent of Hispanic or Latin American households received SNAP benefits last year, compared with 9 percent of white households.

Nationwide, 17 percent of Hispanic or Latin American households have received SNAP aid, while 7 percent of white households have received it.

However, Grijalva said that since the pandemic began and benefits were increased by 15 percent, SNAP has become important for all households, not just for racial and ethnic minorities. It is no longer the case that the affected communities are only of color or low income, he said.

“I think you could have comfortably said this before the pandemic that the affected communities are colored and poor,” he said. “I don’t think it’s easy to say now. The pandemic has created more economic and food insecurity for many families who have never stood in line to get a box.

“I think the strict demographic definition, or the definition of who gets SNAP, was true. I think it widened, and that 15 percent increase widened it even more, ”he said.

Grijalva said that he strongly supports McGovern’s plan for a conference in the White House because McGovern’s idea so broadly addresses the problem of hunger.

“I think this conference that Jim is talking about is really smart,” said Grijalva. “It could be a way to start looking at it fully.”

McGovern wrote a letter to then-elected President Biden in December urging him to prioritize “our national response to hunger” as the country seeks to end the pandemic and rebuild the economy and create a “hunger tsar” Appoint to a National Food Insecurity Reduction Strategy.

Most important to his plan to end hunger, McGovern said on Wednesday, is the involvement of a broad coalition of federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, and the Department of the Interior, which also includes the Department of Indian Affairs, to address wide-ranging problems leading to hunger such as high supply or rental prices or poor transport options in food deserts.

He wanted to include all departments in the administration, but ideally there would also be a point man like a hunger tsar, he said.

“In an ideal world, I want there to be a single point of contact who works with all agencies and all departments to solve this problem,” he said. “But you know what, this White House conference is going to do that because this is an all-hands-on-deck approach. We want every authority in the administration to participate. “

Although McGovern’s approach to the problem is to involve a broad coalition of stakeholders and stakeholders, he said the end result is to finally come up with a national plan to end hunger.

“If you were to ask President Biden or President Obama or President Bush or President Clinton what the national plan to end hunger is – there isn’t one,” he said. “We can do this every year, but there is no national plan to end hunger. So we want a program to end hunger. “

Bennito L. Kelty is an IDEA reporter for TucsonSentinel.com, specializing in Inclusion, Diversity, Equality, and Access, and a member of the Report for America Corps.

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