Food bank report says food insecurity rose 38% in one year among individuals, 56% among children in NE and western IA
BY: CINDY GONZALEZ
Nebraska Examiner Press Release
OMAHA — The line of people checking in at Together Omaha’s food pantry stretched across the room and spilled out the front door.
A family of four, whose early-bird arrival shortened an otherwise hourlong wait for groceries, would be among the first to leave with their bounty. They walked to a nearby bus stop, joining another pantry user who goes by the name of Azitiz, who was headed south to a construction site storage container he calls home.
As busy as the food pantry was on this Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving, the overflow of families, kids and seniors was not due to any special turkey giveaway (there were no birds to be seen) or holiday-focused event.
Such crowds are par for course these days — more of an everyday than seasonal occurrence at the only shelter in the three-county metro area that’s open five days a week, says Together CEO Mike Hornacek.
Indeed, the Food Bank for the Heartland, which helps provide government and privately donated groceries to Together and more than 500 other partners that dispense food to the needy, says its data shows a broad statewide surge in demand for healthy food assistance.
Every county in the food bank’s 93-county service area across Nebraska and western Iowa has seen a higher level of food insecurity — a 38% annual increase among individuals and a 56% increase for children, said spokeswoman Stephanie Sullivan.
“Hunger has no off-season,” Sullivan said.
Demand persists post-pandemic
The food bank’s figures are based on the 2024 “Map the Meal Gap” report by Feeding America, which compares 2022 to 2021, the latest data available.
According to the report, one in eight individuals and one in five children across the food bank’s coverage area struggle with food insecurity, which is a term used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for when people have limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods.
Those include people such as Heribeta Mayo, who has a family of seven to feed. She said her husband works full-time, but she dropped out of the workforce to be more available to their daughter with Down syndrome.
“We feel very fortunate we have a roof over our heads. We have food. We just need a little help,” she said.
The couple have three children and are also raising a niece and a nephew in the older house they rent and someday hope to own near downtown Omaha.
A relative told Mayo about the Together pantry, and she started visiting this year to supplement family meals with pantry fruit and vegetables they’d otherwise forego.
To show appreciation and to appease the guilt she feels in accepting free food, Mayo said she volunteers at the pantry on days her daughter is in school.
Demand for food assistance peaked during the pandemic and has remained high, said those who work in the field.
At the nonprofit Together pantries in Omaha and Council Bluffs, for example, the number of visits in 2019 reached 42,000. That leaped to 160,000 in 2020, and while the number later dipped a bit, it kicked up again this year, Hornacek said. The new baseline is around 130,000 visits.
“And it’s not slowing down,” he said.
Reasons for hunger pains
Among the multiple factors pushing people to seek help, said food insecurity experts interviewed, are escalated housing costs and wages not keeping up with inflation, food costs and overall cost of living expenses.
Exacerbating the situation, said Sullivan, is that federal pandemic-era funds that were previously available to help families with food and rent have run out. Some families are still reeling from flooding and other natural disasters.
“On top of that the food bank is also receiving less resources,” said Sullivan. “We are not meeting the need.”
Hornacek said that in Nebraska, a family of four needs about $60,000 to live without safety net services such as supplemental food or housing assistance. He said 28% of people in the Omaha metro area live on $35,000 or less.
People are forced to make decisions such as whether to pay for medicine or food, said Allene Johnson, who runs the Good Neighbors pantry in Norfolk.
She says the demand for help from her pantry is “way, way greater” than pre-pandemic days.
Johnson said she sees an average of 30 brand-new families a month.
“A lot of them are starting to come back that haven’t been here for a long time,” she said.
Good Neighbors pantry does not turn anyone away, and Johnson said more visitors are coming from rural towns in the region, as they feel shame seeking help in their own communities.
Other pantry-goers include refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere, she said.
The annual Christmas box giveaway sponsored by Good Neighbors already has Johnson anxious. In the past few years, she said the organization distributed about 100 boxes in the drive-through event.
Based on interest so far this year, Johnson expects that to grow to about 175. She’s been soliciting and collecting food and other goodies from donors and retailers.
“I’m getting scared,” she said. “I gotta have that food packed.”
New food bank digs should help
Sullivan said donations flow at a greater pace during the holidays, and organizations such as the food bank continually work to nudge that giving spirit year-round.
The food bank’s new and larger headquarters rising at 84th and L Streets in Omaha should help meet demand, she said.
For example, twice as many volunteers will be able to fit onsite. Cooler and freezer space will grow, as will space to repack meats and proteins. Such capacity is vital to deploy the food bank mission, Sullivan said.
In addition, the food bank this year hired a government relations officer to empower and educate partners in ways they can advocate for people in need.
She pointed to the Summer EBT (electronic benefit transfer) food program for kids as an example of how advocacy can be effective. Gov. Jim Pillen initially balked at applying for millions of federal dollars available for the grocery-buying program, then shifted positions following a wave of criticism by advocates and others.
At the Together pantry in downtown Omaha on Tuesday, people waited their turn to pick items from shelves stocked like a small grocery store. The selection ranged from canned goods to chicken thighs and muffins.
Hornacek said his agency, which formed to help in the aftermath of Omaha’s 1975 tornado devastation, made a conscious decision to back away from providing holiday meals and to allow other organizations to focus on seasonal goodwill.
“We’ve focused on making sure we have the ability to meet the need that’s walking through the door every day,” he said.
Pantry users average six visits a year. Hornacek said November and December are among the busier months, along with summertime, when kids are out of school.
‘I’m about to be fed’
Mayo said her pantry visits allow the family to sock away a little money to buy their own holiday meal and gifts.
Azitiz (who pronounces the name “as it is”) said the food he received Tuesday will be his sustenance for the next couple of weeks.
He said he came to Omaha from the East Coast and has been here for a few years. For now, he’s sleeping in a storage container at a construction site, but he hopes his music career catches a break soon.
“Things are just a lot harder than before,” he said while waiting for his bus. ”Food is more expensive. But I have all this good food. I’m about to be fed.”
