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Information Provided By Emergency Food Assistance Agencies

Emergency food agencies are providing ever-expanding services in our community.

In the original Hunger Hits Home report, a total of 32 agencies responded to a survey about the emergency food services they provided. These thirty-two agencies included food closets and soup kitchens, i.e. nonprofit dining rooms. According to the data collected at that time, "In 1988 over 79,000 people received emergency food bags each month. "* In contrast, the Sacramento Food Bank alone, which operates seven food closets throughout the county, reported serving 77,000 people during the month of October
1991. In other words, these seven closets were meeting the level of demand made upon the entire Sacramento food closet community just five years ago.

Furthermore, the Sacramento Food Bank documented serving approximately 43,000 people during the same month the previous year, October 1990. This represents an increase in service of approximately 80 percent.

According to reports made by other food providers, most agencies are experiencing similar increases in demand for emergency food services. In fact, for many agencies current demand has risen over 30 percent since last year. For example, Central Downtown Food Closet (CDFC) reported a 150 percent increase in the number of people served in October 1991, compared to October 1990. CDFC provided bags of food to 16,000 people in October 1990 and one year later provided groceries to 40,000 people.

Centro Guadalupe Food Closet, which targets its services to Hispanics but serves anyone within the 95814 Zip Code area, presented data documenting a 38 percent increase in service over last year. In May 1990 Centro Guadalupe served 6,867 people; by May 1991 the number of people served at their food closet had jumped to 9,495.

Carmichael Presbyterian Church Food Closet reported a 47 percent increase in the numbers of people served, from 693 in May 1990 to 1,057 served in May 1991.

Hunger Hits Home also pointed out that five years ago more than 58,000 hot meals were served per month in Sacramento's soup kitchens. Today the lines at these agencies are much longer. For example, two agencies alone are now reporting an average of 54,000 meals served each month, nearly meeting the 1987 rate for all soup kitchens.

In the spring of 1991 Hunger commission researchers surveyed twelve shelters and soup kitchens which operate meals programs in our community. These programs reported serving a total of approximately 97,000 meals per month, reflecting a 60 percent increase in demand for these meals since five years ago.

In addition there were five shelters or soup kitchens which were able to provide estimates of the number of children served meals by their agencies. Their statistics indicate that approximately one in five (19 percent) of the people served at these five sites were children.

Unfortunately, available resources are beinq overwhelmed by the rapidly risinq demand for emerqency food assistance.

Over the past year a number of agencies reported changes in their service systems and a reduction in service. All who have done so cite inadequate resources as the cause of their cutbacks. For example, Central Downtown Food Closet now opens only four days per week instead of five. The Sacramento Food Bank recently adopted a Zip Code-based service system and is asking clients to voluntarily restrict their requests for food to only one closet within the Food Bank system. And Episcopal Community Services, unable to meet the increasing demand, was forced to respond to limit each person served to six times per year.

Emergency food providers express concern about the growing demands on their agencies.

Sacramento's Emergency Food consortium, an informal network of local agencies which provide services for hungry people, is currently developing a position paper which outlines the impact of the growth in demand on their programs. Their paper will discuss the effects of rising unemployment and recent and proposed reductions in public assistance benefits upon their agencies' abilities to fill the emergency food needs of this community.

Other communities across the country are reporting a phenomenon called "donor fatigue," which seems to reflect a growing belief that the hunger problem is just too big to handle. Fortunately, food and cash donations to anti-hunger programs in Sacramento have continued to increase, although not at the same pace as the demand. However, local providers are concerned that the "donor fatigue syndrome" may yet arrive in Sacramento.

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