WASHINGTON, D.C. - This year, U.S. Conference of Mayors reports on the hunger and homelessness situation in 23 American cities, and provides individual profiles of each city. Mostly, the news is not good. Requests for emergency food assistance are up from last year, and the demand is expected to increase next year. More than half of the participating cities report that they cannot always meet the needs for shelter of homeless persons and turn some away.
On the homelessness front, the news is somewhat better as several of the participating cities saw reductions in the number of chronic homelessness. The root causes of hunger and homelessness overlap a great deal, with the lack of affordable housing mentioned most often after poverty.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors partnered with Sodexho, Inc. to release the 2007 Hunger and Homeless Survey report on Dec 17 at the Conference of Mayors Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Sodexho, Inc. is a charitable food and facilities management services company.
The 23 participating cities range from large cities like Chicago and Los Angeles to smaller cities, such as Trenton, New Jersey and Santa Monica, California. These cities are members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which is the official organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more—about 1,139 cities, each represented by its mayor.
The 23 participating cities "do not constitute a representative sample of U.S. cities," says the report which makes no claim to being a "national" report on hunger and homelessness. Although they can't be said to represent the nation, these cities do provide good documentation on their residents receiving food and shelter for the period of November 1, 2006 through October 31, 2007.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has been issuing a report annually on hunger and homelessness using a "Hunger and Homeless Survey Questionnaire" since 1983.
The Hunger Crisis
Poverty is mentioned by nearly all the officials answering for their city as a major cause of hunger. High housing cost and unemployment are mentioned next most often. Officials also described some changes, economic and social, in their city that aggravates the problem. These include the foreclosure crisis, the high cost of food, high cost of gasoline, an increase in illegal immigrants, an increase in addictions, and decreased benefits provided through pubic assistance or other programs. Several cities noted that the Food Stamp program has not kept up with food price increases, says the report.
Coincidentally, the national media began to report on food shortages about three weeks ago. The New York Times reported on November 30:
"Experts attributed the shortages to an unusual combination of factors, including rising demand, a sharp drop in federal supplies of excess farm products, and tighter inventory controls that are leaving supermarkets and other retailers with less food to donate." (Katie Zezima, Food Banks, in a Squeeze, Tighten Belts )
Together, multiple conditions have brought on critical shortages across the country in local food banks. To make up for the shortfall from federal government commodities and the food industry donations, food pantries are having to rely much more on community food drives, which in the past made up only a small percentage of the donated food. On PBS's News Hour, correspondent Elizabeth Brackett interviewed Vicki Escarra, executive director of America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization, on the News Hour. Escarra estimated that more than 35 million Americans do not have access to enough food to stay healthy.
"This is a really critical time. We have made a call out to all of our major food manufacturers and retailers. We're seeing a 30 percent reduction in Florida, a 40 percent reduction in California in the amount of food that they're bringing in. They're having to turn people away during a really critical time of year," said Escarra ( Food Pantries Face Shortages amid Holiday Season, News Hour, Dec 19)
The 23 cities were asked about the number of requests for food assistance. Did it increase, decrease, or stay about the same? Twenty of the cities responded: 16 cities (80%) reported an increase, one city (Portland, Oregon) reported that requests had decreased, and three cities reported that requests had stayed the same. The average increase was 10%. Detroit reported the largest increase at 35%.
People are sometimes turned away and some food banks have even closed down. Among the 23 cities, 13 could not meet the need of emergency food service and, on average, 17% of people in need of emergency food assistance did not receive it. The city of Los Angeles reported it does not meet 21% of the demand for food assistance, for example.
Nineteen of the cities surveyed expect the demand for food assistance to increase next year.
Chronic Homelessness Declining
The Conference report and other sources indicate that the number of homelessness persons has decreased in some cities. Cities in the report that saw a decline in homeless single individuals were Boston, Kansas City, Missouri, Louisville, Kentucky, Nashville, Tennessee, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle. However, most of the above cities saw an increase in homelessness of members of households with children.
Aside from poverty, the most often cited reason given in the survey for homelessness (as well as hunger) is the lack of affordable housing.
The most common causes of homelessness for households with children, aside from the lack of affordable house, are poverty and domestic violence. By contrast, for single individuals needing shelter, mental illness and substance abuse are at the top of list of reasons. Comparing the homeless group of single individuals with the households with children, the former has a larger prevalence of disabilities, such as mental illness, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and developmental disabilities—approximately three times more common than in the singles group.
Not only has the numbers of homeless declined, but the length of stays declined overall from 2006 in the 23 cities. For single individuals, the average length of stay reported by the cities was 4.7 months in 2007 compared to 8 months in 2006. For households with children the average stay was 5.7 months in 2007 compared to 8 months in 2006.
The Conference report's conclusion that the homeless numbers in the 23 cities are improving conforms with HUD data released earlier this year, according to Philip Mangano, Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, a federal agency. Mangano, who couldn't come to the news conference, prepared a written statement on the Conference report, which says that based on data from more than 3900 communities, there has been an 11.5% decrease in street and chronic homelessness.
"This finding is the first national documented decrease in street and chronic homelessness in the past 25 years," said Mangano.
The 23 participating cities in the 2007 Conference of Mayors Survey are:
Boston, MA
Charleston, SC
Charlotte, SC
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Denver, CO
Des Moines, IA
Detroit, MI
Kansas City, MO
Los Angeles, CA
Louisville, KY
Miami, FL
Nashville, TN
Philadelphia, PA
Phoenix, AZ
Portland, OR
Providence, RI
Salt Lake City, UT
San Francisco, CA
Santa Monica, CA
Seattle, WA
St. Paul, MN
Trenton, NJ
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