Report: Meal gap persists in R.I., 33 million meals being missed by low-income residents

THE RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOOD BANK released a report that said more than 33 million meals are being missed by low-income Rhode Islanders each year. / COURTESY RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOOD BANK
THE RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOOD BANK released a report that said more than 33 million meals are being missed by low-income Rhode Islanders each year. / COURTESY RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOOD BANK

PROVIDENCE – More than 33 million meals are missed by low-income Rhode Islanders each year, despite resources available to them, according to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank’s 2016 Status Report on Hunger released on Monday.
The report revealed that the problem is particularly evident in communities where residents are hit hardest by poverty – Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence and Woonsocket.
Connecting for Children and Families in Woonsocket, which offers a food pantry, as well as meal programs for children throughout the year, has seen the hunger problem firsthand.
“The number of Woonsocket families living in poverty is staggering,” Terese Curtin, executive director of CCF, said in a statement. “More and more, we are seeing working families struggle to put food on the table. While CCF works to combat the issue of food insecurity, we need additional help from government funding and community donations to bridge the gap.”

The report also found that government nutrition programs are now the primary source of meals for low-income households, and 59,000 people are served by the Rhode Island Community Food Bank each month through a statewide network of 160 member agencies, an increase from 2007 when 33,000 people were served.
“Despite the fact that many low-income families receive government assistance and acquire food through local pantries, there are still times when they don’t have enough to eat,” Andrew Schiff, CEO of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, said in a statement. “We have to do more to ensure that no one in Rhode Island goes hungry, especially in these distressed communities.”
While most low-income households use their own earnings to buy food, some use government benefits, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children to buy food at markets, and also rely on member agencies of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank for emergency food assistance.
This year’s state budget includes $175,000 for the food bank to acquire 500,000 pounds of food, according to a news release from the nonprofit.
The report notes that a bill recently introduced in Congress, Closing the Meal Gap Act of 2016, addresses the meal gap by raising SNAP benefit levels to match the cost of food in the supermarket. If this bill is enacted, the release said 100,000 Rhode Island households currently enrolled in SNAP would be more food secure.

Steps that can be taken to remedy the hunger problem, according to Schiff, include asking Congress to increase SNAP benefit levels, offering free school breakfast and lunch to all students in high-poverty areas, prioritizing distressed communities in Rhode Island for economic development and allocating more state funding to keep the food bank stocked to meet demands for food.
“We encourage Rhode Islanders to advocate at the state and national level to reduce the number of missing meals among low-income families,” Schiff said.

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