By Aaron Allen
The Seattle Medium
With the COVID-19 Pandemic upon us, there is growing concern about access to quality food and food resources by at-risk populations and in low-income communities.
Known as food deserts, which is an area where food banks and grocery stores are limited, the issue of scarcity and distribution has always been a concern, but today it is a hot topic of conversation as more and more people are tapping into an already limited food supply.
According to Washington State’s Director of Agriculture Derek Sandison, the number of people visiting food banks and pantries in the state has doubled in the last six weeks as a result of the economic and social impacts of COVID-19.
“[For] Six weeks we have been engaged in a struggle to provide food supplies to our at-risk population,” says Sandison. “It is a population that has grown significantly in that period of time. We believe at the present time that the baseline number of visitors to food banks in the state of Washington has simply doubled.”
According to a Healthy Food Availability and Food Bank Network Report, food resources or lack of was highest in areas with the lowest educational and income levels, and in generally, people of color are disproportionately affected by food shortages than White populations.
“Food insecurity was highest among those with the lowest income and lowest educational attainment,” the report says. “In general, people of color experienced food insecurity at a higher rate than White populations, households in which the primary spoken language was not English were more likely than English speaking households to experience food insecurities (with the exception of Chinese speaking households).”
Analysis examining the disparities in food insecurity rates from 2001 to 2016 for people of color were at a minimum twice that of Whites. Due to the Coronavirus this trend has risen tremendously. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) concurs with this.
According to the USDA, “although levels of food insecurity have declined and risen over this period, one trend that has continued to persist is the gap in the prevalence of food insecurity between people of color and whites.”
Economic and social handicaps throughout populations of people of color are clearly a consequential driver of higher rates of food insecurities in these populations.
Locally, Washington state, particularly in its largest counties King and Pierce, are struggling to maintain output because of the crisis and the growing number of those in need in predominately Black and Hispanic neighborhood are experiencing the shortfall.
Food banks are moving feverishly to adjust to the growing number of people utilizing their services because of the strain the pandemic is putting on society. With the help of philanthropist, donations and monetary resources are being pulled together to help bridge this gap and address the needs of all people. Since the start of the pandemic food banks and the Department of Agriculture have been able to raise just over $6 million, however more money is needed in order to sustain the momentum.
“Due to the increasing demand it overwhelmed our existing capabilities to supply food to the at-risk population,” says Sandison.
“At the present time, we figure we needed to provide about $6 million of food a week, that’s just food, to be able to meet this demand,” he continued. “We were able to receive a $10 million allocation from the State’s supplemental operation budget and that helped us get things back on their feet quickly.”
Kiran Ahuja, CEO of Philanthropy Northwest, expressed the need of philanthropic involvement in providing much needed financial assistance as the we continue to fight hunger in our state.
“The importance of the Washington food fund is having to manage the disruption of how the food banks are operating, where the food is coming in, what the storage facilities look like and how that food is distributed,” says, Ahuja.
Ahuja says that a coalition of philanthropic organizations the governor’s office, and the department of Agriculture came together to address the issue and provide some assistance.
“This is a critical gap that we are experiencing,” says Ahuja. “Until the federal relief kicks in, there really is a call to the philanthropic sector and individuals from across the state to help out as much as we can.”
