"Who Eats Emergency Food?"

Everyday millions of people of differing backgrounds venture to their neighborhood kitchen or food pantry because they have found themselves in a variety of circumstances. Janet Poppendieck, in the “Who Eats Emergency Food?” chapter of Sweet Charity, identifies the types of people most likely to eat emergency food and describes some of the most common reasons people are forced to use emergency food. She shows that the statistics makeup of those living under the poverty line (that is in terms of gender, race, age, ext.) nearly matches the makeup of those who visit pantries and kitchens. This makes sense because the original poverty line was calculated based on food. Any household “that could not afford to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet by allocating a third of is income to food purchase” was considered poor (51). Recent studies, however, find that many pantry clients actually have income around 150% higher than the poverty line. While Poppendieck acknowledges that people above and below the poverty line use emergency food for many reasons, she argues that there are four leading causes.

Out of these three, employment related issues are the most common. The chronically unemployed and those who have recently lost their jobs head to pantries because their lack of income leaves them unable to afford food. She also identifies the rise of part-time employment as a cause because these workers are only able to find one job with too few hours to have enough money for food. The second major reason Poppendieck describes is high shelter costs. The rise in housing and energy costs, especially in urban areas, means that people are paying a larger percentage of their income on shelter and less on food. Also, many choose to use pantries during temporary hard times because they do not want to move to lower cost housing. In addition, many chose to heat their homes rather than pay for food because they know that they can get food for free. Inadequate public assistance is the third reason. Because the government does not provide the chronically ill, injured, and elderly with enough money, medical and other necessary expense take precedent over food, which they can get for free. Programs like GA, SSI and TANF simply do not accurately assess the needs of the poor. Because food stamps do not keep people from using emergency food, Poppendieck contends that they are the fourth major cause. Because one can turn a food stamp into cash by buying then returning food, people use their food stamps to pay for other expenses. In this way government aid that is designed to minimize the need for emergency food actually contributes to it. So should the government take action to prevent this stamp to cash exchange?

In my opinion, Poppendieck fails to recognize the two-sided nature of her high shelter costs example. The availability of emergency food would actually contribute to the increase in the cost of housing. Emergency food allows people to allocate more of their income towards housing, which increases the demand for housing. If emergency food were not available, people would be unable to keep their homes, the demand for housing would decrease, and housing prices would drop. I bring up this issue merely as discussion, not to recommend it as a solution.

Discussion questions:

Does Poppendieck oversimplify a not so simple situation?

Does her analysis suggest anything that can be done to help minimize the need for emergency food?