Ohio struggles over hunger problem

By STEPHEN MAJORS

COLUMBUS — When his food stamp benefits ran out, a former dishwasher turned to the Broad Street Food Pantry as a last resort.

Fitzgerald Hogan, 43, who took home bread, canned spaghetti and milk during his visit this month, is one of a growing number of Ohioans showing up at the doors of food pantries across the state.

“If you can’t read or write, there are no jobs out there for you,” said Hogan, who lost his job at a restaurant about a year ago when business slowed down.

Food banks and pantries are the front lines of defense against hunger, often working hand-in-hand with food stamps. They’re competing with other necessities such as health care and job-creation initiatives in a tight state budget hammered by the recession.

Gov. Ted Strick-land maintained the current level of funding for food banks in his two-year budget proposal, but food-bank advocates said it won’t feed the increase in demand for this most basic of needs.

“We don’t know where the sky is,” said Anne Goodman, executive director of Cleveland Food Banks Inc., which handed out 39 percent more food last December than it did in December 2007. “We are continuing to see an increased need.”

The Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks asked for $34 million in the budget — representing one dollar per person per month served. Strickland put $17 million for food banks in his budget plan, same as in the two-year budget that ends June 30.

“The governor worked very hard to protect food banks in this very austere budget,” said Strickland spokeswoman Amanda Wurst.

His budget calls for 33 state agencies to see cuts in funding from current levels, with six agencies — including the Department of Public Safety — no longer getting any general tax dollars. He proposes an 11 percent cut for the Ohio Historical Society and 8 percent decrease for the Ohio Inspector General, for example.

Strickland, a former minister and prison psychologist, has used his influence to encourage average Ohioans to help out in the economic downturn.

“I am calling upon Ohioans during this particular season of the year to look out for each other, try to be a good neighbor, a good friend, and to try to share whatever resources they have with those who are most in need,” he said in December.

The governor’s proposed budget would support a food stamps caseload of 1.1 million individuals over the next two years. There were 1.26 million people in Ohio on food stamps last December, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The number of Ohioans on food stamps increased 8 percent from July to December of last year.

The jobless, the retired and the still-working are visiting food pantries in increasing numbers. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Ohioans made more than 1.8 million visits to the 12 food pantries that are part of the food banks association, an increase of about 25 percent over the last three months of 2007.

But a convergence of economic realities — including overwhelmed state budgets — is preventing the food supply from growing with the need.

Feeding America, a network of food banks across the country, found in a December survey that 72 percent of food banks couldn’t adequately meet the demands of hungry people without reducing the amount of food or operations.

Private donations are down, as people grapple with their own pay cuts or job losses. Food processing companies that habitually donate food are more concerned about the bottom line. Governments, wilting under the pressure of multibillion- dollar budget deficits, are struggling just to maintain the commitments to food banks they’ve shown in easier years.

And the rise in food prices — up 6 percent over the course of 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — eats up a good portion of any increase in funding.