Mahoning Valley's rate of food insecure households mirrors Ohio's

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Ohio’s 16.9 percent rate of food-insecure households, ranking the state sixth-highest nationally, rose slightly while the rest of the nation’s food-insecurity rate fell.

Ohio’s most-recent rate of food-insecure households is up from 16.0 percent in 2013, while the national food-insecurity rate declined from 14.3 percent in 2013 to 14.0 percent in 2014, according to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

Ohio ranks sixth behind only Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky and Texas.

Unfortunately, said Michael Iberis, executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley, the rate of food-insecure households in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties mirrors that of the state.

“We have a serious crisis in Ohio,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. “More of our families than ever before are struggling to afford food, as the economic recovery fails to reach everyone in our state,” she said.

Compared with the Midwestern region, the prevalence of food insecurity in Ohio also was significantly higher. Ohio’s 2014 food-insecurity rate was more than three percentage points higher than the Midwest average of 13.8 percent, and was the highest in the region.

The report also captured rates of very low food security, when households reported disrupted eating patterns or hunger due to inadequate resources for food on multiple occasions during the year. It found that 7.5 percent of Ohioans lived in households with very low food security last year, tying Ohio for third nationally.

“Lack of access to adequate food has serious consequences, impacting educational achievement, health outcomes and worker productivity,” said Hamler-Fugitt.

Iberis said 16.7 percent, or 92,500, people in the Mahoning Valley are food-insecure, which means they are not sure from where their next meal is coming and their meals are incomplete.

Twenty-eight percent of the 31,870 children who live in the tri-county area, or 1 in 4, are identified as being food insecure, he said.

Iberis said 53 percent of children attending school in the Mahoning Valley are eligible for free and reduced- price lunches, a number that has jumped from 47 percent in the past five years.

“It is a direct result of more people sinking into poverty because they are losing their jobs or having their work hours and pay cut,” he said.

“It is very disappointing that chronic poverty and hunger has been in the Mahoning Valley for so long that many people have given up hope that better days will ever come. As a community, we need to recognize and attempt to reconcile the situation as best we can,” Iberis said.

He said Second Harvest is very thankful and indebted to the thousands in the Mahoning Valley who conduct food drives and contribute to the food bank.

The food bank distributes food to 153 pantries and soup kitchens in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties that provide meals and bags of food on an emergency basis.