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Iowa food pantries weather COVID, face unprecedented storm coming this winter

In March, Kelli Greenland faced a devil of a choice — should she accept a retail job as an essential worker, or should she remain home to keep her medically fragile son safe from exposure to the novel coronavirus?

The West Des Moines mother of two decided to stay home initially. Greenland relied heavily on food pantries to feed her family, which includes son Ethan, 7, who has asthma, and daughter Skylynn, 4, who is lactose intolerant. The family had used food pantries previously, but “not like we’ve had to this year,” Greenland, 30, said.

“Definitely, 2020 has been a ride, from not being able to get food in-stock in the beginning in the grocery stores to not being able to go to the stores because my son has severe asthma, and the possibility of exposing him,” Greenland said.

Iowa food pantries have tried to fill the gap for families like Greenland’s, but the pantries themselves have faced unprecedented challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers and food insecurity increases in the state and nationwide. Feeding America, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the country, estimates that 12.8 percent of Iowans were living with food insecurity as of October, up from 9.7 percent in 2018, which is the most recent data available. Food insecurity experts interviewed by IowaWatch are concerned the situation in Iowa could get substantially worse this winter, and they’re calling on state and federal lawmakers to rush additional aid to families in need of food.

“When we look at a deficit of food going forward, the state has to get into the game,” said Michelle Book, president and CEO of the Food Bank of Iowa.

The organization’s five regional food banks — the River Bend Foodbank in Davenport, the Food Bank of Iowa in Des Moines, HACAP Food Reservoir in Hiawatha, the Northeast Iowa Food Bank in Waterloo, and the Food Bank for the Heartland in Omaha — distributed 33 million meals in all of 2019; that number was 41 million through the first 11 months of 2020. The Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, using census survey data, said the state’s estimated rate of food insecurity rose from 7 percent in February to 19.2 percent for April and May — about 2.7 times as many Iowans. Only three states had a higher ratio between the two dates, although 35 states and the District of Columbia had estimated April-May rates higher than Iowa’s. The estimates from the weekly census data have mostly tracked a few percentage points below the national average throughout the pandemic.

Anti-hunger advocates fretted for weeks about a Dec. 31 deadline for state and local governments to spend federal aid provided in the spring through the CARES Act and the prospect for supplemental aid to individuals and social services agencies to vanish. But the new relief measure Congress passed Dec. 21 extended the deadline. Stimulus payments to individuals and $13 billion for expanded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits could stave off some growth in hunger temporarily, too. The concept of food insecurity itself can be difficult for people to grasp if they haven’t experienced it, said Book, the Food Bank of Iowa president. She fears the term “food insecurity” has become a buzz word, she said.

“The fact is, these are people that don’t have food in the refrigerator, they don’t have crackers in their cupboard, and they don’t know what they’re having for dinner tonight, if anything,” Book said.

Even in non-pandemic years, the months immediately following the holidays are typically the most challenging for people living in poverty, Book said. Utility bills increase. Public consciousness of hunger fades. State data show over 300,000 Iowans live in poverty. Iowans tend to be generous during November and December, but, “all of a sudden, after the holidays, that stuff dries up. But food insecurity does not dry up,” Book said. “In fact, I would say January and February are some of the bleakest months for food insecurity.”

Food demand changes

Dozens of Iowa food pantry representatives interviewed by IowaWatch reported a dramatic surge in demand last March. For some food pantries, particularly in rural areas, the increased demand never dropped off, they reported.

Other pantries reported a decrease in demand during the first spike. Some of their longtime patrons disappeared, replaced by new faces.

“What was driving the attendance at our pantries was new people — folks that have never used one of our pantries before, a large, large proportion of which were newly unemployed, disproportionately made up from the Latinx community,” said Matt Unger, chief executive officer of the Des Moines Area Religious Council, or DMARC.

Almost all Iowa food pantries contacted by IowaWatch reported an increase in first-time food recipients — new families who had never visited them before the pandemic hit. Several pantries provided detailed monthly data tracing similar stories: some fluctuation in households served as COVID-19 began to spread, and rising demand toward the end of 2020. That means Iowa food pantries could see unprecedented demand this winter.

“We’re getting closer to where we were before the pandemic hit,” said Andrea Cook, program director at the Partnership Place in Johnston. Cook has seen families who haven’t visited a DMARC network pantry in five or six years, she said.

Partnership Place is delivering food weekly to residents living in low-income senior housing just up the road. They’ve also started working with high school volunteers, who are generally considered a lower-risk population, to deliver.

Despite the risk to staff members and volunteers — many of whom are elderly — of potentially contracting COVID-19, most Iowa food pantries have found ways to adapt, including a drive-through model and grouping volunteers to limit exposure.

“Once COVID hit, then we had to regroup,” said Linda Urick, a volunteer at the food pantry at Morningside Lutheran Church in Sioux City. “Because even though the church wasn’t open, we still had to supply that food for those people. We were not going to shut down because of it. We just had to find an alternative way to do it.”

Economy challenge

The vaccines for COVID-19 will not make a substantial impact on the economy, which is closely tied to food insecurity, experts said.

“People think the vaccine is going to be a panacea. Unh-uh,” said Book.

Feeding America has studied past recessions and their relationship to food insecurity.

“They’re telling us, here at the food bank level, plan on food insecurity continuing to increase through most likely 2024, and it’s unlikely to decrease again to pre-recession levels until ’27, ’28. This is going to be a long haul,” Book said.

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