Gas Prices Not Alone- Food Prices Way Up, Too: From CBS News, The Early Show. It's not just gas whose rising price is putting the squeeze on out pocketbooks. Food prices have been steadily increasing, as well. Gas only takes up about four percent of the average family's budget, while food accounts for rouguhly 13 percent. Milk prices have shot up almost 18 percent in the last year, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and eggs nearly 35 percent. Posted on 3/12/2008 ; entire article available here.

-
 Please click here to read more.



Need for Food Increasing in Cleveland, Cuyhoga County: The basic need for food is on the rise in Cleveland and the suburbs of Cuyhoga County at the same time that government funding is being reduced, according to a new report released by The Center for Community Solutions. Posted on 2/15/2008 ; entire article available here.

-
The report describes an alliance of four emergency food networks and their efforts to ensure adequate access to quality food service, and identifies areas in Cleveland and the suburbs that have below-average food resources. Commenting on the report’s findings, Gregory L. Brown, Community Solutions’ executive director and president stated, “This time of increased need and decreased funding demands an efficient use of limited emergency food service resources.“

The new report measures hunger in Cuyahoga County by the number of food stamp recipients, access to food pantries and hot meal sites (a.k.a. “soup kitchens”) and the number of people receiving these services, students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, and the number of calls to the local 211 agency for help in finding emergency food service.

It tracks food stamp recipients to show that poverty and hunger increased inside and outside the central city since 2002. Emergency food service and food resource use were analyzed per square mile in Cuyahoga County. The report concludes that, due to major economic discrepancies, the highest level of need is still found within the city of Cleveland even though most of the emergency food service sites are already located there. Some areas may need more food service than is presently available to efficiently serve all of the food-insecure population, not only in Cleveland, but in the suburbs as well. Report highlights are listed below:

• Across the county, 183,330 residents received food stamps in 2007, up by 40 percent since 2002.

• The standard deduction for food stamp benefits was frozen in 1996 by the U.S. Congress and therefore has not kept up with inflation, causing a steady erosion of food stamp benefits.

• In January, 2007, over three-fourths of persons served at emergency food pantries lived in, or very near, Cleveland.

• The average Cleveland food pantry served fewer people (400) than the average transitional suburban food pantry (580 people). However, the number of operating hours available to Cleveland residents was three hours less than in the transitional suburbs and fewer people were served per hour in Cleveland. This may mean some Clevelanders are not able to take advantage of pantries due to restricted hours or other conditions.

• In January, 2007, almost nine of every 10 hot meals in the county were served in Cleveland.

• The average Cleveland hot meal program served more than twice the number of meals than those in the transitional suburbs (670 to 290 meals). However, the transitional suburban programs had nearly half the operating hours available per site (5 hours) compared to Cleveland programs (9 hours) and fewer people were served per hour. This may mean some transitional suburbanites are not able to receive hot meals due to restricted hours or other conditions.

• In Cleveland, available hours for food pantries and hot meal sites were below average, and either persons/meals served or food recipients were above average, in six east-side and four west-side neighborhoods.

• In the transitional suburbs, available hours for food pantries and hot meal sites were below average, and either persons/meals served or food recipients were above average, in four east-side and two west-side transitional suburbs.

• In October, 2006, The National School Lunch Program provided free or reduced-price lunches to 85 percent of students in Cleveland schools and one-half to three-fourths of students in seven (one-third) of the 21 transitional suburbs.

• Calls for food assistance to United Way’s First Call for Help 211 telephone line increased 31 percent between 2006 and 2007.

Data on food stamp recipients were collected from the NEO CANDO system, Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, MSASS, Case Western Reserve University. Food pantry and hot meal site hours of operation and people/meals served were collected by the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland, the Cleveland Foodbank (suppliers of independent pantry and hot meal sites), Cleveland Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army, and First Call for Help, United Way of Greater Cleveland. Calls requesting food assistance were also tallied by First Call for Help.  Please click here to read more.



Working Poor stretching pay to the breaking point: For families living paycheck to paycheck things are getting harder. What use to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner. Posted on 10/24/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills.It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor.

The complete article is featured in the October 24th issue of The Plain Dealer in the business section.  Please click here to read more.



More Working Poor: According the the U.S. Census and The Plain Dealer 45,481 manufactoring jobs were lost in Northeast Ohio between 2000 and 2006. Additional, 7,750 retail sales jobs, plus at least 5,590 public administration jobs and 4,448 information technology positions were lost. The mediam household income declined by $6,367. This causes more low-income families and less high-income families. Posted on 9/12/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
The September 12th issue of The Plain Dealer on the front page of the business section has complete details.  Please click here to read more.



Who's poor?: Name an Ohio city and chances are it's facing alarming poverty. Last year Cleveland was labeled the poorest big city in America. According to the U.S. Census it fell to number 4 this year, behind Detroit, Buffalo and Cincinnati. Cleveland's median household income rose, to $26,535, but still ranks dead last amoung American big cities. The country and regionfared far better, but poverty rate exceeded 25 percent in six of Ohio's ten largest cities. Posted on 8/29/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
America's poorest big cities:
1) Detroit 32.5% living in poverty
2) Buffalo 29.9% living in poverty
3) Cincinnati 27.8% living in poverty
4) Cleveland 27% living in poverty
5) Miami 26.9% living in poverty
In the United States 13.3% of the population is living in poverty.

The front page of the August 29th issue of The Plain Dealer has detailed information about the census.  Please click here to read more.



Rising cost of groceries: Several factors have pushed up the wholesale cost of food nearly 8 percent this year. One factor is transportation. Another is high cost of corn. Labor shortages and weather woes are stressing fruit and vegetable farmers. Drought conditions are part of the reson behind a global milk shortage. Read the full article in The Plain Dealer. Posted on 8/22/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
 Please click here to read more.



Ohio Job Market: No sign of Improvement: According to Policy Matters Ohio, Ohio's job market continues to bump along without sings of improvement. Job levels have moved up and down in a relatively narrow band and are now about where they were two years ago, according to seasonally adjusted payroll numbers for nonfarm wage and salary jobs released June 15 by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Overall, the number of jobs in the state remains below where it was when the recession officially ended in November 2001.  Posted on 7/10/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
 Please click here to read more.



USDA sees FSP reates up year over year, 2001-2005: A new USDA report found that in 2005, 65% of people elegible for the Food Stamp Program (FSP) particitpated in it, compared with 54% in 2001. The FSP has grown to serve 9.4 million additional low-income people since 2001, according to Trends in Food Stamp Program Participation Rates: 1999-2005, released June 5. Of the 38 million people who were eligible for the FSP under normal rules in an average month in 2005, 25 million individuals actually participated. Posted on 6/20/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
According to USDA data, the FSP program cost a total of 17.8 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2001, compared to $32.9 billion in FY 2005. Year over year, participants served in an average month by the FSP increased from 23 million in FY 2005 to 25 million in FY 2005, an increase of more than 6%. In FY 2005, the national participation rate among eligible individuals was 65%, an increase of almost 4% over FY 2004. According to Nutrition Week.  Please click here to read more.



Report Details Economic Cost of Hunger Problem: A new study release June 5 by Sodexho Foundation and researchers affiliated with the Harvard Unversity School of Public Health, Brandeis University, and Loyola University finds that the United Sates pays more thean $90 billion annually for the direct and indirect costs of hunger-related charities, illness and psychosocial dysfunction, and the effect of less education/lower productivity. According to a June 5 release about the Cost of Hunger report, on average, each person residing in the United States pays $300 annually for the hunger bill. Posted on 6/18/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
 Please click here to read more.



Pour Among Plenty: In the Februray 12th issue of Newsweek Magazine in the Society section is an article on poverty shifting to the U.S. Suburbs. Families living in Cleveland suburbs were interviewed. Posted on 2/21/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
 Please click here to read more.



Poverty Moves to the Suburbs: Poverty and hunger is no longer just an inner-city problem. It is a problem in the suburbs now. Fox 8 Cleveland aired a story on Friday, February 16th during the 6:00 p.m. news focusing on the South East Clergy Hunger Network Pantry in Bedford. Posted on 2/21/2007 ; entire article available here.

-
 Please click here to read more.



Hunger Increase in Cuyahoga County: A new report released by The Center for Community Solutions shows that hunger has increased in Cleveland and surrounding suburbs, as well as in the state and country. The report measures hunger in Cuyaboga County by the number of food stamp recipients and the number of calls to the local 211 agency for help finding food assistance in 2000 and 2005. Posted on 9/1/2006 ; entire article available here.

-
The report tracks food stamp recipients and food assistance calls to show that poverty and hunger increased inside and outside the central city since 2000. The report concludes that, if this trend continues, food assistance sites may need to be redirstributed, and capacity at these site may need to be adjusted to efficiently serve all of the poor and hungry, not only in Cleveland, but in the suburbs as well.

In Cuyahoga:
*Across the county, 179,000 residents received food stamps in 2005, up by 43 percent since 2000.
*Calls to United Way's First Call for Help 211 telephone line for food assistance increased 63 percent between 2000 and 2005, for a total of 14,000 calls.
*Cleveland food stamp recipients numbered 123,400 in 2005, up 29 percent since 2000, and calls for food assistance reached 8,500, up 61 percent in that period.
*Food stamp recipients in the transitional suburbs (those immediately surrounding the city) totaled 46,200 in 2005; calls for help totaled 4,900 and represent a higher percentage increase than those from Cleveland (71 percent versus 61 percent).
*Remaining suburbs also experienced an increase in need; 9,400 received food stamps in 2005, an increase of 118 percent over 2000 figures.
*Over 405,000 people were assisted by Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland (HNGC) in 2005, 40 percent of whom were children; 16 percent were persons 65 and over. While assistance peaked in Cleveland in 2003 at 404,700, and dropped to 358,500 in 2005, the suburbs saw steady increases, reaching 46,800 in 2005.
*HNGC's suburban centers are seeing an increase in the number of visitors.
*In addition to HNGC's 52 hunger centers and 18 hot meal sites, the First Call for Help database listed 110 soup kitchens and 109 food pantries in 2005.

Data on food stamp recipients were collected from the NEO CANDO system, Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change, MSASS, Case Western Reserve University. Calls to First Call for Help requesting food assistance were tallied by United Way of Greater Cleveland. Calls for food assistance were assigned by ZIP codes; numbers estimated for cites and neighborhoods are approximate due to some overlapping of ZIP codes. Other data in the report were provided by the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland.

Visit www.communitysolutions.com to view the complete report.  Please click here to read more.



Cleveland named #1 in Poverty by U.S. Census: For the second time in three years, Cleveland has been ranked the poorest big city in America according to the data released on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 by the U.S. Census Bureau. Cleveland had 32.4% of its 452,200 people living below the poverty line in 2005. This is nearly one third of Cleveland residents. Almost half of the city's children were living in poverty in 2005. Posted on 8/30/2006 .
-
The new census numbers make Cleveland worse off than it was in 2003, the last time it was ranked first.

No other big city in America had a lower median household income than Cleveland. Cleveland has been among the 12 poorest cities in the country for the past six, ever since the Census Bureau began the rankings.

The front page of today's The Plain Dealer had this headline Cleveland: Poorest big city in the U.S., census shows. To read the complete article from The Plain Dealer visit Cleveland.com.

Please visit the Census Bureau for more information on poverty.


No School Lunches for the Summer: One in six Ohio children is hungry or at risk of hunger. That's 66,080 hungry kids in Cuyohoga County. During the school year, many of those children receive nutritious meals through the USDA National School Lunch Program, and some als eat breakfast each morning through the School Brekfast Program. But what happens when schools dismiss kids for the summer. Read More... Posted on 7/25/2006 .
-
Unfortunately, hunger doesn't take a summer vacation. During the 2004-2005 school year, 74,244 low-income children in in Cuyahoga County received free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program. During the summer of the same year only 8,780 kids ate free and reduced-price summer meals. That means only about 11% of the kids who rely on USDA meals each day actually received them. During July 2005, 65,464 low-income children who received lunch during the year did not receive meals in the summer. 2006 data from the Cleveland Municipal School District indicates that an average of 43,159 low-income children received school lunch meals served by Food and Child Nutrition Services at Cleveland Schools in the 2005-2006 school year. Summer meal programs data is currently being collected. (visit www.childrenshungeralliance.org)


Working Poor Struggling to Survive: From Voices for Children of Greater Cleveland press release on Friday, Sept. 2, 2005: Tuesday, the Census Bureau released income data that indicates despite four years of economic growth since the official end of the last recession, poverty in the United States edged upwards between 2003 and 2004. And, 11.3 percent of Ohioans live in poverty, up from last year. Read more... Posted on 9/7/2005 .
-
“It’s always good news when the economy begins to recover, but the progress for low-wage working families in Ohio has been far too modest. Child poverty remains unacceptably high. Now is not the time for Congress to cut Food Stamps, Medicaid or other vital programs that help our kids,” said Mary Wachtel, Director of Public Policy. In Ohio, 18 percent of families with children live in poverty. The official 2004 poverty threshold is $19,311 for a family of four. If one parent works full-time at minimum wage, they will take home less than half that. And studies show it takes two to three times the official poverty level just to make ends meet and provide basic family stability that children need to thrive and succeed. For the City of Cleveland, which last year earned the distinction as the nation’s poorest city among cities with populations over 250,000, the news was heartening. Last year, Cleveland topped the list as the nation’s poorest large city. This year, Cleveland ranks 12th. “This shows that Cleveland is moving in the right direction,” said Wachtel. “We knew that improving our standing would take more than a quick-fix. We must continue to invest in the programs and services that we know are working. We cannot lose our focus on improving the well-being of children and families in our community.” Among other Ohio cities in the 2004 rankings, Cincinnati is 22nd, Columbus is 39 and Toledo is 40th. Last year, Cincinnati was 15th, Toledo 20th and Columbus 34th. Congress has directed its committees to cut spending by $35 billion over the next five years while creating fast track protection for passing $70 billion in tax cuts mainly for multi-million dollar households. Food Stamps and Medicaid--two programs that are literally lifelines for hard-working, low-wage families in Ohio–are targeted for cuts. More than 25 million people, including over one million in Ohio, depend on Food Stamps each month for food. Eighty percent of Food Stamp households are families with children. Medicaid provides health insurance to 38 million children and their parents, including nearly two million Ohioans. One in four Ohio children—most from working families--rely on Medicaid for health care benefits so that they can see a doctor. “In these tough economic times, food and health care for struggling families and children living in poverty should be higher priorities than further tax breaks for multi-million dollar households. Congress has the opportunity to save childhoods when it returns to work in September. We call on Ohio’s Senators DeWine and Voinovich to continue their leadership in Washington on behalf of Ohio’s children and families and not let Congress cut these programs further,” said Wachtel.


Suburban Poverty on the Rise: More people than ever before are visiting our suburban hunger centers. Over the past year, while city residents' usage has leveled off, suburban hunger grew. In fact, it has been climbing since the year 2000 but at a much faster rate than Cuyahoga County overall. Suburban hunger rose 33% compared to the overall 27% increase. Southeast suburbs have been hit the hardest with massive loss of manufacturing jobs and have shown an astounding 212% increase in need. Overall, more elderly are visiting these programs, too. Suburban centers serve their suburbs and, in most cases, two or three adjacent suburbs. Hunger Network suburban hunger centers are located in Cleveland Heights, Euclid, Lakewood, Parma, Rocky River, Shaker Heights and Bedford Heights. Posted on 8/31/2005 .
-