StL Today
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Since 2000, Gray and more than 6 million other Americans have joined the ranks of the families who find it increasingly difficult to perform a most basic function - to put food on their tables.
The economic indicators are numerous.
After a seven-year decline, the number of Americans on food stamps has shot up 39 percent since 2000, according to federal statistics. Every state, except Hawaii, has felt the impact. In Arizona, food stamp rolls have increased 104 percent, in Nevada, 97 percent; Oregon, 79 percent; South Carolina, 68 percent; Missouri, 65 percent.
Texas has added nearly a million people to its food stamp rolls in only four years.
Part of that increase was fueled by states' increased efforts to enroll a greater portion of people eligible for food stamps and the placement of people back onto the rolls who were knocked off during welfare reform. Most of it, however, social workers say, is the growing number of Americans unable to feed themselves without help.
"Clearly, most of this is because of increased need," said Carol Adams, head of the Illinois Department of Social Services. Illinois has seen a 31 percent increase in the number of people on food stamps since 2000.
Food banks see increased demand
Meanwhile, the nation's network of food banks and food pantries say they are under intense pressure to meet the demand of hungry families, nearly half of them working.
"We don't have enough hours in the day to serve everybody who comes in," said John Holmer, executive director of Metro Caring, a Denver food pantry that last year served 34,000 people, half of whom were children.
At the Circle of Concern in Valley Park, executive director Glen Koenen said that last month, the pantry served more than 1,200 families, far beyond the pantry's capacity of 750 it established two years ago.
America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest private network of food providers, served 23 million Americans in 2001, 6 million more than the federal food stamp program, according to an independent study.
With demand increasing at food pantries around the country as much as 10 percent, 20 percent, even 40 percent annually, the network is still probably serving more than the federal government, said Doug O'Brien, vice president for public policy and research for the organization.
The families come to the pantries for the same reasons as Gray. By the time they pay the bills - housing, utilities, gas, clothes, prescription drugs - there is little or no money left for food.
"It's hard, but when you have kids, you swallow your pride," said Gray, as she waited to see a counselor at Circle of Concern.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in November than 36.3 million Americans, more than one of every 10, is at risk of hunger. That figure was the highest number the agency has recorded since it began keeping a tally in 1995.
The changing face of hunger in the U.S.
What is driving those numbers is a convergence of three economic realities, realities that have changed the nature of hunger in America, say economists, social workers and those who help the needy.
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