Adjust the Guidelines, Feed the Children : High Cost of Living Often Precludes Lunch for Many Students Above Poverty Line

In Orange County and other expensive urban areas, housing costs are so high that families need not be “poor” on paper to have too little money to make sure their children are fed properly. Many of these children show up at school hungry. That’s hardly conducive to learning and study.

The Anaheim Union High School District’s food services director, Barry Sackin, is trying to get Orange County’s congressional delegation to support a proposal that would change federal rules to adjust for the high cost of living in areas such as this one. Sackin’s proposal to lobby for changes in federal law got the support of the Orange County Hunger Coalition, local school officials and others concerned about poor children. But it will need some high-powered help from Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.), who is from Anaheim, and others.

Seymour, who is running for the seat to which former Sen. Pete Wilson appointed him after Wilson won the governorship, should make this one of his causes. Federal rules now make adjustments only in the country’s two non-contiguous states, Hawaii and Alaska.

Orange County health officials say that, despite the county’s reputation for affluence, 380,000 of the county’s residents go hungry every day. Among them are families that must pay rental rates that are among the highest in the nation. According to the 1990 census, Orange County’s median monthly rental cost is $728. Contrast that with California’s $561; San Diego County’s $564; Los Angeles County’s $570; $299 in Wichita, Kan., and $237 in Cleveland.

That means low-income families in Orange County have far less money than their neighbors to spend on other necessities, including food. It costs $1.40 to $1.50 a day for a school lunch. Some of the children who don’t have lunch money may be fed on the sly by teachers or administrators who can’t bear to see them go without. But many others will probably go unnoticed, although their studies will suffer.

The school lunch program doesn’t come up for reauthorization by Congress until 1994. Changes will be easier to make then. But Congress can amend the legislation in the meantime if it believes that the current system is unfair.

Far too many hungry children are being denied participation in federally funded school lunch programs because their families do not to meet eligibility requirements. Federal rules should be changed to make allowances for geographical differences in rents.