O.C. Poor Go Hungry Regularly

Despite living in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, children and adults are still going to bed hungry, wondering where their next meal will come from, according to a study released on Tuesday by Catholic Charities of Orange County.

The Orange County portion of the study is based on limited interviews with 59 of the charity’s poor clients, but its leaders say the study followed U.S. Department of Agriculture survey techniques and that the results are valid.

In total, 12 counties were surveyed, including a mix of urban and rural areas. Results are based on a random sample of 823 households at 26 emergency aid agencies.

The findings, they said, represent a troubling trend.

The study conducted by California Food Policy Advocates, a nonprofit San Francisco-based anti-hunger group, and Catholic Charities surveyed poor people seeking help from the Catholic Charities organization and found that Orange County has one of the highest rates of hunger among the state’s poor.

Statewide, about 60% of the study’s participants experienced some form of hunger, such as regularly going without meals. But in Orange County, where the median income of people responding was $458 per month, 81% of the households in the sample are experiencing “moderate to severe hunger” on a regular basis.

The median annual income for a two-income family in Orange County is $63,000, or $5,250 a month.

Poverty experts Tuesday linked the exceptionally high rate of hunger and meal insecurity among the county’s poor to two main factors: the slashing of food stamps due to welfare reform and the county’s high housing costs.

The average monthly rental for an apartment in the county is $853, according to an earlier study. And as the economy continues to rebound, housing prices and sales are soaring. The median price of a house in Orange County last month climbed 16.2% to $264,230.

Most people pay their rent or mortgage first, then live on whatever is left, said Msgr. Jaime Soto of the Diocese of Orange.

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Soto joined Kristan Schlichte, executive director of Catholic Charities, a pediatrician and a school principal at Roosevelt Elementary School for a news conference, urging legislators to restore food benefits and employers to pay livable wages.

“It is wonderful to see the economy of California commerce return to full throttle, but the workers of this state must not be made to bear the cost of the revival and not share in its benefits,” Soto said.

Although the study specifically addresses hunger, the findings demonstrate the growing gap between the poor and the affluent, Soto said.

It is the county’s underpaid car wash attendants and maids, short order cooks and janitors who cannot make ends meet.

Also, this pool of workers formerly could rely on help from the food stamp program, but welfare reform has eliminated that option. In September 1997, about 15,000 Orange County residents lost food stamp benefits worth an average of $71 a month.

Cutbacks in the food stamp program were cited by the study as a prominent cause of hunger for the county’s working poor. About 67% of those surveyed in Orange County are legal immigrants whose food stamps were cut off.

Soto was careful to point out that the hunger and poverty issues affecting legal immigrants also affect the working poor at large.

“This is not an immigrant issue, it’s an issue of how the working poor are treated,” he said.

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The site for the new conference at Roosevelt Elementary was chosen because many of the children live in poverty.

“We have instances where the father works days, and the mother goes out and works from 4 p.m. to midnight, and they’re still just barely making ends meet,” said Principal Nadine Rodriguez.

About 98% of the 1,200 students at Roosevelt receive free or reduced lunches--sometimes the only sure meals of their day, she said.

According to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, a food distribution center that feeds 180,000 people monthly, about 400,000 people in the county are at risk of going to bed hungry some time each month.

“We’re exactly on the same page with Catholic Charities,” said Nicole Thompson, a spokeswoman for Second Harvest. “We serve 298 agencies in the county and their numbers are either remaining the same or going up. No one’s have fallen.”

Those most likely to experience hunger include people living below the federal poverty line of $8,292 for one person, unemployed people, seniors on fixed incomes and those receiving county general relief benefits.

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Dolores Oxendine, 68, lives on Social Security benefits and says the two bags of groceries she receives each month from Catholic Charities are invaluable. She does not receive food stamps.

A retired nurse who has lived for the past 30 years in the same Garden Grove house, Oxendine once volunteered at Catholic Charities. Now, after suffering health problems last year, she uses the services herself.

“As far as the food goes, it helps me out a great deal--especially the tomatoes and the fresh carrots,” she said. “I’m really very grateful for all that they do.”

Reinstating food stamps benefits to people who were cut would go a long way to mitigating hunger suffered by the poor, but it is not the only answer to the problem, said Thompson of Second Harvest.

“We believe in community partnerships, where businesses, individuals, churches, schools can all come together to solve this problem,” Thompson said. “As a society, we all have the obligation to help people in need.”