Think Only Grizzled Men Go Hungry? Think Again

If the 400,000 Orange County residents who go to sleep hungry every night all got together, they would make up the largest city in the county.

They’d be mostly white and female and tend to be either very young or very old.

Most would face a choice of using their inadequate paychecks to pay the rent, take the children to the doctor, or eat. Many would have no telephone, no car, and about 15,000 of them would have no homes. Rarely would food be their first priority.

And their more affluent neighbors would hardly be aware of them.

That was the picture painted by a comprehensive study of the country’s hungry released this month by Second Harvest, the nation’s largest network of food banks that feed nearly 26 million Americans through local charities and nonprofit agencies.

What struck Tom Seeberg, director of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, was how closely the county’s statistics mirrored the national picture.

About 16% of the county’s senior citizens face their days without enough food, a statistic that matches the national figures. The same is true of children--42% of those served by the county’s two food banks are younger than 18, while 38% of the hungry nationwide are children.

“The study breaks the stereotypical image of who is using charitable food programs in Orange County and the nation,” Seeberg said. “And people around here have no clue, not one clue, about the problem. The overall feeling is that it’s a wonderful county.”

Those who work with the hungry and raise money to feed them run across one stereotype that seems almost unbreakable in county mythology: The poor are exemplified by grizzled men who sit outside grocery stores or stand on freeway ramps with signs that say, “Will work for food.”

Lisa Fujimoto, a vice president of the Orange County Rescue Mission, said she usually amazes potential donors when she describes the demographics of hunger.

“The bulk of our clients--probably close to 60%--are white,” said Fujimoto, whose agency served 150,000 hot meals and handed out 325,000 bags of groceries last year. “There is also a misconception that they are all men. But they are women and children and it’s terrible.”

With government cutbacks in welfare and food stamps, the agencies do not expect the problem to dissipate. At this point, they are hard-pressed to meet the demands of churches, soup kitchens and others who sometimes have to close their doors because of a lack of food.

From a long-term view, the problem can affect even the well-fed, said Mark Lowry, director of Garden Grove’s Community Development Council--Orange County Food Bank.

Government assistance, including food banks, was launched at the end of the Great Depression, he said. Draft boards were forced to reject thousands of men because they had been permanently disabled by malnutrition, making hunger a national security issue.

With children forming the fastest-growing population of the hungry, rescue workers worry about their futures as adults.

“We all know a hungry child can’t learn,” Lowry said. “There are long-term costs to not caring for people’s needs.”

Welfare reform is just one problem looming for food banks and charities, agencies said. Manufacturers of food and other staples are more efficient now and have fewer mislabeled cans or products to donate.

And a general ignorance about the issue still pervades the more well-heeled communities.

“I think awareness is our single largest obstacle,” Lowry said. “Orange County has a reputation for affluence, and the notion of hunger has never settled well with the persona of Orange County.”