Hunger Hits Hard in Pacific Northwest

Chris and Lisha Brumfield made their last mortgage payment but don’t know where they’ll get the money for the next one.

They have already turned her car over to the finance company and are struggling to keep his truck. Chris lost his job 20 months ago, and the family lives on whatever Lisha can earn caring for other people’s kids.

Last month, faced with nearly empty cupboards and three hungry children of their own, the Brumfields did what they once considered unthinkable: They turned to the local Salvation Army for free rice, instant mashed potatoes and other staples, an admission that cut to the soul in a place where self-reliance is a near-religion.

“I don’t see the end to this,” said Chris Brumfield, 30, who was laid off from the Golden Northwest Aluminum plant here on the south bank of the Columbia River. “We’re trying to stay in the house.... The fear is coming that we can’t.”

Here in the Pacific Northwest, a higher proportion of the population reported suffering from hunger over a three-year span than in any other region of the country, according to a recent analysis of federal statistics by the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University.

Nearly 6% of Oregon residents, or more than 200,000 people, reported during 1999-2001 that they did not have enough to eat for reasons beyond their control. Nationwide, the rate was 3.1%; seven of the eight states reporting the highest levels were in the West.

Overall, nearly 14% of Oregon residents -- fourth-highest in the nation behind New Mexico, Florida and Utah -- did not have reliable access to food, part of a national trend that researchers trace to job loss, increased living costs and a failure of government programs -- such as food stamps -- to reach those who need help.

Oregon’s 7% jobless rate is the nation’s highest. It has given rise to a flood of newly poor families that threatens to overwhelm food banks across the Pacific Northwest.

“It is becoming more and more serious,” said Sue Hofer, spokeswoman for Second Harvest, a Chicago-based nonprofit that oversees a national network of food banks.

More than one in five of Oregon’s 3.4 million residents used food banks during the year, a 10% rise over the previous year. Soup kitchens and emergency shelters reported a 17% increase in meals served. The problem was almost as bad in neighboring Washington after a nearly 14% hike in the number of people who needed food-bank help.

The problem seems to have landed heavily in the central stretch of the Columbia Gorge, a sparsely populated region of ranches, orchards, and beleaguered aluminum and lumber plants that barely saw a ripple from the booming 1990s.

Over the past two years, high electric rates and low market prices led aluminum companies to shut factories, further depressing a region already absorbing the collapse of a lumber industry battered by low-priced imports and environmental-driven restrictions on logging.

As a result, hundreds of well-paid but low-trained workers have lost jobs on both sides of the Columbia River. In Oregon’s Wasco County, unemployment runs about 8%, while in Klickitat County on the Washington side, unemployment stands at 14%.

The biggest effect has been on The Dalles, a low spot in the Columbia Gorge defined by sharp bluffs and rolling, treeless countryside. At the local Salvation Army, the number of households receiving food boxes -- enough for three or four meals -- zoomed from 470 to 2,970 for the year that ended Sept. 30.

“It was tight, but we managed,” said Capt. John Tumey, who moved to The Dalles four years ago from Merced, Calif. “We had a lot of support from people in the community.”

The demand has peaked, he hopes, and will trail off through the winter as more laid-off workers complete retraining programs and find fresh work, or leave town. Last year, the Salvation Army bought one bus ticket to help someone leave town; this year it has bought 22.

Despite the increase in demand, local food banks are only serving a fraction of those who need help because most refuse to ask for it.

One man, Tumey said, showed up saying he had enough food, supplied by friends, but needed a blanket. When Tumey gave him one and refused to accept money for it, the man returned a few hours later with cans of food to add to the pantry -- willing to trade but not to receive charity.

“It’s pride,” Tumey said. “Some men just don’t want to ask for help.”

A key factor in the financial squeeze is housing costs, which have remained steady.

“For some families, 60% to 70% of their income goes to housing,” said Barbara McNab, housing coordinator for the Mid-Columbia Community Action Council in The Dalles, which distributes goods to food banks and runs housing and utilities programs that have seen similar increases in requests for help. “When the economy was good here, 30% was a good average.”

The loss of middle-class jobs has made the local job market impossibly tight. One window-making company had more than 200 applicants for three jobs earlier this year. Les Segui, 32, landed one, which pays $8.50 an hour. That’s not enough to live on, though, and Segui qualifies for rent assistance and food for himself and his 6-year-old son.

Segui has considered leaving town, but the pull of family keeps him rooted. He shares custody of his son with the boy’s mother. And his father, a retired logger, and two brothers live in the area.

“Just trying to live around here, you can’t save up money to move somewhere else,” Segui said. “I’m kind of stuck in the situation, I guess.”

The Brumfields feel similarly bound. Lisha Brumfield has two sons, ages 7 and 5, from a previous marriage, and she and Chris had a daughter two years ago. They bought a $105,000, four-bedroom house at the western edge of town, within driving distance of most of their relatives.

“That good plant money was burning a hole in my pocket,” Chris Brumfield said. His wife added: “We could buy pretty much anything we wanted.”

Then came the layoffs. While many of Chris Brumfield’s co-workers signed up for job-retraining programs, Brumfield passed, gambling that the aluminum plant would restart, as he applied unsuccessfully for some of the few jobs that have come open in town. So far, nothing has materialized, and the couple have drained their savings and his 401(k) account.

Although Lisha Brumfield receives child support, the couple’s only regular income is $850 a month from a day-care center she runs from their home. That’s about equal to their monthly mortgage.

The financial strains have sent difficult emotions coursing through the family. Chris Brumfield recently went to see a doctor for debilitating stomach pains. The diagnosis: stress.

It is fed, Lisha Brumfield believes, by the unaccustomed discomforts that come with sudden poverty: “We’ve never asked for help before.”