I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The Food Research and Action Center released a report (pdf) Thursday on rates of food hardship over the year 2010, finding that 28.3 percent of New Mexico families with children had trouble getting food on the table in the past year.
Almost 40,000 New Mexicans look for help in getting enough to eat each week, according to a study by the New Mexico Association of Food Banks and an organization called Feeding America. Forty percent of the folks getting help are children under the age of 18; 13 percent are elderly. That sobering data about hunger comes as the Legislature is debating whether to make cuts in the state budget or to raise enough tax revenue to keep state programs and services at their current funding level.
Photo by Mills Baker
Here’s another sign of how the poor economy is affecting New Mexico: state data show that 70,000 more New Mexicans are using food stamps than just a year ago.
According to data from the New Mexico Human Services Department, individual use of the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, rose by 28 percent in New Mexico from September 2008 to September 2009, when nearly 325,000 New Mexicans were collecting benefits that help them buy food.
Food stamps help individuals and families living around the poverty level — roughly $22,000 for a family of four. And the increase in food stamps usage in New Mexico has coincided with a similar rise in the state’s unemployment rate, which has risen dramatically over the past year. The rate reached 7.9 percent in October, up from 4.5 percent in October 2008, according to the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions.
As bad as the numbers are, they may not capture the full picture of how widespread hunger is in New Mexico, officials said Monday.
“Not are we only seeing low-income people who need food,” said Sonya Warwick of Albuquerque-based Road Runner Food Bank, which distributes foodstuffs to pantries and soup kitchens across the state, “[but] we’re seeing people whose hours are cut. They may make too much money to qualify for food stamps.”
But they are having trouble putting food on the table, she said.
In the past, the Road Runner Food Bank has estimated that 100,000 New Mexicans who are not on assistance go hungry at some time or another, Warwick said.
The rise in food stamp cases, which is almost entirely federally funded, offers a glimpse into how the recession is hitting New Mexicans. And the picture isn’t pretty.
Over the past year, nearly 40,000 adults joined the program’s rolls, compared to nearly 30,000 children, data show. Adults make up just over 50 percent of the food stamp recipients in New Mexico.
Food stamp usage rose nearly everywhere in New Mexico, in urban and rural areas.
Bernalillo County saw an increase of nearly 40 percent from September 2008 to September 2009 as the caseload grew by more than 12,000 cases, state data show.
Santa Fe County, meanwhile, recorded a 33 percent increase in food stamp cases while Dona Ana County, which includes Las Cruces, saw the caseload rise by 24 percent.
Rural areas were equally hard it, if not harder hit by the economic troubles.
Lea County, in southeastern New Mexico, saw food stamp cases rise by more than half, jumping to 3,459 this September, up from 2,263 cases a year before. Colfax County, up north, saw its caseload rise by nearly 40 percent, jumping from 533 cases last year to 745 cases this September.
The rise in New Mexico’s food stamp cases has led to increased costs, which jumped from $23 million in September 2008 to more than $41 million in September 2009, data show. The federal government foots the bill for the program.
Hunger of course is not confined to New Mexico. More and more Americans are going hungry, according to recent reports.
According to a research report issued earlier this month from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more and more Americans are struggling with where to find their next meal. The report, authored by Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, and Steven Carlson, said that 17 million households across the nation at some time during the year had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources.
The prevalence of food insecurity was up from 11.1 percent (13 million households) in 2007 and was the highest observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995.
Meanwhile, the New York Times published a story over the weekend detailing how the federal program, has increased dramatically during the recession.
An interactive map that ran with the Times story showed how many people in each county use the program.
Torrance County was the worst off county in New Mexico, according to the Times’ interactive map. According to the graphic, nearly 25 percent of all Torrance County’s 17,000 residents, and 50 percent of its children, were on food stamps in 2009, an 11 percent rise from 2007.
But Torrance County was nowhere near the top of the list of worst-off counties across the country as measured by the number of food stamp cases compared to population, the graphic showed.
According to the graphic, Wade Hampton County in Alaska earned that dubious honor. Nearly 50 percent of that county’s residents, and 62 percent of its children, were on food stamps.
The population of homeless children in Bernalillo County has more than doubled in the past couple of years, according to a report by KOB Channel 4.
A local organization that cares for homeless children conducted a survey that found…
A Roadrunner Food Bank truck is loaded with food. (Photo by Denise Tessier)
ALBUQUERQUE – This month is shaping up as one of the most difficult Septembers in memory in terms of feeding and helping those in need, the head of one of the state’s largest food banks tells the New Mexico Independent.
Even before hurricanes hit Texas and Louisiana, those states “were facing the same conditions that we are” in terms of struggling to meet the demands of the hungry, Roadrunner Food Bank Director Melody Wattenbarger told NMI. “I can’t imagine how bad it would be if we had a natural disaster on top of the struggles we already face.
“We feel compelled to help out,” Wattenbarger added.
For the second time in as many weeks, Roadrunner Food Bank has issued an appeal asking New Mexicans for donations to help victims of hurricanes Gustav and Ike in neighboring Texas and Louisiana, saying their national counterpart, Feeding America, is reporting the situation as a “human crisis.”
While media attention has been diverted from the storm-ravaged region because of the nation’s financial system failings, “people are still suffering and need help,” Wattenbarger said in the public appeal.
“The financial problems in the country have taken the media limelight, but we need to continue providing aid. We desperately need the community to step forward and host large-scale food and fund drives as soon as possible.”
While the Bush administration and Congress negotiate a $700 billion bailout for U.S. financial institutions, disaster funds have been exhausted in the Gulf Coast region, Roadrunner reports.
Wattenbarger told NMI: “The food bank in San Antonio ran out of food and at one point last week, they got 500 requests for food in one hour.” She said the Houston food bank that normally distributes 125,000 pounds of food a day has been distributing four times that amount –- 500,000 pounds a day, or the equivalent of 17 truckloads -– since the hurricanes.
Meanwhile, thousands of people are still in shelters. “It’s a dire situation,” she said.
Wattenbarger told NMI September is normally a tough month for food banks: The holiday spirit that precedes Thanksgiving and Christmas hasn’t kicked in yet. This September, however, has been “abnormal” -– perhaps the most abnormal “in my entire experience,” Wattenbarger said.
She explained that both the financial crisis and the presidential election make fundraising more difficult.
“I think people right now are nervous, and in times of great uncertainty –- like we’re facing now -– people are a little more cautious about giving,” she said. “Presidential elections cause nervousness sometimes, because we don’t know what the outcome will be.”
Meanwhile, hunger in New Mexico “is ongoing and it’s getting worse,” she told NMI.
New Mexico was ranked number one in the nation in “food insecurity” — that is, more New Mexicans per capita going without meals and/or unsure where their next meal will come from — in a 2007 report by America’s Second Harvest (now Feeding America). In that report, which uses data from 2005, New Mexico was ranked fourth in terms of overall poverty — with only Louisiana, Mississippi and the District of Columbia ranking lower — and the state tied with Louisiana and Alabama at No. 3 in terms of childhood poverty, with only Mississippi and the District of Columbia faring worse.
On the other hand, Roadrunner has attracted a “great number of volunteers lately,” Wattenbarger said, although she added, “We can always use more.”
A few businesses are holding food drives this week in response to last week’s plea for help for the hurricane victims, she added. Holding a food drive is fairly simple: Work sites, offices and organizations simply put the word out that they’re collecting food and personal hygiene items, and when they’re done, they call Roadrunner to pick up what’s been collected.
As the donations come in, Roadrunner notifies Feeding America, which gets the food and personal hygiene items. Feeding America estimates the Gulf Coast will need 400 truckloads of food to help the hundreds of thousands displaced by the hurricane. One hundred percent of any monetary donations directed toward Hurricane Relief will be sent to the area, Wattenbarger said.
“We are imploring our community to give either monetary funds or food,” Wattenbarger continued. “Please come forward and host a fund or food drive.”
Donors can give by phone: (505) 247-2052 (select option 4). Gifts can also be made online at www.rrfb.org.
Non-perishable donations needed to support relief efforts include:
• Pop-top, ready-to-eat foods
• Granola bars, power bars, cereal bars
• Meal replacement beverages
• Canned meats (tuna, chicken, beef, salmon, etc.)
• Canned vegetables
• Canned fruit
• Peanut butter/jelly
• Canned soups and chili (pop-tops please)
• Bottled drinking water (no glass containers)
• Shelf-stable juice, milk and sports beverages
• Baby needs (diapers, formula, baby bottles)
• Personal hygiene (toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, etc.)
• Paper products (toilet paper, napkins, plates, tissue)
• Cleaning supplies
