usatoday | About twice a week, when the arthritis in her legs allows it, Judy
Slover rises in her one-bedroom apartment at the Rug Mill Towers in
Freehold and makes the six-block trek on foot to the food pantry here,
Freehold Area Open Door.Sometimes the walk takes a half-hour, sometimes
more, all depending on how much pain she feels, she says.
At Open
Door, she picks up bread and pasta, apples and oranges, onions and
potatoes, maybe some frozen chicken and hamburger; thanks the
volunteers; then journeys home. Some days, she can't make the trip at
all, says Slover, 60, who also copes with diabetes and depression.
"I've
been homeless," she said. "I have no support team. They call me the
bag lady, but I gotta do what I gotta do, you know? Nobody's been there
for me but Open Door."
Slover is among about 9 million people 50
and older living at risk of going hungry every day, a 79% increase in a
decade, according to the AARP.
As they desperately fall behind even more in the wake of job losses
and obliterated retirement investments and savings, advocates say it
will take more aggressive and creative approaches to help the nation's
eldest citizens get food on the table.
Carlos Rodriguez,
executive director of the FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, says
there are multiple reasons for the rise in seniors' food insecurity:
unexpected expenses and investment losses can bring those on fixed
incomes to the brink of financial disaster, he said.
"So many
households have to make choices between paying for utilities, paying for
housing or putting food on the table," Rodriguez said. "Seniors have
perhaps the added expense — 'Do I take care of my prescription drug or
health needs?'"
As a result of the escalating problems, senior
health and social services agencies have turned their sights to
supplying food; likewise, anti-hunger organizations have turned their
sights to seniors. But obstacles to those efforts range from budget cuts
to seniors' own reluctance to accept help, organizers say.
The
Meals on Wheels Association of America delivered 241 million meals
nationwide in 2010 with the support of federal funds, but proposed
budget cuts to the Older Americans Act could bring that figure down to
about 219 million for senior nutrition programs — a reduction of 22
million meals from 2010, said Meals on Wheels spokeswoman Mary McNamara.
That's before a proposed 8.2% across-the-board cut via sequestration
that organizers estimate could result in the loss of an extra 17 million
meals served nationwide.
And last year, the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — also known as the food stamp
program — in the United States spent $7.4 billion more than it did the
year before. A House vote on a farm bill that would cut $16 billion from
the program is awaiting a vote after the November elections, legislators say.
