More Oregonians Have Access To Healthy Food Options, Report Shows; But For How Long?

PORTLAND, OR — The number of Oregonians without access to healthy food options decreased over the past two years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2016 Household Food Security Report released earlier this week.

While 16.1 percent of Oregonians struggled to provide their households food for active, healthy lifestyles between 2013 and 2015, only 14.6 percent struggled between 2014 and 2016, the report showed. Nationally, the percentage of food insecure households reportedly decreased from 12.7 percent in 2015 to 12.3 percent in 2016.

"These statistics provide good news about improvement in the Oregon situation, but this is tempered by the ongoing size of the problem and by the persistently higher numbers in Oregon, compared to those of the U.S.," Mark Edwards, Professor of Sociology in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University, said in a statement. "This prevalence of food insecurity in Oregon has been going on for a couple decades, and in response we have developed a highly coordinated emergency food system and excellent program access to safety net programs."

According to officials with the Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon and the Oregon Food Bank, even a slight decrease in the numbers of families suffering from food scarcity is good news for Oregon — but the totality of the national food scarcity/government subsidy situation ought to be considered before organizing any celebrations.

In the interest of lowering the federal budget for 2018, President Donald Trump's budget proposal showed a cut of $193 billion (or 25 percent) to the national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) over the next 10 years. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), about $116 billion of the whole $193 billion proposal would be gained from cutting the federal commitment to the SNAP program.

So rather than maintain its commitment to a program that helps feed low-income Americans, the Trump administration proposes pushing the 25 percent currently paid by the federal government back onto individual states, which would then be forced to choose between further cutting costs to the program or coming up with other ways to maintain their own budgets while also funding the SNAP program at its current levels.

"This proposal would severely undercut one of the nation's most effective anti-poverty programs and risk resurrecting serious problems that our country has largely solved — severe hunger and malnutrition," the authors of the CBPP report wrote.

"We are appalled at proposals at the federal level to make cuts to food assistance for people and families," Annie Kirschner, executive director of Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, said in a statement. "As Congress addresses the budget, our lawmakers must strengthen SNAP, not cut it. The bottom line is that if these proposed cuts become law, more people will experience hunger in every corner of Oregon."

Hunger-Free Oregon and Oregon Food Bank officials agree that a decrease in available SNAP benefits — when taken with rising costs of living and stagnate wages — will only force families to make the hard choice between food or rent.

"The decline of food insecurity in Oregon and across the country shows that what we are doing to fight hunger is working," Oregon Food Bank CEO Susannah Morgan said in a statement. "SNAP is the single most critical source of help for our neighbors experiencing hunger. Food banks and our partners in the charitable food assistance system aim to fill in any nutrition gaps. We are proud to be part of an effective solution. We as a country must stay the course and invest in SNAP until not one of our neighbors worries about where their next meal is coming from."

Image: yalehealth via Pixabay.com

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Originally published September 8, 2017.

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