I’m 77, pay rent and live off Social Security, but I help homeless people. Why are so many people going hungry?
On most mornings I pack a few paper bags with peanut-butter sandwiches, fruit, and bottles of water. I keep socks in my tote—people on the street are always grateful for dry socks. I’m 77, I pay rent on a small apartment, and I live on my Social Security check. I’m not a hero. I’m a neighbor trying to do what my budget and my back will allow.
Here’s what I can’t shake: the line at the church pantry stretches farther each month. I meet veterans, home health aides, cashiers, and grandparents raising grandchildren. They aren’t looking for handouts. They’re trying to survive a math problem that no longer adds up. Why, in a wealthy country, are so many people going hungry?
The math stopped working for millions
– Prices rose faster than paychecks and benefits. Groceries may not be spiking the way they did at the pandemic’s peak, but prices are still much higher than a few years ago. Rent climbed hard, too. If your income is fixed, every increase in eggs or insulin shaves dollars from dinner.
– Housing squeezes the food budget. When rent eats 40–60% of a monthly check, food is where families cut first. Seniors who lost a spouse often face the same bills on half the income. People waiting for housing vouchers can be on lists for years.
– Work changed, but bills didn’t. Many jobs pay by the shift or by the gig. Hours swing, schedules flip, and paychecks can’t be predicted. If child care costs more than you earn that day, you stay home—and the cupboard goes bare.
A safety net with too many holes
– Nutrition aid isn’t enough and is hard to get. SNAP reduces hunger, but benefit amounts often don’t cover a full month of food, especially in high-cost areas. Pandemic “emergency allotments” that temporarily increased SNAP ended, and the loss hit households immediately. Applications are long, documentation is tricky, and work-reporting rules can push people off the rolls even when they’re struggling to find steady hours.
– Asset rules keep people poor. Programs like SSI still use decades-old limits on savings. Keep more than a small cushion and you can lose help—so folks stay one blown tire away from disaster.
– Immigrants and mixed-status families are excluded or fearful. Many pay taxes, work essential jobs, and feed our communities, but don’t qualify for help or avoid it for fear of jeopardizing their status.
Health, aging, and transportation
– Medical costs steal from the pantry. Co-pays, dental bills, eyeglasses, and mobility devices add up. For older adults, special diets—low-sodium, diabetic-friendly—cost more. Choosing between pills and produce is a choice no one should face.
– Getting to food is its own hurdle. Many neighborhoods have no nearby, affordable grocery store. The bus ride is long or expensive. If you’re using a walker, hauling bags across town just isn’t possible.
Hunger is a housing and wages story, too
– You can’t eat stability when rent’s due. Homelessness and hunger are intertwined. People lose housing after a job loss, a medical crisis, a death in the family, or domestic violence. Without a kitchen, even donated food can be hard to store or prepare.
– Pay hasn’t kept pace with productivity and profits. The costs of food, housing, child care, and transportation climbed while many wages barely budged. Unpredictable schedules and lack of paid leave mean missed hours and missed meals.
The food system wields a lot of power
– Consolidation means fewer players setting prices. A handful of companies dominate meatpacking, groceries, and distribution. Fewer competitors can mean higher prices and fewer choices, especially in rural and low-income urban areas.
– Shrinkflation is real. Packages got smaller even when price tags didn’t. For people on tight budgets, that’s a hidden tax that spreads hunger out over the month.
Charity helps, but it cannot fix policy gaps
Food banks, church pantries, and mutual-aid fridges are lifelines. I’ve stood in those lines. Volunteers are kind, and donors are generous. But a box of food once or twice a month can’t overcome high rent, low wages, medical bills, and a thicket of program rules. Hunger is not a mystery of individual failure; it is a policy outcome.
What we know works
We’ve already tested ideas that cut hunger. During the pandemic, when SNAP benefits were boosted and the expanded Child Tax Credit went to most families, food hardship and child poverty dropped sharply. When those policies expired, both rose again. The lesson is simple: when people have enough money, they buy food and feed their kids.
We could choose to:
– Strengthen income supports
– Make the Child Tax Credit fully refundable and available monthly.
– Update SSI’s outdated asset and income rules so seniors and people with disabilities can save.
– Ensure Social Security and SSI keep pace with regional living costs.
– Make food assistance adequate and accessible
– Protect and strengthen SNAP benefit levels and simplify applications.
– Expand WIC and Summer EBT so kids eat when school is out.
– Offer universal free school meals, as several states already do.
– Lower the cost of essentials
– Build and preserve affordable housing; fund rental vouchers without years-long waits.
– Reform zoning and speed up housing production.
– Cap out-of-pocket prescription costs and expand access to affordable health care.
– Invest in public transit so people can reach jobs and grocery stores.
– Raise job quality
– Update the minimum wage, stabilize work schedules, and expand paid leave.
– Support job training tied to real career ladders.
– Make the food market fairer
– Enforce antitrust laws in meatpacking, groceries, and shipping.
– Support local growers, farmers markets that accept SNAP, and mobile markets in underserved areas.
– Reduce food waste and make it easier for stores to donate safely.
– Remove administrative barriers
– Cut red tape, translate materials, and allow phone or online applications with help.
– End punitive work-reporting rules that kick eligible people off aid.
What helps right now, person to person
– Ask, don’t assume. A simple “What would help you today?” goes further than a bag you packed without asking.
– Offer flexible help. Gift cards, transit passes, a charged phone bank, socks, and menstrual supplies are often more useful than a single hot meal.
– Support organizations that treat people with dignity. Look for those led by people with lived experience, and ones that offer case management alongside food.
– Advocate locally. City councils and school boards control zoning, school meals, and transit. Show up, speak up.
– Vote for hunger solutions. Support candidates who commit to strengthening SNAP, housing, health care, and wages.
– Check on seniors. Many older adults are isolated and eligible for programs they aren’t using. Help with applications, or connect them to Meals on Wheels and congregate dining sites.
Dignity is the point
Hunger isn’t only an empty stomach. It’s the humiliation of having to prove, again and again, that you’re poor enough to deserve help. It’s the anxiety of stretching milk, of letting your own plate go light so a grandchild can eat. It’s the exhaustion of hustling between charity hours and bus schedules and doctor visits.
At 77, I can make sandwiches and carry socks. I can look my neighbors in the eye and learn their names. I can remind anyone who’ll listen that hunger is a policy choice, not a natural disaster. We have already seen what works: steady income, affordable homes, accessible health care, and enough assistance to bridge the gap. If we choose those, the pantry line shortens. If we don’t, the line keeps growing—and so does the quiet shame of a country that lets its people go hungry.
We don’t need miracles. We need will. And until our policies catch up with our values, I’ll keep packing those bags. But I’d be grateful for the day I can retire my tote.
