Food Insecurity – Texas

When the next meal is a maybe, By Renée C. Lee, April 25, 2011, Houston Chronicle: “Every day more than 700,000 people in Harris County are uncertain about where they will get their next meal. Not all of them are poor – many are working people who don’t qualify for federal food programs. These are among the findings of a recent study that provides the first detailed look at hunger at the county level. Harris County families struggling to keep food on the table have a food budget shortfall of $12.97 per week, per person. To fill the meal gap, $277 million is needed annually to ensure that every person has three meals a day, according to the report’s calculations. The federal government defines food insecurity as limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. On average, food insecure families go at least seven months of the year without enough food, the study said. The study, based on 2009 figures, was conducted by Feeding America, a national hunger relief organization, with the goal of helping local food banks develop better strategies to target hunger. Food banks traditionally have relied on state and national data to estimate food insecurity needs, but the new county data give them a more accurate assessment…”