The weight challenges that low-income and poverty level households is profound even before adding hunger to the mix. Hunger, poor diets, and lack of access to nutritional foods were part of the conversation about households stuck in the low-wage jobs. Participants shared their experiences of the great numbers of free meals regularly served in their community through food banks, schools, and other groups. In one eastern Oregon community, a social service agency provides a couple hundred lunches through a cafeteria each week and then more at a park.
The first two weeks of the month at my local food panty is mostly transients. The last two weeks of the month are single parents with children. They have to save for rent, lights and the whole thing. They're out of money at the end of the month. (Medford Dialogues)
At one elementary school, over 80% of the students are registered in the free and reduced lunch program. Yet, the percentage drops considerably in high school and the Participant recognized that as parents or perhaps the students not wanting to complete the forms to receive the free or reduced lunches. A Salem participant pointed out that students who receive the free lunch often don’t have other meals throughout the day or when school is not in session. “During the summer, we have a canned food drive and we take them to our own neighborhoods,” they added. Even at the college level, students cannot always afford regular meals.
I work at Southern Oregon University and we've seen huge problems with food insecurity among students. You don't generally think about this with 20 year olds not being able to eat, but food is expensive. It's a huge problem for seniors.
The lack of a good diet and constant hunger that so many Oregonians endure creates health disparities and adds to their existing list of unmet needs. “People just assume that people have food to eat and they don't. This is true for every age stratification in our communities,” shared a southern Oregon participant. With hunger and lack of access to good meals being so linked to wages and poverty, it is part of the cycle of poverty where next generations are challenged to get out of it. In one southern Oregon county, quantitative research determined that third and fourth generation locals comprise the populations in need. Some communities, as a Warm Springs Participant shared, are also food deserts. They may have a store, but no fresh produce or meats. Another Warm Springs Participant shared that the public health issues related to diet are also related to historical trauma, institutional oppression, and institutional racism, which run deeper than the cycles of poverty.