Economic data doesn't reflect community's hungry

SANDPOINT — Unemployment figures and other official numbers reflect a state economy on the mend. But one local non-profit is experiencing growth in segment of society that reflects the exact opposite.

Hunger remains an ongoing issue in Bonner County. At the Bonner Community Food Bank, the number of individuals, families and seniors seeking assistance has rise 9-percent  for individual, family and senior customers, according to executive director Alice Wallace. It’s been a steadily increasing trend for the last three years.

Even the facility’s new Sandpoint building, acquired in November 2012, is a reflection of increased demand.

“We just totally grew out of the last one,” Wallace, who has been directing the food bank for 18 years, said.

The business of providing hungry people with food has doubled since Wallace started. The Bonner County unemployment rate was 2.5 percent in September 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By March 2011 — three and a half years later — it had skyrocketed to 14.4 percent.

The food bank has experienced a 20-percent rise in the number of customers who come to them for food since the Great Recession, Wallace said. Some are regular customers. Others come once and never come back, or only drop in once per year. But no matter who comes and goes, more hungry people seem to take their place.

Hunger is a deceptive issue, one that isn’t reflected in cold, analytical numbers. Bonner County and Idaho unemployment rates have steadily declined recently. Both are hovering around 5.6 percent, according to the BLS. It would seem things are looking up.

“The food bank doesn’t see it that way,” Wallace said.

Unemployment data don’t reflect, for example, those people whose unemployment benefits have been exhausted, or discouraged individuals who have given up trying to find work altogether. They’ve disappeared into the marginal cracks of society.

Yet hunger is all around us, often hiding in plain sight, Wallace noted.

“They could be your neighbors.”

The food bank served 50,326 individuals in 2014 from it’s two food banks in Sandpoint and Priest River, according to food bank data. More than 17,000 of them were under 18 years of age; more than 8,500 were over age 55.

All told, the food bank on average served 4,575 people per month last year, or 8.9 percent of the Bonner County population, based on 2013 U.S. Census estimates.

Many of the food bank’s clients are on a fixed, Social Security-based income due to age or physical disability. Yet Wallace estimated many are forced to pay market rates for rent — $400 to $500 per month.

“How they make it on what they get is unbelievable to me,” she said. “A lot of them wait until the very last to come in here. They have waited until they have nothing left of their canning, nothing left.”

They come to the food bank when the ramen runs out.

Others choose to live out of town and off the grid without amenities — no power, running water — common in today’s modern cities. It’s an economic opportunity cost in return for cheaper rent. Many of the food banks clients fit that description, according to Wallace.

The food bank survives mainly on generous monetary and food donations, along with some grant money. It’s enough to keep the tidy pantry shelves filled, and to pay the wages of three full-time and three part-time staff positions.

To qualify, food bank customers must be 133 percent below the federal poverty level, and provide identification, proof of residency and current income.

For more information on donating or receiving services, contact the food bank at (208) 263-3663, or visit its website at www.foodbank83864.com.