Twice a month, a line of cars nearly backs up to U.S. 42 from Florence Christian Church as drivers receive care packages of food — no questions asked.
On a recent afternoon, the temperature crept into the 90s as residents parked their cars on the asphalt and rolled the windows down at noon – two hours before the food was scheduled to roll out the door. The food was given without proof of income. Some who received the food were seniors living in the apartments next door, walking over with carts and in some cases heading to the church in their wheelchairs. Many recipients were also delivering the goods to elderly family members, disabled loved ones, and neighbors who can’t take off work to park in line.
The program started in 2019 and has grown exponentially since the pandemic, feeding more than 400 families a month as of May 2022. Food insecurities were exacerbated by COVID-19 cases, and aid from the federal government aimed to resolve the lack of resources with supplemental funding at schools and food banks. Now, that funding — which Florence Christian Church uses to provide no-questions-asked food — is going away.
Around half of what the church gives out is in pre-packaged boxes of shelf-stable food – a perk from COVID-19 funding. Many of those boxes are disappearing in July.
Freestore Foodbank coordinator Amy Heyd said the boxes are a symptom of a larger problem. Slashes to SNAP, the end of federal waivers for free school lunches and higher food costs mean families and food banks are trying to attain the same items that now cost more, without the income to make up the difference.
“It is the perfect storm right now in Kentucky,” Heyd said. “Fuel and grocery prices have skyrocketed. Emergency SNAP allotments have been discontinued in both Kentucky and Indiana, leaving people with less money in their SNAP account to spend on food that costs more.”
Heyd said food costs haven’t just increased at the grocery store.
“The Freestore is paying 30% higher for the food it purchases versus what we paid only a year ago,” she told LINK nky.
And the list goes on. She said the food bank receives “about 3 million pounds less than what we were receiving a year ago” in government-provided food.
“This has created a situation with more people in need and fewer resources available,” Heyd said.
At Florence Christian, they feel the pressure. While food is on the move in the church, Boone County’s homeless are wading into the ministry’s help center for a shower, a meal, and to get out of the heat.
As Melissa Stephens, the church’s minister of outreach, walked through the service area, nurses spoke in hushed tones, a dryer tumbled with clothes, and a man in an armchair slept with his chin to his chest in a cubicle.
Just outside the center, Stephens was confronted by a St. Elizabeth Healthcare nurse, Marlene. She told Stephens that they were working on helping a couple in their 70s who were living out of their car.
They didn’t have a phone to get notified when their prescriptions were ready, and Marlene worried the heat would kill them.
“The people living on the riverbank in Covington are healthier than the people living out of their cars in Boone County,” Marlene told Stephens.
She said it’s because there are more resources within walking distance in Covington, and Boone County is facing a stigma that “we don’t have homeless people here.”
Data from the United Way identifies the county-by-county breakdown of those living in poverty and a group they call ALICE, short for “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.”
It’s the measure of households that earn above the Federal Poverty Line (FPL) but below the cost of affording the basics. ALICE families are often just out of reach of qualifying for assistance programs that would alleviate financial hardship, but they don’t make enough money to get ahead on bills or savings.
“Over the last decade, behind the veneer of a strong economy, conditions have actually gotten worse for millions of families across the U.S. — and that decline set the stage for the dual health and economic crises of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to the United Way’s 2020 ALICE report.
The report lists that 42% of U.S. households could not afford basic needs in 2018, and their study shows that “the cost of household basics continued to rise, and wages did not keep pace during the ‘recovery’ from 2010 to 2018.”
The combination of natural disasters, COVID-19 and the “unfolding national economic slowdown” created “a perfect storm for ALICE households, who were already more vulnerable than ever before.”
United Way data shows 37% of Boone County residents are ALICE households or in poverty. In Kenton County, it’s 35%, and as many as 40% in Campbell County.
In addition to renewing the federal waivers that allow for free school meals for all students, regardless of economic status, Sam Molony and the team at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation propose expanding access to programs restricted by federal poverty guidelines.
“One example, SNAP is (available) at 130% of FPL, which is quite low,” Molony said.
For a family of three, the poverty line used to calculate SNAP benefits in 2022 is $1,830 a month. For a family of three at 130% of the poverty line, that means earning up to $28,550 a year. The poverty level is higher for bigger families and lower for smaller families.
“Our recommendation is that it should be more at 200% of FPL,” Molony said, which would push the threshold to at least $40,000 for a family of three.
The foundation also suggests that federal assistance programs should adjust based on family composition and geographic location, recognizing that cost of living changes from state to state and county to county, but the federal guidelines don’t change with it.
At FreeStore Foodbank, they are purchasing food “in large scale” and subsidizing 50% of the cost to partnering pantries, and a partnership with Anthem helps ship fresh produce to 20 counties.
Rather than ending their box program altogether, Heyd said they are scaling it back and sending “to the areas of greatest need.” Heyd did not indicate whether Florence Christian is one of those areas.
Stephens sees her job in this as continuing to provide food without proof of income.
She said she reminds the team of volunteers they can’t solve the “layers upon layers” of obstacles for the people they meet, but the food means people “in the gap” of assistance won’t go hungry.