Iowa food banks struggle to fill increasing need for assistance

Elnora Jordan spends about $100 on groceries every month. It’s enough — but only because she is one of thousands of people in Linn, Johnson and Washington counties who are fed each day by Horizons Meals on Wheels volunteers.

“You get a raise, but then your rent goes up. Sometimes I don’t have money to buy groceries,” Jordan said. “My mom and father before they died, they told me we were going to be in the soup line, and I’m getting very close to it.”

Horizons’ Meals on Wheels program delivers, for free, up to one hot meal per day to thousands of community members who are elderly or disabled and mostly unable to leave their homes unassisted. Many, like Jordan, rely on these meals not only because it’s difficult to do their own shopping, but also because their finances have gotten tighter as inflation worsened.

“It ensures that you get that one meal a day. That’s what I like about it,” Amity Blakely, who has been on the Meals on Wheels program for seven years, said. “I know I’ve got that full meal at lunchtime.”

Kaggie Baker has been receiving meals from the program for 15 years. She said she’s grateful for the help she is able to get because that one meal makes a big difference.

“It helps a lot, because I can’t get out. … I don’t have transportation. It’s a wonderful program, because to have your meals brought to you warm like that,” Baker said. “It’s magnificent.”

In the last few years, the number of people who rely on Meals on Wheels services has increased dramatically. Mike Barnhart, the chief executive officer of Horizons in Cedar Rapids, said that the nonprofit has added about 50 people to its roster of meal recipients each month for the past several months.

Horizons also offers other meal services, such as providing breakfasts for elderly residents who can come to the Horizons building in the morning, like Annie Little. She said she comes mostly to socialize, but it’s also helpful to lessen what she has to pay for groceries each month.

“If you need help, they’ll give it,” Little said of Horizons’ programs.

Iowa facing a potential food scarcity crisis

Horizons, like other Iowa food-based nonprofits, has been facing a deficit between the amount of food it has available and the number of people who need its services. By the end of fiscal 2023, at the end of June, the nonprofit expects to have a funding shortage of almost $137,000 — or 16,203 more meals delivered than what Horizons can actually afford.

Some recipients have been receiving two meals per day. But starting last January, all new meal recipients have been able to receive just one.

“We just always manage, and that’s the nature of nonprofit work. We’re not in this business to tell people no when they ask us for food,” Barnhart said. “At some point we may have to start a waitlist. We may have to prioritize people based off their nutritional score. Those are some of the things we’ve talked about. At some point, we’re going to hit a capacity limit and those are the types of things we’re going to have to look at. We’re going to have to serve those that are absolutely the most in need.”

Horizons gets federal funding from the Older Americans Act, but that money covers only about half of what it costs to make each meal. The rest comes from grants, fundraising and donations. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were a lot of government grants available and funding from the American Rescue Plan Act — but that money is starting to run out, and the need for food has continued increasing, according to Melissa Wahl, the Horizons director of community health and nutrition.

Other local food-based nonprofits are seeing similar issues. As inflation continues, and pandemic-based funding diminishes, their food supplies can’t keep up with the amount of people who need assistance.

CommUnity Food Bank in Iowa City has served about 5,300 households so far in 2023. At this time last year, the food bank had served about 3,500 households, according to Krystal Kabela, the food bank manager for CommUnity.

Some of those families return to the food bank weekly or monthly, but others may have come only once or twice. CommUnity has been serving about 1,100 households each week, and about 75 to 100 households are being added to its list of clients each month.

“The word that we try to spread, the message that we try to send is, everybody's welcome. There are no restrictions. It doesn't matter what your socioeconomic class is, it doesn't matter what your income is. If you're in need, we want to help,” Kabela said.

A few of the items in the food bank, like milk and eggs, have limits regarding how much someone can take, and each household is allowed only one weekly visit. Kabela said she’d love to work toward removing those restrictions, but that doesn’t seem feasible without additional donations and funding.

“Those who aren’t here don’t see what we see every day. So I can tell you our shelves are empty, but until people have a visual of that, they don’t understand what empty shelves mean to us,” Kabela said.

According to Kim Guardado, the food reservoir director for the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, availability for food banks increased before COVID-19 struck because trade disputes in 2019 meant less food was being exported out of the country and more food was available nationally to food banks. That dropped off in 2022, just as inflation started causing more people to seek help. At the same time, donations decreased because many donors struggled to cope with inflation themselves.

“It’s kind of like this perfect storm of all these things together that’s really causing this huge decrease in the amount of food that’s out there, as well as an increase in the needs. So it’s very disproportionate right now,” Guardado said.

Food banks are anticipating that this disparity will continue to grow, especially after recently passed state legislation that will limit food assistance programs to serve only those who have assets worth less than $15,000, not including a house, a first car or up to $10,000 of a second car. The legislation also will add a stricter verification process.

“I think we’ll see an increase in the number of people that are looking to food pantries for grocery assistance,” Guardado said. “We have a very low rate of fraud with the SNAP program in our state, so I think there won’t be individuals that won’t qualify, necessarily, but there’s a lot of hoops for families to go through. Many of them may choose not to, or may not be able to, jump through the hoops that are being created.”

Is food scarcity a problem Iowa can come back from?

The importance of community donations and support can’t be emphasized enough when it comes to food banks and nonprofits, according to Guardado. But in order to create long-lasting change regarding food availability, Iowa needs to focus on creating statewide policies and programs that serve the needs of all Iowans.

“You can give money. You can give food. You can give time. You can get involved volunteering at a food bank or a food pantry. But you can also share your voice with the lawmakers,” Guardado said.

Feed Iowa First, a Linn County-based nonprofit, strives to create the kinds of programs that can support food production in Iowa long-term, according to Emmaly Renshaw, its executive director.

The nonprofit has two main programs. The first, Grow Don’t Mow, is a program that works with businesses, churches and other organizations to use land that might otherwise be empty lawn space to grow produce. That produce is distributed to the community through local food pantries and the Feed Iowa First Veggie Van.

The second program is the Equitable Land Access program, through which the nonprofit works with immigrant or other underserved communities to help individuals find available farmland and get established as farmers in Iowa.

“How do we solve hunger? That’s a really complex problem. But a lot of times we just talk about getting food into the food banks, and we really need to start also addressing, how do we get people on land? And how are we able to grow for all the different communities that are settling here in Cedar Rapids and allow them to grow for themselves?” Renshaw said.

According to Renshaw, producing enough food to combat hunger in the long-term is a matter of creating programs that support food growth, like the Equitable Land Access program, or like the recently expanded Cedar Rapids Community Garden plan, which Renshaw helped create as a member of the steering committee.

It’s also a matter of creating laws that support farmers, and make food production more achievable.

“We always say, in our area, sustainable farming is sustainable for everyone except the farmer. There are high burnout rates. It’s long hours. It’s low pay. I think we need to look holistically at our food system and what needs to change,” Renshaw said.

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com