Jul 28, 2008 1:12 pm US/Pacific
Food Pantries See Demand For Free Food Increase
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ―
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More and more middle- and upper-class families are turning to food banks for groceries. Rising fuel costs and job losses are to blame, food pantry operators said.
CBS 42
Los Angeles-area food pantry operators said Monday the demand for free groceries has reached its highest level in recent memory as the
sagging economy has hit not only the poor, but also middle- and upper class families.
"This is probably the most people we've ever seen use emergency food
assistance," Darren Hoffman, communications director for the 35-year-old Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, told the Los Angeles Times.
"We're seeing people who were making $70,000 a year coming into a food
bank for the first time. . . . They've used their retirement to pay their
mortgage, and gone through their savings."
Steep job losses in the banking and entertainment industries, on top of
the housing downturn, are reverberating particularly hard through the San
Fernando Valley, leading to less work for janitors, waiters and others, The
Times reported.
The organization, which distributes groceries to about 670,000 people
each year through a network of more than 900 religious entities and nonprofits, watched demand increase by 80 this spring, according to The Times.
The Valley has lost thousands of jobs in financial services, largely due
to the failure last fall of Calabasas-based Countrywide Financial Corp. --
the nation's largest mortgage lender -- which laid off more than 20 percent of its workforce.
"We're seeing an increase in people who never would have asked for help
in the past," Joan Mithers, a director at SOVA Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, which operates three food pantries including its headquarters in Van Nuys, told The Times.
The agency served 5,605 people in June, up 28 per cent from a similar period in 2007 and 46 percent over June 2006.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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