National Commission on Hunger heard directly from hungry people

WACO—Seeing the faces and hearing the stories of hungry people—from Oakland, Calif., to colonias along the Rio Grande, to Maine—shaped the findings and recommendations the National Commission on Hunger soon will report to Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Greg Kaufmann (left), senior fellow with the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, moderates a discussion with two members of the National Commission on Hunger—Mariana Chilton from Drexel University School of Public Health and Jeremy Everett from the Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University. The panel discussion was part of the Together at the Table Hunger and Poverty Summit, held on the Baylor campus. (Photo / Ken Camp)Two members of the commission—Mariana Chilton from Drexel University School of Public Health and Jeremy Everett from the Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University—participated in a panel discussion at the Together at the Table Hunger and Poverty Summit on the Baylor campus. 

Congress created the 10-member commission—with five members appointed by Republican lawmakers and five by Democratic legislators—to bring a report and recommendations regarding existing programs and funds to combat domestic hunger and food insecurity.

Lawmakers also gave the commission the task to “develop innovative recommendations to encourage public-private partnerships, faith-based sector engagement, and community initiatives to reduce the need for government nutrition assistance programs, while protecting the safety net for the most vulnerable members of society.”

In other words, Chilton and Everett agreed, they were supposed to tell Congress and the USDA how to eliminate hunger in the United States without spending any more money—and if possible, spend less.

A challenging task

“It’s like running a race against Usain Bolt with one leg tied behind you,” Everett said.

To make the job even more challenging, the bipartisan commission determined early on it was “committed to making a unanimous report,” Chilton said. 

Commissioners reached consensus on about 20 recommendations, beginning with a strong statement of support for existing USDA nutrition programs, including school-based breakfasts and lunches, as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, she said. Commissioners are finalizing language and will complete their report by the end of November.

The commission held hearings in the field at seven locations from coast to coast, visited sites where poor people live and received about 150 testimonies.

“We decided it was important for all of us to go together,” Chilton said, emphasizing the commission’s desire to hear directly from people who experience hunger in the United States.

“There was a lot of poetry, genius and brilliance in the people who testified,” she said.

The commission focused on low food-security—“which we unapologetically call ‘hunger’”—at the household level, she added. In addition to families with children, commissioners heard from people with disabilities, veterans, active-duty military personnel and senior adults.

Hunger impacts children’s brains

Deborah Frank from the Boston University School of Medicine, who also serves on the national commission, participated in a dialogue on hunger and health at the summit. Frank, the founder of Children’s Health Watch, emphasized the impact of food insecurity on children’s brain development—as well as the brain functioning of senior adults.

“We need leadership, compassion and common sense,” she said. “It’s all about brains, and brains don’t have ideologies. They have physiologies.”

The commission discovered not only the prevalence of hunger in the United States, but also related problems such as poverty, unemployment, domestic violence and sexual abuse. 

Everett recalled elderly people from Mexico attending a class in El Paso because they want to earn U.S. citizenship. Some live on less than $400 a month. 

“I asked one man if there are times when there is no food in his house,” he said. “The man put his face in his hands. I could see the shame in his eyes. Finally, his wife answered for him, saying they rarely have enough food to eat.”

Everett also described visiting a group of women living in a colonia—an unincorporated area without utilities—near El Paso. One woman told how she fled Mexico to escape the threat of her daughter becoming a victim of sexual trafficking. But when they found work at a factory along the border, the girl’s supervisor repeatedly sexually abused her, and she felt she had no recourse.

“What we report as a commission is informed by those stories,” Everett said. “Those are the faces I see as we analyze the data.”

One family’s story

One individual who testified before the commission in Washington, D.C., spoke at the hunger summit. Tangela Fedrick described the challenges she and her 7-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son face.

“I’ve been food insecure my entire life,” she said. “I see the cycle continuing with my children, and I want to break the chain.”

She works at a job that fails to meet all her family’s needs, but between working and caring for her children, she finds little time to search for better-paying employment. 

“I hope they remember my children and remember my story,” Fedrick said. “I’m not a number. I’m not a file. I’m a person, and my children need to eat, just like yours or anybody else.”

She participated in the Witnesses to Hunger research and advocacy project, which records in photographs and first-person stories the lives of mothers and caregivers of young children who have experienced hunger and poverty. 

“Remember the faces,” she urged. “Remember the children. We are not just numbers. We are people.”