Groups try to address seniors’ growing need for food assistance

Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless would like groups willing to take on food assistance for seniors in an entire apartment complex. Related to that effort, Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless could use nutritionists to conduct workshops on healthy eating, as well as nurses or health care workers to check on seniors and make sure they are eating and properly taking their medicines.

Contacts

Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless

1035 Donnelly Ave. S.W., Atlanta, GA 30310

404-755-3353

Atlanta Community Food Bank

732 Joseph E. Lowery Blvd. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30318

404-892-9822

Meals on Wheels Atlanta

1705 Commerce Drive N.W., Atlanta, GA 30318

404-351-3889

With the Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless Thanksgiving feast still several weeks away, director Elisabeth Omilami already knows there are at least 7,000 senior citizens who will each get a plate with turkey, dressing and all the trimmings hand-delivered to their door that day.

That’s 2,000 more than last year — and counting.

Omilami isn’t surprised at the increase because the number of seniors picking up boxes of food giveaways each week has also gone up, by about 10 to 15 percent from last year.

And so far in 2013, volunteers from Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless have delivered 22,000 meals to senior residents of high-rise apartment complexes in the city. For some, it’s their only meal of the day.

Omilami and others who tend to the nutritional needs of a growing number of metro area seniors who qualify for assistance cast a wary eye toward Washington as Congress mulls funding cuts to agriculture programs, and wonder what it will mean for their clients.

“We expect to see more and more seniors in need of more food,” Omilami said.

Georgia continues to be among the nation’s worst when it comes to the food security of seniors. The state has consistently had one of the top 10 rates of senior hunger, and is currently seventh nationally, according to the Meals on Wheels Association of America.

Hunger is often a reflection of poverty, said Bill Bolling, founder and director of Atlanta Community Food Bank. The poverty rate among Georgia’s seniors has risen to 11.2 percent, up from 10.9 percent last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey Profile.

Jeff Smythe, director of Meals on Wheels Atlanta, sees food needs outpacing available resources. “That’s concerning,” he said. “The economy hit our seniors very hard.”

Because many informal support systems deteriorated with the recession, churches, neighbors and even family members are not able to help as much as before, he said. And as baby boomers age, the senior population gets larger.

“It’s the perfect storm,” Smythe said. “We knew the numbers were going to increase anyway, but no one was prepared for this.”

There’s also the difficulty of identifying all who need food assistance. Seniors sometimes have a hard time asking for help, Bolling said. The ones who do are often put on a waiting list.

Through fundraisers and private donations, Meals on Wheels Atlanta has increased daily home-delivered meals by 41 percent since 2009. Meals on Wheels Atlanta serves 400 to 500 seniors annually, delivering 114,000 meals throughout the year.

But Meals on Wheels Atlanta’s waiting list has also grown, and is now at its largest at 175. Other senior meal programs across the state also have waiting lists.

Atlanta Community Food Bank has a long waiting list of seniors requesting monthly boxes of food staples. The 2,162 who receive the home-delivered goods “doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface” of those who need them, Bolling said.

Acquiring healthy food is another problem for some seniors. The staple provisions and home-delivered meals are sustaining, but some seniors don’t have access to healthy foods on a regular basis.

Omilami noted that many seniors they serve are only able to stretch their budgets to pay bills and buy medicine, so they eat inexpensive processed foods to get by. “They eat noodles and hot dogs and it makes them sick, so they need more medicine. It’s a vicious cycle,” she said.

On a positive note, senior service groups, charities and others are collaborating to tackle the issue. They’re working together to advocate for government funding, and to raise private donations and awareness of senior hunger.

“Our country was built on the shoulders of the elderly. Certainly we owe them food security, but we also owe them so much more,” Bolling said.