Economy

Survey Suggests More Children Are Going Hungry

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published February 2, 2010 at 3:13 PM PST

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

A barrel of donated food sits at the San Diego Food Bank waiting to be sorted.

Evidence continues to mount that more and more children are going hungry in San Diego. San Diego’s two largest food banks have both seen dramatic increases in demand from families in the last year.

A survey by Feeding America shows they served thousands more people and especially more young people last year.

Gary MacDonald is CEO of the San Diego chapter.

Become a KPBS sponsor

“What we’re finding is that more so than ever, it’s working families, working families with children." MacDonald said. "And beyond that, the numbers are much higher -- 50,000 more per year than we had anticipated serving.”

MacDonald said almost half of the 430,000 people served by Feeding America in San Diego last year are under 18 years old. That’s a higher percentage of children than the survey showed nationally, where just just over a third are under 18.

The San Diego Food Bank, a separate agency, serves 300,000 people a month. That is up from 200,000 a month in 2008. They don’t have statistics of how many of those are children.

But numbers from the San Diego Association of Governments show nearly 300,000 children are living in families that earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. That is $44,000 for a family of four. Analysts say families that earn 200% of the federal poverty level find it challenging to make ends meet in San Diego.

Economy

Alison St John

twitter

Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.