BY JEFF SEIDEL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
[http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091220/FEATURES01/912200458/1025/Features/Food-desperation-on-the-rise&template=fullarticle]
A child sits on a school bus, his stomach gurgling. He didn't eat breakfast. The bus pulls up to an elementary school in Oakland County. Only a few people at school know that this child gets a free breakfast and lunch paid by the government. They might be his only good meals of the week.
In Taylor, a man stares into his refrigerator and sees a little milk at the bottom of the plastic gallon. He decides to save it for his grandkids and go to a food pantry for the first time in his life.
In Roseville, a single mom with three kids goes shopping, searching for deals, using coupons, buying in bulk, trying to stretch every dollar.
These are the faces of hunger. Some suffer in silence. Others know how to get help.
Hunger is a symptom, like a fever that comes with the flu. The causes are countless. Unemployment. Underemployment. Drug abuse. Mental illness. Credit card problems. Health problems. Just bad luck.
Hunger is so complex and so vast that nobody can put an exact number on how many people in Michigan are struggling, although no one disputes the problem is growing. Food insecurity affects 700,000 in southeast Michigan, according to United Way.
The problem is deeper than the people in line at soup kitchens. The people in need could be your neighbors.
More turn to soup kitchens, federal programs, friends
Melissa Cristodero, a single mom of three, refuses to let her children go hungry.
So, she makes choices and doesn't pay some of her bills so she can feed her kids.
Cristodero has a part-time job, but she is slipping closer and closer to the streets. She is several months behind on her rent, her washing machine is leaking again, and her car tires are bald. She's afraid to drive in the snow, she has two cavities that need filling, and she has no idea how she will pay this month's electric bill or phone bill or water bill.
Cristodero, 30, of Roseville works a few days a week as a waitress at a coney island. She wants to work more, but nobody is eating out, she said.
In early December, a friend loaned her $500, which kept her afloat for a few weeks.
This is one of the under-the-radar solutions to the hunger problem facing many metro Detroiters. United Way for Southeastern Michigan estimates that 25% of people in need of food get help from friends and family. By comparison, formal food distribution networks, such as shelters and food pantries, handle 6% of the people in need.
But help from friends and family could begin to diminish if more people in Michigan get into economic trouble.
"I only have a couple of friends," Cristodero said. "Three close friends, and they are broke, too."
As the unemployment rate in metro Detroit has climbed, the need for food has increased dramatically, experts say. One in eight people in southeast Michigan face hunger problems, according to United Way.
Cristodero, who has a GED and is on Medicaid, gets $450 a month in government food assistance. She is not alone. Her family gets some of the 1 million meals a day the government provides to people in need in southeast Michigan, according to Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan.
Cristodero stretches every penny she gets, spending an entire day planning for the month, buying bread from outlet stores and putting it in the freezer.
"You have to look for all the sales and get as much as you can," she said. "That doesn't last a whole month. I'll go to a grocery store, like Kroger and Meijer, and look for the best deals and stock up for the whole month; trying to make things last is the hard thing."
Food is scarce by the end of the month.
Her twin 9-year-old boys qualify for free lunches through the National School Lunch Program, and Cristodero said that gives her a big savings.
"I don't even buy lunch meat," Cristodero said. "That would be all the food right there."
Eleven days before Christmas, she still had no idea what she was going to get her kids for presents.
"I already bought them their coats, so I told them that's part of their Christmas," Cristodero said as she started to cry. "One or two presents. I told them, when I get my tax money, I'll buy them whatever they want."
She stopped talking and tried to compose herself. Alex, her 2-year-old son, climbed onto her lap and gave her a hug.
"It's OK, Mommy," he said. "Don't cry."
Children comprise about one-third of those in poverty in the region.
Cristodero said she feels hopeless.
"I just hope for the best. I'm really stressed. ... I'm just depressed because it's hard right now. I'm not a depressed person. You just have to find a way, and that's what I usually do."
A full-time job would solve her troubles. That's true for many people in the state. About 21.5% of part-time workers say they want to be working full-time, according to a Gleaners report.
Cristodero has applied for a factory job. "It's not what I want, but it would be a regular income," she said. "It's like a plastics factory, I guess. Waitressing is not a good job to work at right now. People don't tip well. They are broke."
She is thinking about moving out of state, perhaps to Maryland or Florida.
"If I had a magic wand, I'd get a house that is paid for," Cristodero said. "I'd have no house payment. I'd put money in the bank" for her children, "so they don't have to live like this. And go to school and get a good job. If I had a wand, I'd help everybody who had this problem."
'I want my mom to have food'
A kindergarten teacher at Eisenhower Elementary School in Southfield talked to her class about the difference between wants and needs.
"Is there something you want for Christmas?" the teacher asked a 5-year-old student.
"I want my mom to have food," the child responded.
Of the 341 students at Eisenhower, 236 get free or reduced lunch through the National School Lunch Program.
"Our hot lunch program is absolutely important," Eisenhower principal Gretchen Pitts-Sykes said. For some of the kids at the school, "this may be the only meal they receive."
The program provided meals to 30.5 million American children in 2008, taking an important role in the fight against hunger. In southeast Michigan, children receive 250,000 free or reduced-price school lunches every day.
"We know kids come to school hungry," said Ken Siver, deputy superintendent at Southfield Public Schools.
The number of children in the district who qualify for free or reduced lunch has skyrocketed. In 1999, 28% of the students qualified. Now, that has grown to 53.5% of its 8,500 students.
And the numbers keep rising.
Last month, 30 new families applied to join the program. "We are now at an all-time high," Siver said.
Serving those in need
When you see homeless people on the street, should you give them money?
"People hold up signs: 'I will work for food.' But that's nothing but scams," said Robert Brewer, who lived on the streets of Detroit for years. "They can get food anywhere. That's one thing about Michigan. They got places where you can eat, and homeless people know that."
Brewer and his wife, Kimberly, were homeless for five years, smoking crack, selling drugs and eating at soup kitchens.
"You can live on the streets forever and not go hungry," Robert Brewer said. "You can't go hungry in Detroit, from downtown to the east side to the west side. They got plenty of people who come down and help you."
One of the most popular places to eat is the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, which serves 2,000 meals each day at two locations in Detroit. Jerry Smith, the soup kitchen's executive director, agreed with the Brewers. Food is available to those who need it in Detroit. The trick is getting to it.
"Detroit is a big place, and transportation is a big problem," Smith said. "For the majority of people we serve, nothing is new. We have been here 80 years in good times and bad times. It's not like there is this big surge now when the economy has tightened up."
The Brewers are now drug-free -- they are tested twice a week -- and have cleaned up their lives. They are living at Grace Centers of Hope, a shelter in Pontiac. Each year, it serves more than 127,000 meals.
Robert, 42, is a mentor at Grace, while Kimberly, 31, does the laundry and works in the day care. They credit the center for saving their lives.
The Brewers said that when a homeless person is given money, it is usually spent on alcohol or drugs.
The better option, they said, is to give money to organizations.
Giving to others
After she retired and her seven children grew up and moved out of the house, Lillian Newsome wanted to find something to do -- something to help people.
"Lord," she prayed, "lead me somewhere."
About five years ago, she saw an advertisement in a church bulletin to work in the food pantry at Gilead Baptist Church in Taylor, where she is a member.
"As soon as I saw it," Newsome said, "I signed up."
The pantry helps 40 to 50 families every week.
"You just feel so good helping," said Newsome, 80, who retired in 1989 after working for 25 years in the cafeteria at Ford Motor Co. "Sometimes, I get choked up because the stories they tell you. The other day, a woman came in and she has seizures. She couldn't drive and had to have somebody else bring her in. She was just so sweet. You really hear some touching stories."
Most of the people who come into the pantry say they can't put food on the table and pay their bills.
"So many are laid off," Newsome said. "The other day, somebody came in and said, 'I'm still working, but I got my hours cut back and can't make it.' "
The only requirement to receive food at this pantry is to show identification.
Each person who visits Gilead gets three bags of food. Cans of tuna fish. Peanut butter and jelly. Pasta and soup. Some of it was donated by members of the congregation and the rest came from Gleaners. The food bank collects and distributes food to more than 400 places in the region.
Gleaners served 43,750 families in November, an increase of 3,251 families since the month before.
"There is no question, more people are using pantries," said Gerry Brisson, the senior vice president of advancement at Gleaners. "A lot of times, people think that hunger is a problem that never goes away. But it's not the same people. When you help somebody by giving them food, over 70% of them, a year later, they won't need emergency food."
A few years ago, most of the people using this pantry were elderly. But now, volunteers see more working families and unemployed people.
Newsome said she feels a strong connection to these families.
"I was in that place one time," Newsome said. "My husband was laid off and we had seven children. I was really hurting. I know what it was like. We used to get cornmeal and butter, stuff like that. We got that for a couple of months. It was right around the holidays, and I know what they are going through."
Newsome's job at the pantry is to greet people and make them comfortable. She calls them "customers."
Early this month, a 54-year-old man walked into the pantry feeling sad, ashamed and embarrassed to visit a food pantry for the first time.
"I'm not going to let them go hungry," he said, pointing at his daughter and grandchildren.
He said his wife works at a store, but they still struggle to put food in their refrigerator.
"There is nothing there," he said. "I got a couple eggs, a little bit of milk, and I save that for the kids and their cereal."
The man picked up three bags of food, thankful but still ashamed.
"I feel like I'm not worthy to be here," he said. "I feel bad about myself, so to speak. But it's here to help you, and I'm grateful for that. I really am. I'm very thankful, very grateful. Believe me, it helps."
Newsome smiled long and hard, waiting for the next person to come through the door.
Contact JEFF SEIDEL: 313-223-4558 or jseidel@freepress.com
Labels: basic needs, food, InTheNews
