GREENFIELD — Tammy Reilly comes to the Kenneth Butler Memorial Soup Kitchen for two reasons. One day last week, she visited to pick up food for clients with developmental disabilities she works with as a home aide. She also was picking up food for members of her own family.
The pandemic, Reilly said, has been hard on her clients, who have been advised not to leave their homes, as well as on her daughter, who is pregnant and not working.
“Times are hard, you know?” Reilly said. “It’s just real sad. But the soup kitchen is wonderful.”
Community resources like the soup kitchen help deal with what a survey by the Indiana Family and Social Services administration recently found is the biggest unmet social need among people seeking public assistance in the state: food insecurity.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryThat was a surprise to FSSA employees, agency secretary Dr. Jennifer Sullivan said; they often hear about the low availability of transportation from the people they serve and were expecting that to be the greatest unmet need. However, the need for food surpassed everything else in most areas of the state, including Hancock County, the survey showed.
“Food insecurity is a really big deal, and it’s not talked about nearly as much as we would expect,” Sullivan said.
The agency used survey results to create the Hoosier Health and Well-Being Atlas, an interactive map that shows the greatest needs among applicants for state health coverage, food assistance or cash assistance. More than 300,000 households have responded so far.
Of those, 145,032, or nearly 47%, said they ate less than they should have because they lacked enough money for food in the previous 12 months. In Hancock County, 1,990 assessments have been completed. Approximately 52% of respondents — 1,044 — said they did not have enough money for food.
The data was collected starting in 2018 and is continuing.
The data can be used for a variety of purposes, Sullivan said, but its chief purpose is to help identify the areas where communities need the most help so programs can target them specifically.
Jill Ebbert, director of the soup kitchen, said food insecurity is widespread.
“It’s spread out all throughout the age groups,” Ebbert said. “We’ve got young ones, we’ve got old ones, we’ve got in-betweens. I can’t really say that there is one specific demographic that outnumbers the rest.”
Ebbert said many people who visit the soup kitchen are employed.
“Even the people that have jobs, it’s not enough that they can pay their rent and pay their car payment and put their kids in school and pay all their utilities and still have enough for food. I think that is probably the biggest thing, is just that the paychecks don’t go far enough.”
Tom Ferguson, president of the Hancock County Food Pantry, said his organization does not ask for information from its clients about things like whether they’re receiving benefits and the makeup of their households.
“We know there’s a need, and so we’re here trying to support that need,” he said.
However, he said, the food pantry sees many multigenerational families: grandparents raising grandchildren, with parents who may or may not be in the picture.
Ferguson said he believes the turnout at the food pantry, as well as at recent events like a milk giveaway put on jointly with Prairie Farms dairy, show there is a problem with hunger in Hancock County.
“I think it’s a testimony to the need for food out there,” Ferguson said.
Food is not the only thing that may not be in adequate supply for Hoosiers in need. Statewide, about 39% of respondents had their utilities shut off in the previous 12 months, and 35% said they had looked for work in the previous four weeks. Nearly a third — 30% — said they had avoided going to a doctor in the previous 12 months due to the cost.
In Hancock County during the same time period, 29% of respondents said they had their utilities shut off; 33% said they had looked for work; and 31% said they had avoided going to a doctor.
Also, 45% of respondents statewide and 37% of respondents in Hancock County said they had not engaged in regular exercise outside of work or household chores in the previous 12 months.
FFSA officials hope that the data can be used by local governments and nonprofit organizations to determine their greatest needs which community members are most in need of extra help.
“It’s hard at the state, so of course it’s hard at the local level as well, to prioritize,” Sullivan said. However, using the atlas, stakeholders in a community would be able to see their community’s greatest unmet need and come together to create a program targeting that specific area.
Jim Gavin, an FSSA spokesman who lives in Hancock County, said he expects the data to be useful to organizations such as the Hancock County Community Foundation and Hancock Health.
“Those types of groups could really dive into this,” Gavin said.
The atlas can also be useful for determining which demographics are in the most need.
In Hancock County, a largely white community, 94% of respondents have been white. Black people have been 4% of respondents.
In the state as a whole, 68% of respondents have been white and 25% have been Black. Census data estimates Indiana’s Black population is about 10%.
The largest age group of respondents in Hancock County has been those 33 to 37 years old. In data measuring educational attainment, 51% of respondents had a high school diploma, with the remainder lacking one or having no formal education. The number of respondents who had some level of higher education was too small to be included in the data.
Women were a significant majority of respondents, representing almost 72%. Most women who responded were single, with only 19% being married.
Sullivan said the number of women who applied for aid shows the need to support programs that meet the needs of both women and their children.
Beth Ingle, president of the Women’s Resource Center of Hancock County, said there are a variety of reasons why women, especially single women, are more likely to face poverty than men. She said women of all ages come through their doors, but a majority of those who ask for help from her organization are single or recently divorced mothers.
“I don’t think women get paid as much as men, so there’s an issue there where they’re not able to provide for their family as well as a man could,” Ingle said.
Most of the women who have come to the Women’s Resource Center lately, Ingle said, are employed but have had their hours cut or were unemployed for a while as a result of COVID-19 and have fallen behind on expenses as a result.
Ingle said it is important for there to be organizations that specifically support women’s needs.
“I think we need to empower women. If a woman isn’t strong, her family’s not strong,” she said.
Data collection for the atlas is continuous, Sullivan said. Over time, trends in the data should show whether needs have increased or decreased, which will help the agency evaluate the effectiveness of its programs.
“The hope is that these concerns trend down overall,” she said.
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“Even the people that have jobs, it’s not enough that they can pay their rent and pay their car payment and put their kids in school and pay all their utilities and still have enough for food… The paychecks don’t go far enough.”
–Jill Ebbert, Kenneth Butler Memorial Soup Kitchen
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The new Hoosier Health and Well-Being Atlas, established by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, is based on surveys of households that are applying for state assistance. Here are some key findings among the nearly 2,000 households from Hancock County that have responded so far:
Not enough money for food in the previous 12 months: 52%
Not engaged in regular exercise: 37%
Actively sought work in the past four weeks: 35%
Cost of care prevented seeing doctor in previous 12 months: 31%
Utilities shut off in the previous 12 months: 29%
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