According to statistics released last month by Feeding San Diego, one out of every eight San Diegans is struggling with hunger. Unfortunately, this issue is most severe among children in San Diego County, where one in six children struggle with hunger. Feeding San Diego is an organization that is on a mission to solve hunger while ending food waste and it releases its Map the Meal Gap report annually. The report found that San Diego County has one of the nation’s largest populations of people facing food insecurity. Feeding San Diego CEO Vince Hall stated the following regarding the report,
The results are troubling. Hunger continues to be a pervasive problem countywide, and it touches every neighborhood and every demographic. The great frustration for me is we have more than enough food in San Diego County every day, but 40 percent of the food is thrown away.
Just to clarify, the report means that people do not have access to nutritious food on a regular basis; it doesn’t mean people are starving or that there isn’t enough nutritious food for everybody. The report revealed that 136,000 children in San Diego and Imperial counties faced food insecurity, which was down from 143,000 compared to the previous year. The report utilized data from the 2017 U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as other sources that track things such as employment, home ownership, food prices, and poverty. According to the report, San Diego is the seventh highest in the nation in terms of food insecurity, and Los Angeles placed second. The report is very intriguing and provides some more information about what some Californian’s are facing.
