If you have been following the series written on the Blade on Poverty it’s pretty clear that no matter who you hold responsible, more Ohioans are at the poverty level than before. Those who provide services are experiencing an increased demand:
In the last five years, the county’s department of Job and Family Services has seen more than a 40 percent jump in families seeking food stamps from suburban ZIP codes. During that same period, the number of families in the city of Toledo seeking food stamps increased as well, but not as quickly, by 27 percent.
Driving along Seaman Road in Oregon, approaching the newest Feed Your Neighbor pantry site, the houses are small but well-kept. Most have tidy yards with neatly mowed grass and flowers.
It’s not the kind of neighborhood you would expect to see a food pantry in. Yet, at the New Harvest Christian Church, 3540 Seaman Rd., a food pantry is open four days a week.
It is the first Feed Your Neighbor site Toledo Area Ministries has opened outside the city of Toledo.
“We did this because a lot of people from Oregon were coming to our Feed Your Neighbor sites in East Toledo,” said the Rev. Steve Anthony, executive
director of Toledo Area Ministries.
Don Schiewer, one of the church’s pastors, estimates the site serves about 1,200 people every month.
The Rev. Anthony added, “I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The national indicators for our economy are not good. The working poor will be hit very hard.”
Moment of bias, I have been lucky enough to get to know Don Schiewer, he and the folks at New Harvest, rock…They are also behind Food for Thought and need donations as mentioned before.
What should be talked about is with this increased demand, funding is being cut. Counties are facing:
Counties must absorb a $12.7 million cut in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, formerly the state welfare program. Child-care subsidies will be slashed about $4 million, and money used for administration of food stamps and Medicaid (health care for the poor and disabled) is being whacked $6 million. That will result in the loss of another $6 million in matching federal funds.
The latter cut comes at a time when Ohio’s food stamp and Medicaid caseloads are at all-time highs, and is being levied on top of an earlier 13 percent reduction, said Potts of the county job and family services group.
“People are not going to get the health care they need as quickly as possible, and they’re not going to get food stamps as quickly. That means more people will be showing up in food lines and at emergency rooms.”
This means Lucas County will be facing some difficult funding decisions…
