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WASHINGTON - When Lisa Koch asked several people at a Chicago soup kitchen to complete a survey of the people who eat there, she got a surprising response: "They asked how long it would take because they had to get back to work after lunch."
A national survey of people getting food at soup kitchens, food banks and shelters found that 36 percent came from households in which at least one person had a job. In the Chicago area, it was 39 percent.
"Even though the economy might be changing, it isn't creating the kinds of jobs that allow people to make ends meet," said Koch, of the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
More than 25 million Americans turned to the nation's largest network of food banks, soup kitchens and shelters for meals last year, up 9 percent from 2001, says the report by America's Second Harvest.
Those seeking food included 9 million children and nearly 3 million senior citizens, the report says.
"The face of hunger doesn't have a particular color, and it doesn't come from a particular neighborhood," said Ertharin Cousin, executive vice president of America's Second Harvest. "They are your neighbors, they are working Americans, they are senior citizens who have worked their entire lives, and they are children."
Doug O'Brien, vice president for public policy and research at America's Second Harvest, said: "The fact that so many working people still have to go to a soup kitchen or a food bank to make ends meet shows there's something structurally wrong with the economy. If you work, you should be able to provide enough for your family. That's part of the social contract we have with our citizens."
The organization said it interviewed 52,000 people at food banks, soup kitchens and shelters across the country last year. The network represents about 39,000 hunger-relief organizations, or about 80 percent of those in the United States. The majority are run locally by churches and private nonprofit groups.
The surveys were done before hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After the hurricanes, demand for emergency food assistance tripled in Gulf Coast states, according to a report by the group.
The new report, released today, found that 35 percent of people seeking food came from households that received food stamps.
Government reports also show the number of hungry Americans increasing.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture report released last year said 13.5 million American households, or nearly 12 percent, had difficulty providing enough food for family members at some time in 2004. That was up from about 11 percent in 2003.
Material from The Christian Science Monitor is included in this report
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