PORTLAND, Maine — The National Commission on Hunger was in Maine today seeking public input on how best to help people who struggle to put food on the table.
The stated goal of the commission is to see how the U.S. can more effectively use existing federal dollars to help fight food insecurity.
Hunger is one of the most hidden challenges in Maine, according to Democratic state Sen. Justin Alfond. He spent seven months last year researching the issue as co-chair of the state's Task Force to End Student Hunger.
"In Maine, childhood hunger is an epidemic," he says. "It's a crisis. Almost 50 percent of all students in Maine are food insecure, meaning they get free and reduced lunch on a daily basis."
Older Mainers are also at risk, says AARP Maine President Rich Livingston. He says 8-14 percent of seniors are food insecure.
"Maine is the oldest state in the country, and we also have the highest incidence of food insecurity in the country," he says.
There's little argument that there's a hunger problem in Maine. But there is debate over how best to address the problem.
Maine's Commissioner of Health and Human Services Mary Mayhew told members of the National Commission on Hunger in Portland that federal assistance programs should emphasize accountability.
"Restrict the use of food stamps and prohibit purchases of soda and candy and junk food," she says. "We need to encourage employment to help people off of these programs to help people and we need to aggressively tackle waste, fraud, and abuse."
And Republican state Rep. Deb Sanderson says she'd like to see states given more leeway in how they spend federal dollars to combat hunger.
"I think that would be a huge benefit for nutrition controls, efficacy and accountability," she says.
But advocates for low-income and food-insecure Mainers call for the removal of what they say are onerous requirements as conditions of access to assistance.
"We work with many veterans for example that live in rural areas of the state," says Donna Yellen of the Preble Street Resource Center in Portland, pointing to work and volunteer requirements. "For them to get to a volunteer position, even if there was a place to volunteer, it costs a lot of money to be able to get to that place."
Some at the hearing challenged the framing of the problem. The president of Good Shepherd Food Bank, Kristen Miale, says the question shouldn't be how best to address hunger but how best to address poverty.
"Hunger is a symptom of poverty," she says. "And if you had people who had a living wage and access to quality jobs and affordable health care and affordable child care, we wouldn't even be here."
Robert Doar, co-chair of the National Commission on Hunger, says the availability of jobs and job programs is a common issue brought up in hearings across the country.
The commission will issue a report on its findings in November.
