Rising grocery prices, food stamp cuts and summertime amplify hunger in Baltimore food deserts

The line for a hot meal stretched down the air-conditioned hallway at Beans & Bread in Fells Point.

Inside the cafeteria, mothers and grandmothers had walked through 100-degree July heat to find lunch for their kids. The Friday menu was fried fish, Italian sausage pasta, baked chicken, green beans, rice, and macaroni and cheese.

“This is the second summer we haven’t had a car, so it’s a lot of walking,” Stacey Mencia said after eating with her four children. “Nobody wants to be out walking in this heat, but when schools close, we’ve got to find food somewhere.”

As food prices have risen around Baltimore in recent years, federal monthly food assistance has been cut. Over the summer, area organizations providing free meals say they have seen an increase in demand from families stranded in food deserts without access to consistent school meals when schools close for the summer.

Beans & Bread, operated by nonprofit St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore, served 247 lunches to children in May and June, up from 62 last year.

Josefina Acevedo brought her two grandchildren, aged 10 and 7, for lunch July 28 when the heat index reached 110. She said she searches Facebook pages for announcements about food pantries. The closest produce for sale from her house is at a market 10 blocks away.

“I go walking all the way to Highlandtown. When you don’t have a car, it’s more difficult and more expensive to go shopping around here. You have to pay for a taxi or walk and not be able to carry everything you wanted,” Acevedo said in Spanish.

In its most recent cost-of-living analysis, United Way of Central Maryland estimates monthly food costs for a family of four in 2021 were $1,247. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, grocery prices in the Baltimore area increased 17% between July 2021 and July 2023.

Emergency benefits added at the onset of the pandemic to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, expired at the end of February, leaving roughly 700,000 Marylanders short an average of $82 per month.

“I want to say around March or April, our numbers really started to pick up. What we think it is, just since the SNAP benefits got reduced from what they were during COVID, it’s created a larger need for families, so we’ve seen an increase in families,” Beans & Bread Director Hendrik Schulte said. “We see the continued need, a significant amount of those are families with young children.”

The Department of Agriculture launched the Pandemic-EBT program in 2020 to send families preloaded cards to buy food when districts stopped traditional food service during virtual learning. In the most recent federal budget, funding was provided to continue the program over the summer months, setting the benefit at $120 per child.

In Maryland, families are receiving $60 in July and $60 in August to offset the free breakfast and lunch kids would receive five days per week during the school year. In 2021, the Pandemic-EBT program paid nearly $370 during three months of remote learning.

Mencia, whose four kids are in the third to ninth grades, said the family finds a ride to Sam’s Club or walks with a stroller and two handcarts to shop in bulk at Safeway or Aldi.

Mencia, 39, said she is looking for a second job and, during the school year, can typically rely on food stamps to buy enough for the weekends.

“My kids go to after-school programs, so they get three meals a day there, so whether I’m feeding one meal a day or none, that’s really helpful,” Mencia said. “When they’re home all summer, those monthly SNAP benefits don’t last. I can go maybe two to three weeks feeding them all three meals and snacks and all.”

The Pandemic-EBT program will end this summer. In summer 2024, the Department of Agriculture is launching Summer-EBT to provide grocery-buying benefits to low-income families with school-aged children during the summer.

From May through June, United Way’s 211 Maryland Helpline received over 2,000 calls from Baltimore City residents about food assistance, up from 1,581 the previous three months. Baltimore County residents made 732 calls for food assistance during the same period, up from 692 the previous three months.

“When we saw the loss of all of these pandemic supports, there hasn’t been anything coming in to sort of replace all of that. So many program expansions and benefits and nothing to make up for the loss of all of those SNAP dollars or Pandemic-EBT dollars,” said Julia Gross, senior associate of the Anti-Hunger Program at Maryland Hunger Solutions.

Baltimore City and Baltimore County Public Schools are providing free meals to anyone 18 and under this summer. Baltimore City has around 100 sites at schools, recreation centers, churches and summer camps while Baltimore County is offering free meals this summer at 15 schools and 11 libraries.

Through the end of last summer, federal waivers allowed schools to provide families with up to a week’s worth of meals in one grab-and-go trip. This summer, meal sites are limited to providing one meal at a time that must be eaten on-site. as the Department of Agriculture is providing grab-and-go waivers only in rural areas.

”The cafeterias are open, but there is less foot traffic. Summer break when schools are closed is a long period of time for families to fill the gap, and one potential solution would be if there were more summer programs, so parents had options for kids to be in schools participating,” said Kelly Emmett, a United Way community schools coordinator at Benjamin Franklin High School in Brooklyn.

Down Patapsco Avenue from Benjamin Franklin High School, the Boys & Girls Club served three meals a day at summer camp through a partnership with St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore.

“There is no full-service grocery store in South Baltimore. Food insecurity is an issue of decades and generations here,” Emmett said. “Schools are a critical part of the yearlong need for ways for families and children to access groceries and cooked meals.”

In addition to the in-person meal services at Beans & Bread in Fells Point, St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore’s meal delivery program reaches 12 schools and early childhood centers during the academic year and 45 sites during the summer, including the Boys & Girls Clubs, which served 300 kids three meals a day at its five summer campsites. During the school year, the city’s Boys & Girls Clubs, which are all adjacent to schools or public housing communities, provide a snack and dinner in the evening.

“We are always cultivating new partnerships to help support our families. With a growing population in the City of Baltimore, it’s our job to identify barriers and explore new opportunities. Our goal is to be able to bridge the gap in communities in an equitable way,” Boys & Girls Club Director of Program Services Nakita Clark said. “If there are food discrepancies within our communities, we find ways to bring the food to our communities.”