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This is Deep Dive: WFHB and Limestone Post Investigate where we look into issues regarding Health, Housing, and the Environment that directly impact residents of Monroe County. We are looking into Food Insecurity in Monroe and Brown Counties.
In Bloomington, one out of every ten residents cannot access the food they need. That’s accordingMon to the 2021 Bloomington Food Access Report. United Way of South Central Indiana reports that Monroe County has a 16 percent food insecurity rate, which is higher than both the state and national averages. In Brown County, the food insecurity rate is 10.6 percent, according to Feeding America.
According to the Bloomington Food Access Report the top five barriers to accessing food are high food prices, time to prepare food, low wages, housing costs, and limited transportation. In addition to low wages a percentage of residents said that social security benefits were too low to cover the cost of living.
WFHB News spoke with Julio Alonso, Executive Director and CEO of the Hoosier Hills Food Bank. According to its website, Hoosier Hills collects, stores and distributes food to non-profit agencies that feed the hungry in Brown, Lawrence, Orange, Owen, Martin and Monroe counties.
We also spoke with the Executive Director of Mother’s Cupboard Community Kitchen in Nashville, IN, Jill Baker.
Tune in next week to learn more about how food insecurity impacts residents of Monroe County. To read the full article written by Christina Avery and Haley Miller, and photographed by Olivia Bianco, visit LimestonePostMagazine.com.
