Food or Shelter? An Introduction to Understanding the Connections between Housing and Food Insecurity
Kierra S. Barnett, Glennon Sweeney, and Mikyung Baek
Kevin and Michelle are a young married couple with two small children living in Columbus, OH. Both work full-time, and earn a combined yearly income of $45,000. A few years ago, they bought a small house in order to move out of the increasingly steep rental market and give their kids a stable and safe home. Their house is located in an up and coming neighborhood with low crimes rates and above average schools.
Kevin and Michelle are happy with their living situation, but they, like so many families, are struggling to make ends meet. They spend 40% ($18,000) of their combined income on their mortgage — ten percent more than the recommended 30% that families spend on housing expenses. They sit enough above the federal poverty line for a family of their size that they do not qualify to receive any government assistance, yet they are forced to make tough tradeoffs that compromise their family’s health.
Families with depleted financial resources face a tough decision: do I provide my family with a safe and adequate home or do I provide them with healthy food?
As parents, Kevin and Michelle want what is best for their children. They try to buy healthy food for their family, but they only have one car and the closest grocery store is nearly two miles away. If Michelle needs food or other household goods while Kevin is at work, she has to shop at the corner store where items are often more expensive. When sales are not available in their local grocery store, buying nutritious foods puts a heavy strain on their tight budget. Periodically throughout the year, Kevin and Michelle must skip their own meals to afford diapers and baby formula for their infant son.
Kevin and Michelle’s story is not unique. Despite being homeowners, having access to a vehicle, and full-time employment, they experience food insecurity in addition to high housing costs. The struggles they face represent only a few of the challenges that food insecure and housing unstable families face in America. Some are unable to own a home or live in safe neighborhoods. Others may endure periods of homelessness.
In some families, it’s not only the adults who find themselves skipping meals. Millions of children go to school hungry every day in America because the only meals they receive during the week are the free breakfast and lunch the school provides. Families with depleted financial resources face a tough decision: do I provide my family with a safe and adequate home or do I provide them with healthy food? Both choices come at a cost that affects much more than their bank account.
Food Insecurity: What it is and Who is at Risk
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food insecurity as “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the inability to access foods in socially acceptable ways.” Food insecurity can be a chronic or a sporadic condition. Kevin and Michelle, for example, can afford healthy foods for most of the year, but they experience food insecurity when bills pile up or when they are unable to find food that fits into their budget.
In 2015, an average of 12.7% or 15.8 million U.S. households were food insecure. The problem disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities, low-income families, and households with children (see graph below). Neighborhoods where these populations reside are more likely to have abundant food sources that promote unhealthy eating while lacking access to healthier options. Often, the built environment (i.e. stores, restaurants, and other physical capital) in these neighborhoods is the result of racialized policies that existed in the past, which diminished resources in these communities. Furthermore, these are the same populations that often experience health disparities and poor health outcomes, such as tooth decay in children, asthma, depression, anxiety, and diabetes.
Housing Instability: The Price We Pay for Shelter
When families spend more than 30% of their income on housing, they are considered cost-burdened, which is a sign of housing instability according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). These families are likely to have difficulty affording other necessities such as food, clothing, transportation, and health care costs including medications. As with food insecure families, those who are burdened by housing costs are more likely to experience poor health. Women who face chronic stress because of unstable living conditions (i.e. the risk of homelessness or moving repeatedly) are more likely to experience preterm births. In Ohio, which has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the country, the state Commission on Infant Mortality identified housing as “one of the most critical risk factors contributing to infant mortality.”
Research assessing housing instability often splits the population into two groups: homeowners and renters. As of the first quarter of 2017, homeowners represent 64% of the population. Renters are more likely than owners to experience housing cost burden. In 2015, the year for which the most recent data is available, 48% of renters and 24% of homeowners spent 30% or more of their income on housing cost. Over the next ten years, the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University estimates an 11% increase in the number of renters who are cost-burdened. Given this rise, there is a need for policies that make housing more affordable.
The Double Whammy of Food and Housing Instability
It is no coincidence that housing instability and food insecurity often coexist. A survey of a national sample of low-income families documented that among those who were food insecure, 77% experienced housing instability. Researchers have also found that families who moved more than once in the last year were nearly twice as likely to report being food insecure. Additionally, children in these families were also more likely to have poor health. A study of cumulative hardship (which included food, housing, and energy insecurity) documented that as the amount of hardship the family experienced increased, the odds of poor health and development for children 4 to 36 months also increased. These findings suggest that the double whammy of being both food and housing insecure has more of an effect on an individual’s health than experiencing just one of these hardships alone.
It’s important to remember that affordable housing and food security create a double-edged sword; treating the wounds caused by one doesn’t prevent further injury by the other.
Both choices have negative health implications. And even the stress that comes with being in this position and making these decisions is detrimental to one’s health. While some research has suggested that improving food insecurity is associated with the ability to afford other necessities such as housing, this may not always be true. As individuals and organizations work toward more affordable housing and food security, it’s important to remember they create a double-edged sword; treating the wounds caused by one doesn’t prevent further injury by the other.
We Are a Product of Our History: An Introduction to Public Policy’s Role in Creating the Problem
The impact of the racially discriminatory policies that permeate our country’s history cannot be ignored. The structure of many cities today results from policies that isolated racial and ethnic minority populations and provided opportunities for whites. Polices such as redlining, for example, labeled communities where high proportions of minorities resided as “risky.” This prevented families from securing affordable, federally insured loans to access housing and reduced investments in these communities. The reduction in investments in these neighborhoods resulted in many businesses, such as grocery stores, closing down or relocating.
Communities that were redlined more than 50 years ago are the same ones where high proportions of families are burdened by housing cost and food insecurity today.
As grocery stores began moving to suburban spaces, the very notion of what a grocery store is and should be began to change. In the 1930s, when the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) was assessing urban neighborhoods for risk, the grocery stores were what we would now consider numerous specialty stores. People went to butchers for their meat, produce markets for their vegetables, and bakeries for their bread. But with suburbanization came the idea of aggregating these specialty stores under one roof to achieve economies of scale and be competitive. This was only possible because of the affordability of suburban green fields and the relatively welcoming regulatory business climate. The size of supermarkets went from 10,000 square feet prior to the mid-1950s, to between 40,000–45,000 square feet by the mid-1990s. Urban communities, which were where racial/ethnic minorities commonly resided, often did not have the physical land space to support these supermarkets.
The communities that were redlined more than 50 years ago are the same ones where high proportions of families are burdened by housing cost and food insecurity today. Redlining prevented minorities from accessing loans to improve their own communities. At the same time, real estate and development practices, such as the use of racially restrictive covenants in home deeds, prevented these families from moving to other neighborhoods. This left many racial minorities stuck in a difficult situation.
Compounding policy-related challenges, the construction of highways through cities physically tore apart minority and low-income communities, displacing families and separating them from or demolishing what little resources existed within these areas. At the same time, the new highways granted middle and upper class families access to newly built, predominantly white suburbs, where many jobs, investment, and grocery stores eventually moved. The cumulative results hurt both black communities and businesses throughout the US.
Today the term “food desert” is used to describe neighborhoods where people have limited access to healthy and affordable food. Not surprisingly, previously redlined areas often fall into this category. Modern day practices have compounded the historic impact of grocery stores leaving many of these communities. Insurance companies have refused to provide coverage to companies located in predominantly black neighborhoods and restrictive covenants are employed to prohibit grocery stores from locating in an area where another grocery store has been — even years after that store has closed. These practices are identified as perpetuating the urban Food Desert phenomenon.
These are just a few examples of historical policies that have made it difficult for families to access nutritious food and affordable housing. The cumulative impact of these policies is clear — there has been a lack of investment and corresponding economic development and prosperity in these places, sustained over decades. Addressing the lasting ramifications of these policies will be key to addressing not just the housing and food insecurity crisis in America, but also the health disparities this crisis creates.
What We Can Do
Policies like redlining and the use of restrictive covenants were born out of a fear of the “other.” Throughout American history, whites have exhibited anxiety about racial or ethnic minorities, which has been institutionalized through neighborhood and community development policies. Today, the ghosts of these policies continue to perpetuate segregation, food insecurity, housing instability, and racial health disparities.
Research suggests that one key solution to reducing fear of others involves increasing the contact between groups. However, the very policies that could be counteracted through racial comingling actually discourage this type of interaction, since they were designed to segregate our communities. Therefore, more policies that encourage mixed-use and racially and ethnically integrated neighborhoods are needed. Policies such as metropolitan fair share policies, which require each municipality to accept and accommodate their fair share of metropolitan low-income households, or inclusive housing policies such as Montgomery County, Maryland’s Moderately-Priced Dwelling Unit policy are all examples of policies that support inclusive neighborhoods.
In order to craft policies that address housing instability and food insecurity, it’s critical to understand the lived experience of those who suffer from them. Local experts and members of the community need to be invited to the discussion to help outside researchers better comprehend their subjects. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an approach that opens the process to expertise beyond the academy, inviting local experts to work in partnership with researchers to design, implement, analyze, and disseminate findings. Conducting CBPR about food insecurity and housing instability can help academics and practitioners better understand how to address these issues at the local level, and can also inform policy at the state and national levels.
Kierra S. Barnett, Glennon Sweeney, and Mikyung Baek are all research associates at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University. Their individual focus areas range across a broad swath of public health issues, yet all touch upon the impact of housing and food security.
