Serving the Hungry of Cleveland:
An Interview with Denise Earibaron

Aired August 31, 1999

David C. Barnett–Although thousands of Americans have gotten off public assistance and taken jobs, a new study says that some of the nation's poorest are actually worse off. This morning at ten, we'll continue our discussion about the changing face of welfare as Diane Rehm and her guest consider the measurement of success, how do we know welfare reform is successful, and what does the future hold for America's poorest citizens? We invite you to stay tuned and join the discussion in about 45 minutes from now. Right now, we're joined in the studio this morning, live and in person, by Denise Earibaron, executive director of the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland, the largest food emergency organization in Cuyahoga County. Welcome.

Denise Earibaron–Thank you.

DCB–First of all, how do you define an emergency situation?

DE–We look at families who have demand for food. If they come into a center and say, "I'm hungry," then we take a look at their income, their family size, the situation that they're in, and generally we would give them the groceries.

DCB–Let's talk about who your clients are, exactly. Give us a profile.

DE–First of all, the Hunger Network has about-actually, we have 34 pantries and 17 hot meal programs that we operate in Cuyahoga County, and combined, the programs serve 45,000 people a month. About 45% of those are children, 13% are adults-I'm sorry, seniors, and 42% are adults. Their sources of income range anywhere from low-income, part-time employed, to being on public assistance, Ohio Works program. Seniors often have very low income, Social Security or supplemental Social Security incomes, and so we're looking at people who are poor, coming in for a variety of reasons, financial problems, situations that create a crunch in their budget, so they don't have food available to them for the time being. So what the centers give out is a three- to five-day supply of groceries, packed according to family size, so if I'm a family of four, then I'll get groceries for four, for that time period. If I'm a senior, I would get groceries for one, and so that's how that works.

DCB–Do you find your demand has gone up in the past few years?

DE–What we've seen is sort of a leveling off of services in the pantries, more usage of hot meal programs, where there are people who have no cooking facilities, who have utilized their services at the hunger centers for the month, and are people who have been victims, kind of, that's the way I would put it, of the changes in welfare reform. Single adults who have no food stamps, can't work for the 20 hours, to retain them after the first three months, sanctioned families, families who have had their benefits cut because of problems meeting the OWF requirements, and so what we're seeing is for some people a severe need emerging, where in the past, we would have a system that kind of responds on a monthly or bimonthly basis to particular crises, someone is unemployed, they have to get on public assistance, or they're waiting for employment benefits, but now we're seeing a group of people who have very low income or no income, who have no way of really to buy food for themselves on an ongoing basis.

DCB–We've got about 30 seconds left. You see this changing. Can you meet this demand?

DE–We're pretty concerned about meeting the demand with predictions of the county, how many people aren't going to meet their requirements by October of 2000, so we've been working, trying to adjust some of the services, trying to work carefully with the volunteers, to educate them on some other services that families might take advantage of, so we have basically our whole strategy is responding to welfare reform, and trying to figure out how to respond to these needs.

DCB–Denise Earibaron is executive director of the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland.