[Here’s another great article from our 2020 Holiday Food & Drink Guide! Check the rest out here to make your holidays extra festive!—eds.]
The multiple crises of 2020 have shone a light on critical gaps in our government’s social service system.
Faced with skyrocketing unemployment, an overwhelmed health care system, and catastrophic wildfires, many Oregonians have had to forfeit groceries to pay for rent, childcare, medical bills, or other essential needs. Researchers at Oregon State University estimated that, between September 2019 and May 2020, the total number of Oregonians experiencing or likely to soon experience food insecurity had doubled to at least 900,000—more than one in five residents. Seven months later, and there’s no obvious sign that this level of need has decreased. In fact, service providers are only expecting Oregonian’s food needs to increase as the state’s eviction moratorium lifts in early 2021, a move that could push many still-jobless Oregonians into homelessness.
But this year’s crises have also spurred an extraordinary level of local community organizing to support neighbors without a reliable source of food. Mutual aid groups first created to reinforce racial justice protests have pivoted to distributing hot meals to houseless camps, while traditional soup kitchens have adapted to serving to-go meals, and Oregon Food Bank volunteers spend afternoons loading boxes of food into the trunks of people’s cars at drive-up stations.
