Foreclosures, unemployment, poverty and hunger now stalk America. Welfare checks, food stamps, and food bank shortages have affected middle class families caught in a deepening recession.
A 2003 UCLA Health Policy Research Study found that 1.2 million people in Los Angeles County were unsure of where their next meal might come from. The study did not include children, the homeless, and those without telephones. For social justice advocates, these problems are structural. Thus, a “livable wage,” increased social spending on education, green technology, and infrastructure and less on prisons and on wars with no meaningful civilian oversight or defined goals are the suggested remedies.
We also need to reconnect with our history. In the 1960’s, welfare rights like Dr. George Wiley’s National Welfare Rights Organization or Martin Luther King, Mr.’s support for the welfare rights movement in the Poor People’s Campaign fought hunger with social action.
Community and religious organizations are now directing more energy toward food banks and efforts to feed the homeless. Social workers also have a key role. Clinicians need to work with clients on household budgeting, and to collaborate on nutritional issues with dieticians on such issues as developmental stages of children. Information on local food banks, school lunch programs, and time banks should also be readily at hand. Finally, at the policy level, the role of food stamps is critical.
Gene Rothman, DSW, LCSW, is a retired social worker active with the Social Action/Social Justice Council of the National Association of Social Workers. A longer version of this article for a lay audience can be found at:
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