Smith proposes more user-friendly technology to help address this issue—text reminders or apps that streamline the process. He also points to how confusing it can be to navigate the benefits of different programs, like how store-brand yogurt might be covered by WIC at one grocery chain but not another.
“We need to make it easier for participants to actually utilize these programs by lowering the administrative red tape,” he said. “Food insecurity is definitely reduced by programs like SNAP, but we need to make them simpler to use and consider increasing the benefits so they provide greater assistance.”
But even a perfectly streamlined program can’t solve every barrier to getting food. Jerry Shannon, associate professor in Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Department of Geography, has spent years studying the other side of the problem: where people actually go for food, and what stands in their way.
Shannon was part of a statewide study of Georgia’s charitable food system that mapped food agencies, drew on focus groups with food bank staff, and surveyed people who use their services. The analysis found that the highest-poverty core areas aren’t necessarily the most underserved, since social services tend to concentrate there. Unmet need is often greater where poverty is more spread out, and getting food depends on having a car.
Reaching a food pantry can be a challenge for families without reliable transportation. Jerry Shannon studies gaps in Georgia’s charitable food network and the investments needed to help people access food in their communities.
“Just having a vehicle costs money, having a vehicle that operates costs money, paying for gas costs money,” he said.
Those barriers are partly why Shannon cautions against leaning on charity alone. Georgia’s charitable food network is largely volunteer-driven and built on agencies that come and go, and many of the people doing the work are retirees. When COVID hit, a federal food program’s share of the food distributed in the areas he studied jumped from roughly 30% to roughly 70%. Food banks and pantries are vital, he said, but there are reasons why they can never be the only answer.
Ensuring people can reach food, he said, takes steady investment—whether that means funding for food banks to coordinate or strengthening programs that help people get the food they need.
“That investment makes all of us better,” he said. “It makes all of our lives better.”
