{"id":451307,"date":"2026-09-02T18:26:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/451307\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T18:26:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:26:21","slug":"opinion-hunger-in-san-diego-is-a-working-family-crisis-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/451307\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Hunger in San Diego is a working-family crisis \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every day in San Diego County, working families are making impossible choices between groceries, rent, childcare and transportation. A steady paycheck no longer guarantees enough food on the table. After covering essential expenses, many find there simply isn\u2019t enough left over for everything else.<\/p>\n

Hunger is not a problem of unemployment \u2014 it is increasingly a problem of affordability. Ninety-seven percent of local households struggling to cover basic expenses have at least one working adult, according to United Way of San Diego County\u2019s October 2025 Real Cost Measure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Housing illustrates the pressure. According to the county of San Diego<\/a>, the cost of a one-bedroom apartment increased nearly 49% between 2020 and 2025. When such a large share of a household budget goes toward rent, there is little room left to absorb rising costs for groceries, childcare, transportation and health care.<\/p>\n

Behind the rising costs are real people making difficult decisions every day. We see this through our work at the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank<\/a>, the county\u2019s largest hunger-relief organization and official food safety net, and SBCS,<\/a>\u00a0a South Bay-based nonprofit that supports children and families through behavioral health, housing assistance, child welfare and other community services.<\/p>\n

We see the same troubling pattern: Families are doing everything they can to get by. They are working, raising children and contributing to their communities, yet their income still isn\u2019t stretching far enough to cover basic needs. When money runs short, groceries are often the one expense families can reduce, even though food itself is anything but optional.<\/p>\n

September\u2019s Hunger Awareness Month gives us an opportunity to challenge assumptions about who experiences hunger.<\/p>\n

According to the San Diego Hunger Coalition<\/a>, one in four San Diegans experienced nutrition insecurity as of March 2026, meaning they could not afford three nutritious meals a day with their own income. Public and charitable food programs provided an estimated 29 million meals that month, yet 4.1 million more were still needed to meet the region\u2019s need.<\/p>\n

And while hunger reaches every corner of our region, it is not evenly distributed. In some South County ZIP codes, nutrition insecurity rates far exceed the countywide average of 25%, reaching 40% to 60%, according to the Hunger Coalition.<\/p>\n

At SBCS, families often seek help for housing instability, behavioral health challenges, childcare needs and other barriers to economic security. At the Food Bank, we see how quickly these competing pressures can force difficult tradeoffs and put nutritious food out of reach.<\/p>\n

Food assistance alone cannot solve hunger. Families need access to food, housing support, childcare, behavioral health services and other resources that help them regain stability and move forward. Through our partnership, the Food Bank supports a weekly pantry at the SBCS National City Family Resource Center and provides food through its Food Center network, helping families access nutritious food while connecting them to other needed services.<\/p>\n

A 22-year-old mother\u2019s experience shows why this support is important. Raising two children under 5 years old and working long hours, she was still struggling to make ends meet. Through SBCS, she accessed parenting support, community resources and food assistance that helped stretch her paycheck and ease financial pressure on her family. That support strengthened stability at home and helped her build economic independence.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that addressing hunger requires stronger connections between food assistance and the wraparound services that support household stability, from health care and housing to education and family support. When families can access these services together, they are better positioned to weather financial setbacks before a temporary hardship becomes a larger crisis.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most important step is changing our assumptions about who experiences hunger. Increasingly, it is working families woven into every community, our neighbors, co-workers and classmates, doing everything they can to make ends meet yet still coming up short.<\/p>\n

Hunger should not be the consequence of working hard. Yet for thousands of San Diego families, that is the reality today. In a region as resourceful as ours, every family should have access to enough nutritious food to thrive. A paycheck should provide stability, not uncertainty about the next meal.<\/p>\n

Castillo is CEO of the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank. Lembo is president and CEO of SBCS (formerly known as South Bay Community Services).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every day in San Diego County, working families are making impossible choices between groceries, rent, childcare and transportation.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[964,975,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-451307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-commentary","tag-opinion","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}