Advocates make plea for hunger, homeless and children's relief

The long, hard Ohio winter won't do any favors for residents already struggling to make ends meet, according to those on the front lines of a battle for COVID-19 financial aid. The Ohio Association of Foodbanks, the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio and the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio are begging Congress to pass a relief package in the next few weeks. Meeting the needs of those who are suffering shouldn't be a partisan issue, they said in a virtual news conference Thursday. "We are currently on a path that brings no additional stopgap measures for struggling households." said Joree Novotny, director of external affairs for the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. The state's emergency hunger relief network is serving 120,000 to 150,000 more people each month than this time in 2019, she said. Too many Ohioans are out of work, isolated or affected by COVID-19, Novotny said. Many were already living paycheck-to-paycheck before the pandemic, she said, and 1 in 5 statewide are unsure how they'll put food on the table. "It takes years, not weeks, to recover from this kind of large-scale shift in the labor market and this kind of drawn-out crisis. This is not as simple as a temporary improvement to the unemployment rate," Novotny said. Bill Faith, director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, said health officials believe the spike in COVID-19 cases will get worse before it gets better. "We're all feeling stressed out. We worry about how to keep ourselves and our families safe and sane during this pandemic," he said. "… Now imagine how much more you'd be worried if you didn't have a place to call home." That's the reality facing hundreds of thousands of Ohioans who have lost income during the pandemic, he said. Many more are on the edge — 342,000 Ohio households are behind on their rent, and 188,000 believe they'll be evicted over the next two months. Without a federal response, Faith fears what will happen through the winter as more and more people face the bitter reality of losing their homes. People are depleting their savings or tapping retirement funds to get by, he said. The Federal Reserve estimates there has been a 70 percent increase in the number of Americans charging rent to their credit cards. Evictions pose a public health threat, Faith said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put a moratorium in place to prevent displaced families from doubling up in homes or heading to shelters, which could vastly increase the spread of the virus. That moratorium is set to expire at the end of December. It didn't work well to begin with, he said. Landlords challenged the measure, leading to court battles and a lack of enforcement. Now Faith expects a whole new wave of evictions beginning Jan. 1. Seeing many new faces, the "vast majority" of Ohio's homeless shelters are overcrowded or close to capacity, he said. More people are staying in their cars or campgrounds, and some shelters have resorted to placing people in hotels and motels, though the funding for that won't last long. Tracy Najera, director of the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio, said kids are 20 percent of the population in Ohio but represent 100 percent of the state's future. Yet every day, children are falling through the cracks and suffering needlessly, she said. "This pandemic has affected all aspects of family well-being and stability, making it challenging for them to manage finances, school, work and mental health," Najera said. Even before the pandemic, more than 466,000 Ohio children lived in poverty and 131,000 lacked health insurance, she said. Gov. Mike DeWine's administration has addressed many children's issues in recent years, but the pandemic threatens to erase that progress. Congress can ease the burden, the three groups said. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a large relief bill last spring, but the Senate has refused to move on it and negotiations to resolve the differences haven't been successful. Now Congress is looking to break for the holidays, which would mean no relief until January unless elected officials move fast, Faith said. The Ohio advocacy groups called for a boost to food stamp benefits, rent and mortgage relief, extended family leave, support for child care costs, an extension of jobless benefits for those who have lost income and more aid to state and local governments to prevent cuts to critical services. Novotny said the U.S. Department of Agriculture should also extend programs to keep additional food going into food-bank warehouses. President Donald Trump also needs to reauthorize funding for the Ohio National Guard, which has 360 members helping to distribute millions of pounds of food each month, she said. Congress should stop "hemming and hawing" over whether the situation is "bad enough" to warrant aid and act, Novotny said. "It's bad enough. It's as bad as ever," she said. "We have food banks right now buying up tents, heaters and shovels to make sure our local food pantries can keep parking lots clear and volunteers and staff safe while they load groceries into waiting cars through the difficult winter ahead." Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.