St. Anthony Foundation’s founder, Franciscan Father Alfred Boeddeker, had a vision of ending world hunger by the year 2000. So when we served our 30 millionth meal in St. Anthony Dining Room on April 30, it was a bittersweet milestone: sweet because of the 52 years of community generosity that has made it possible to feed those who are hungry, but also bitter because so many of our sisters and brothers experience hunger despite living in the richest country in the world. We remain hopeful, however, that working together we can create a world where everyone has enough to eat.

On April 30, we also released our Dining Room Guest Survey Report, detailing the findings of a September 2002 survey we conducted with 356 randomly selected St. Anthony Dining Room guests in San Francisco, CA. This was the first Dining Room survey since 1995; the margin of error was 4-6%. (The full text of the survey report is available online at: www.stanthonysf.org.)

OUR MAJOR FINDINGS INCLUDED:

• The number of our guests who are homeless has more than doubled since 1995.
• One in three St. Anthony Dining Room guests is a veteran.
• Hunger is still a pressing issue for our guests.
• Guests identified access to permanent, affordable housing as their highest priority.
• The overall number of meals served remains the same since 1995, but there has been a demographic shift to older, longer-term guests.

When Fr. Alfred Boeddeker first opened the doors of St. Anthony Dining Room in 1950, he hoped to surround his 400 guests with dignity and respect. Today, St. Anthony Dining Room continues that tradition as we serve an average of 2,000 meals a day, 365 days a year.

Although St. Anthony Foundation’s 12 direct service programs now feed, clothe, shelter and heal 3,000 people each day — all without any government funding — we know that as a community, we need to work together to address the structural causes of poverty. As our guests indicated on the survey, access to permanent, affordable housing with counseling and other supportive services is the single most important step we can take to address the epidemic of homelessness in the City of St. Francis.

HUNGER IS STILL A PRESSING ISSUE

Our report showed that 60% of our Dining Room guests experience hunger at least once a week due to difficulty obtaining food. St. Anthony Dining Room is only one of many food programs in San Francisco; yet our city still has 47,000 people who are at risk of hunger; of those, 15,000 actually experience hunger.

Every morning, a line forms at the entrance of St. Anthony Dining Room at 45 Jones Street, winds around the corner onto Golden Gate Avenue and often stretches as far as Leavenworth. For 24% of our guests, lunch at St. Anthony Dining Room is their only daily source of food. Many guests stretch this meal by taking a portion with them in Tupperware containers or plastic bags. Twenty-six percent of our Dining Room guests receive Food Stamps, but these usually run out by the middle of the month.

Jack, 66, has lived in San Francisco for the past 39 years. He waits in our line three or four times a week after his $43 in Food Stamps runs out. For a long time Jack resisted coming to St. Anthony’s because he wanted to be independent. After going 14 days without any food, he finally said, “Well, I can’t take this anymore.”

Another guest, ZB (short for Zbigniew), eats in St. Anthony Dining Room almost every day. Before finding St. Anthony’s, he sometimes didn’t eat for three days.

“I was really hungry,” he says. “I would drink a lot of water to feel full.”

We often ask ourselves, “Why does hunger remain such an immediate problem for so many despite the efforts of all these programs?” Our survey illustrates that hunger is a symptom of a bigger crisis: the lack of affordable housing.

HOUSING AND INCOME

One of the most startling findings of our Dining Room Survey was that the number of guests who are homeless has doubled since 1995, while the number of guests living in apartments or Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels has dropped by nearly half).

The rise in homelessness is especially acute among families and seniors. Between 1995 and 2002, the rate of homelessness among seniors increased from 6% to 32%; among families, it increased from 0% to 40%.

The survey indicates a positive correlation between income levels and housing status. Not surprisingly, people with higher incomes have a significantly greater chance of having housing compared to people with lower income levels. Furthermore, it indicates that guests appear to spend their income on housing if they can afford it.

SINGLE ROOM OCCUPANCY HOTELS

For many of our guests, SRO hotels provide the last opportunity to remain housed. One of San Francisco’s least expensive housing options, SROs cost between $550-$800 a month2, and usually do not have a private bath or kitchen. In fact, 77% of Dining Room guests do not have access to kitchen facilities to prepare food, which makes living on their fixed incomes even harder. While housing costs skyrocketed between 1995 and 2002, the number of SROs dropped by 2,3233, mainly due to fires4 and conversion to more lucrative tourist hotels.

Many of St. Anthony Foundation guests who are on fixed incomes lost their housing because they could not afford the increased rents. They must now make tough decisions between paying for housing or food. James, a Vietnam veteran, receives a monthly veteran’s pension of $807. He spends $200 a week on an SRO, leaving him only $7 a month for all his other expenses. James’s job search is complicated by the fact he does not have a phone, has no money for pay phones, and spends much of his day waiting in line for basic services — food, health care and clothing.

EMPLOYMENT

One question we are sometimes asked is, “Why don’t your guests just get a job?” According to our survey, 51% of our guests are disabled, retired, in school, or working at full-time, part-time, or temporary jobs.

Of the 49% of survey respondents who indicated they were unemployed, the most frequently reported barrier to finding employment was lack of housing (56% of unemployed respondents).

Among the additional obstacles that homeless job-seekers face are the lack of an address, phone, alarm clock, shower and laundry facilities, and hygiene products such as soap, toothpaste and shaving cream. Another difficulty is the rigidity of the shelter system, which prevents them from working evening or night shifts, since residents must report at a certain time to retain their shelter bed.

ADDICTION AND MENTAL DISABILITIES: NOT THE ONLY PROBLEMS

People who are addressing addictions and mental health issues face an uphill battle in their road to self-sufficiency.

Twenty-five percent of Dining Room guests listed mental health issues as a factor that caused them to be homeless or in need of St. Anthony’s services. Twenty-four percent listed drug or alcohol issues as a factor. In our work with clients, we have found that many people with addiction issues are actually self-medicating mental disabilities such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder. Once they stop using alcohol or other drugs, they need appropriate mental health care to address the core issues that surface.

After working hard to get clean and sober, they often lack support in transitioning back to the community. For example, while they are looking for a job, most government assistance checks are not enough to cover the high costs of housing, especially in the Bay Area. And people with a drug-related felony conviction are banned for life from receiving Food Stamps, even if they are in recovery. (However, those with non-drug-related violent felony convictions are still allowed to access Food Stamps.)

Once again we see how affordable housing with supportive services for those who need them is crucial to creating permanent exits from homelessness. Dorothy struggled with addiction and mental health issues for over 20 years before she came to the Marian Residence for Women, one of St. Anthony’s 12 programs that provides shelter and transitional housing for 57 women. Dorothy has now been clean and sober for over three years and is living independently in a SRO hotel. “Walking in here is like walking into home,” said Dorothy on a recent visit back to the Marian Residence. “There is love, compassion, support and a lot of joy. This place and the people here helped me succeed.”

VETERANS: HEALING THE WOUNDS OF WAR

Six to 12 months after an armed conflict, St. Anthony Foundation starts to see veterans from that conflict in our various programs. One out of three Dining Room guests is a veteran. By comparison, 7% of the general population in San Francisco are veterans. Of those who are vets, 47% served in Vietnam, and 14% served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Fifty percent of Dining Room veterans are homeless, 39% are unemployed and 34% are disabled.

One such veteran, William, began using drugs to block out the terrible memories of watching his friend die during combat in Vietnam. William has been homeless for the past nine years. He finally achieved sobriety last year and graduated from a six-month rehab program run by the Salvation Army. But now he lives in shelters and eats in St. Anthony Dining Room almost daily, because his monthly veteran’s check of $485 — for post-traumatic stress and combat wounds — is not enough to pay for housing. His top priorities now are to continue to live a clean and sober life, to rebuild relationships with his family, and to find housing.

SOLUTIONS

Once people lose their housing, they become increasingly reliant on public and private social service agencies for their shelter, food, and other basic needs, and face more barriers to becoming self-sufficient. Conversely, while it costs $88 a day to incarcerate one person in San Francisco, it costs only $38 a day to provide housing and drug and alcohol rehabilitation services for one person in St. Anthony’s Seton Hall program. Keeping people housed and providing supportive services to those who need them is both a cost-effective and a compassionate approach to solving the city’s homelessness crisis.

Although St. Anthony Foundation’s survey indicates a troubling level of hunger in our community, we know that together we can address the root causes of hunger, homelessness and poverty. We believe that the following are effective investments in the well-being of our community:

• Invest in affordable housing and homelessness prevention strategies.
• Ensure food security for everyone by increasing funding and individual benefit levels for programs like Food Stamps.
• Create universal health care, including full access to mental health and recovery programs.
• Promote worker justice by returning to a more progressive tax structure and paying a living wage.

Fr. Alfred Boeddeker had a vision of ending world hunger. Together, we can work to make that dream a reality.

John

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