Web Posted: 03/03/2005 12:00 AM CST
Ron Wilson, Express-News Staff Writer

Children whose parents work minimum-wage jobs. Adults in debt because of medical bills. Pensioners too proud to ask for food stamps.

Local experts believe these are the people who are going hungry in San Antonio.

A survey will tell for sure.

The study — being conducted by the San Antonio Food Bank through April 29 — is designed to put a face on the people who get food from pantries, shelters and soup kitchens. It will provide the most up-to-date data on hunger in the Alamo City in eight years.

"This survey is not about numbers," Food Bank development coordinator Sarah Lichtenstein cautioned. "It's a profile of who the hungry are."

For example, civic leaders estimate 100,000 San Antonio citizens are eligible for food stamps, but aren't signed up, and that one in four children and one in five adults are "food-insecure," meaning they aren't ensured access to enough food for healthy, active lives.

The survey won't pin down those numbers, Lichtenstein said, because it can't reach people who aren't already getting some kind of help.

But it is expected to reveal the percentage who are elderly or children; whether they get food stamps; their work history; and whether they're getting other kinds of help.

America's Second Harvest, an umbrella group for the nation's food banks, conducts the survey every four years.

The 2001 survey found 23.3 million Americans were receiving emergency food help. Of that number, only 9.6 percent were homeless, while 23 percent owned their own homes. It also found:

45 percent of the hungry had to choose between buying food and paying for utilities, and 30 percent had to choose between buying food and paying medical bills.

24 percent had no phone, and 53 percent lacked a working car.

45 percent were Anglo, 35 percent were African American and 17 percent were Latino.

39 percent were children and 11 percent were seniors.

63 percent had high school diplomas.

62 percent had incomes of less than $1,000 a month.

Data for the 2005 survey will be collected by volunteers who will conduct about 400 surveys at 40 of the 320 agencies served by the Food Bank.

Lauren Burney, an oil and gas attorney with Perry & Kellogg, attended a training session Tuesday at the Food Bank with four other volunteers.

"I missed the one-on-one contact," said Burney, whose previously did volunteer work advising pregnant teens about their legal rights.

Raúl Palacios, a disabled laborer, wants to help the community. One of two bilingual volunteers at Tuesday's training session, he said he used to work at the Food Bank, "and I know how big the need is for this."

Vanessa Carrillo and Lisa Lashley, sociology students at Our Lady of the Lake University, said they want to translate their academic knowledge into personal experience that could help them in their future jobs.

The volunteers are guaranteed an education.

When Food Bank Executive Director Eric S. Cooper did the survey in Dallas four years ago, he interviewed a man in a suit and tie picking up groceries.

"I thought he was someone on the board of directors helping somebody out," Cooper said.

But it turned out the man had just lost his wife to a long-term illness and, because he took so much time from work to nurse her, he lost his job.

"He told me, 'There just wasn't any food in the house,'" Cooper said — and that all the money he earned went to paying the doctor and hospital bills.

"You'd be surprised at who needs emergency food assistance," Cooper said.

To volunteer, call the Food Bank at (210) 337-3663.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it