As President Biden Addresses Food Insecurity, Project Bread CEO Says 'Our Work Continues'

Joe Mathieu, host of WGBH's Morning Edition

Joe Mathieu is the anchor and executive editor of WGBH's Morning Edition. Before joining WGBH Radio, Joe worked for six years as morning anchor on WBZ NewsRadio in Boston, where he was part of the team that received a Peabody Award for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. Joe also received the Edward R. Murrow Award for best newscast in a major market.

January 27, 2021

Updated August 07, 2023

In his first week in the White House, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that will help expand the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to address the growing problem of food insecurity across the nation. GBH Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with the President and CEO of Project Bread, Erin McAleer, about what the Biden Administration's move could mean for families struggling in Massachusetts. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.

Joe Mathieu: Give us a sense of what this means for your mission.

Erin McAleer: The food insecurity crisis coming out of COVID is huge. Right now in Massachusetts, over 20 percent of households with children are food insecure. That's twice what we saw pre-pandemic. And for Black and Latinx families, it's double that — 40 percent of Black and Latinx families in Massachusetts are food insecure. So we need some big, bold efforts, and I think for us, the fact that President Biden made this one of his initial actions his first week in the White House is a testament to both the severity of the crisis and the fact that he's going to prioritize solutions for addressing it.

Mathieu: I talked to you 10 months ago, and it takes a minute to get your head back to where we were last March with so much uncertainty. You had just canceled the Walk for Hunger, and you told us at the time that you saw the number of people in need quadruple in two weeks. Where are we now and how desperately are you waiting for relief 10 months later?

McAleer: The crisis is still very much here. The economic implications of COVID-19, we all know, are huge. But for individuals who are low income or individuals that have had to leave the workforce to care for children at home, it's been dire. [At] our food source hotline, we've doubled staff of people answering calls. The call volume varies. Some days it's four times the normal call volume, some days at six times the normal call volume. So the reality is a lot of people are really struggling to make ends meet. And it comes down to finances; they just don't have the money to afford food. That's why we're so thrilled with President Biden's approach. He's focused on the program, SNAP, and Pandemic EBT that put money back into people's pockets to both purchase food, but also use that money to pay for other necessary expenses.

Mathieu: You've been helping people connect with and get signed up for the SNAP program. Is demand for that program equal to demands for your organization?

McAleer: Yeah, we focused our efforts on SNAP primarily for a few reasons. SNAP is a program that's meant to expand during economic downturns. If you look at the data from October 2019 to October 2020, over 125,000 more people in Massachusetts are now on this program. It's meant to do that. It's meant to contract and expand during economic times. So it's a program that, again, puts money back into people's pockets; it allows them to meet their needs for food, but also other expenses. So, yes, for our organization, anyone who calls us, we refer them to any resource that we can identify, but we also really encourage them to consider this specific program.

Watch: What needs to happen next to combat food insecurity?

McAleer: Right. I think as far as the hunger crisis goes, President Biden has smartly taken the action and he has the authority to do [it] under executive action. He's also put some recommendations back to Congress, which are ones that we really endorse. But at Project Bread, our focus is making sure everyone who is hungry knows about all of these different programs. There's a lot of programs out there. There's SNAP, as you mentioned, there's Pandemic EBT, which is for school kids, there's WIC. If you're the person who is food insecure, it can be a little overwhelming. So that's where we come in. We really try to help people connect to these programs. The reality is there's a lot of people who are food insecure right now who still aren't signed up for SNAP. We know that from our work in health centers. So that's where we're so grateful that President Biden has taken these actions — but our work continues. We need to get as many people signed up for these programs [as possible] so that they can see the increases that he's recommended going forward.

Mathieu: Are you hoping for or supporting passage of this stimulus package that President Biden is proposing?

McAleer: Yes, definitely. The hunger provisions specifically are absolutely necessary.

Mathieu: What do we need to know about them?

McAleer: Without going too far into the weeds, I think the main things are that they're expanding the amount people that are getting. So, for example, 500,000 school kids in Massachusetts are eligible for Pandemic EBT. [Biden] is recommending we increase that by 15 percent. That alone will keep families out of food pantry lines. It will just allow them to have more money in their pocket. He's also recommending we re-evaluate how we determine how much money people get for SNAP. Right now, it's called the Thrifty Food Plan and I won't go too wonky on this, but it's outdated. The premise of the plan right now is that people do all of their prep at home. They wouldn't buy canned beans, as an example. They would buy whole beans and boil them, and the reality is that people don't have that time to prep food. So really, it's just updating it to the realities of what people are doing today, which would increase the amount of money that they're getting. So lots of efforts under his administration and their authority to just get more money into people's pockets.

Mathieu: It sounds to me, Erin, like you're very much in the information business right now. I realize that you're supporting people and providing food assistance, but it's informational assistance [and] directing people to the right resources if they're new to this.

McAleer: That's a core part of our work — making it easier for people to access food where they already are. So we're supporting school meal sites across Massachusetts; there are over 1,000. So if families are going to pick up remote learning materials, they're also able to get food. But then also doing direct case management, if somebody just needs help navigating. If you think about a mom at home with a few kids and maybe her parents living there, too, and they're food insecure, that's a lot of different programs. So for her to be able to navigate which ones who is eligible for and how to sign up, that's where we come in. We try to make it as easy as possible.

Mathieu: Any news on the Walk for Hunger this year?

McAleer: Yeah, it's going to be virtual again, which I don't think is too shocking. But [it's on] the first Sunday in May, and our walkers are so dedicated, they really rose to the occasion last year and we hope that they'll rise to the occasion again.

Mathieu: That's great. Erin McAleer is CEO at Project Bread. And I want to thank you for all the work that you're doing to keep our community together, Erin. Thanks for being here on Morning Edition.

McAleer: Thank you, Joe. And if anyone out there is facing food insecurity, give us a call at the food source hotline. It's 1-800-645-8333. It's confidential [and] we can support you in 180 languages. Please pick up the phone. We're there to assist you.