jonetta rose barras: Drop the euphemisms and other coded language in the fight against hunger and homelessness

Food insecurity. You’ve heard the phrase before. It invokes an image of John Walsh with some kind of safety device that could be attached to the entrance of a pantry or a cupboard door. Right? 

What does it mean, really?

The federal government describes food insecurity as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active healthy life.” It is not to be confused with hunger, which “refers to a personal, physical sensation of discomfort.”

Help us. 

Euphemisms like food insecurity, food deserts and housing insecurity rile me. They misdirect the public’s attention from critical problems in society — problems that with more competent government managers and a galvanized citizenry could be substantially mitigated, if not solved. These words that confuse or camouflage are the inventions of bureaucrats and functionaries sitting in group-think chambers, who often have not had real and sustained contact with people experiencing hunger or homelessness.

Truth be told, these insecurities, deserts and disorders are deeply rooted in redlining and systemic economic injustice. Food corporations use income data as a means of determining where to open their stores, and the absence of decent markets and retail outlets makes certain communities unattractive. It is a vicious cycle. 

The country cannot get to racial or economic equity if the government is allowed to play a game of euphemisms and politically correct speech. Please don’t expect me to use opaque language. 

I understand the power and magic of words. At their sharpest, they can serve as weapons. They can be emotive, offering love, sympathy, deep feelings and understanding. They can unite people, creating community where none existed. 

Improperly used, however, they can confuse, deceive and divide. In these last four years we have seen far too much of that. The peril comes not just from politicians, however. Their enablers — folks in offices writing and advocating for certain public policies — can be equally dangerous, especially as they fabricate language without roots and connections. 

If this sounds like a rant, that’s because it is. All of us should be alarmed.

Even before the arrival of the novel coronavirus, millions of Americans, including  children, regularly missed meals or went hungry. Some of them also did not have a place to call home. 

“There were times when I would come home and find eviction notices taped to the chipped paint on the front door of whatever apartment we happened to be living in at the time,” 17-year-old Emily, a DC public school student, wrote in an essay she submitted last year to a writing contest sponsored by my nonprofit organization. 

“There were times when my siblings and I had to wait a week or two for my mother’s food stamps to deposit so that we no longer had to eat as much as we could at school to prevent the painful sensation of starvation at dinner time,” she added. 

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated conditions for children like Emily. There is a hunger epidemic in America. Recent reports released by Feeding America, the Capital Area Food Bank and the DC Office of Planning reveal the extent of the crisis nationally, regionally and locally.

The rise in unemployment and the hike in poverty could result in between 200,000 to 250,000 more hungry people in the region on top of the already 413,000 who fit that description, according to the Capital Area Food Bank. The DC-based nonprofit estimated that nationally, 45 percent of Black adults and 39 percent of Latinos skipped meals or relied on charities or the government to get food “since the onset of COVID-19,” according to national data gathered by the Food Bank for its report. If you don’t believe those numbers, roll tape from almost any national news broadcast over the past several months and watch as mothers or fathers wait in cars or on foot at distribution centers to receive bags of groceries. 

Across the country, food insecurity rates have increased during the public health emergency. Approximately 21.9% of adults in the U.S. are food insecure, nearly double the pre-COVID rate of 11.1%, according to Feeding America, a national hunger-relief organization. It forecasts that the annual 2020 food insecurity rate nationally will likely be 16.7%. (Yes, I hate the term, but that’s how the available statistics are framed.)

Locally, I became alarmed when I saw the weekly line outside the Columbia Heights Education Campus on 16th Street NW grow from a handful of residents with plastic bags and shopping carts to one that wrapped around the facility all the way to Irving Street NW.

The DC Office of Planning asserted hunger was a “chronic condition” in the District before the public health emergency, with 10.6% of residents often without sufficient amounts of food. “It is projected that the District’s food insecurity rate in 2020 will be at least 16%, with even higher rates among vulnerable populations, including the elderly, children, undocumented individuals, and unhoused individuals,” its report continues.

Feeding America’s forecast for DC is even more dire, particularly for children. The organization has asserted that in 2020 the “insecurity rate will be approximately 28.6% … up from 19.3%.” That means “nearly 37,000 children” likely will be without sufficient food or will be hungry.

Instead of those commercials seeking donations for children in underdeveloped countries, there soon may be some focusing on those in our own communities — maybe in a home near you. 

Do not misconstrue any of this as advocacy for raising taxes, as some DC Council members and their allies are hoping to do over the next few weeks. With a $15 billion budget, the District has the funds to enhance programs that feed and house its vulnerable residents. The Office of Planning report recommended an extension and expansion of federal nutrition program waivers, continuation of emergency assistance, increase in healthy food options in wards 7 and 8, and expansion of transportation options for grocery shopping.

The city is aggressively involved in an affordable housing regime using a $100 million-plus Housing Production Trust Fund. Earlier this month, the council passed emergency legislation intended to prevent illegal evictions. A more aggressive rent control law could go a long way to ease homelessness. I understand that homelessness is a compound, complex problem, but that doesn’t mean the government can’t do more so that people aren’t sleeping on the streets, at bus stops or in front of retail outlets.

DC Attorney General Karl Racine has used his office to take legal action against predatory landlords and those who discriminate against renters carrying government vouchers. That’s all good.

There is a nexus between homelessness, hunger, and the absence of decent brick-and-mortar supermarkets in many neighborhoods. It is called redlining. It has been a problem connected to loans for home purchases and small businesses. However, the discriminatory use of economic data to deny a community food or housing resources is equally egregious. 

Mayor Muriel Bowser, the council, and Racine and his team should begin to use stronger weapons against such corporate behavior — even now during the time of COVID-19. While they begin the work of developing an effective strategy, including filing lawsuits, to stop redlining in the food and rental housing industries, they could immediately stop using euphemisms — in favor of plain language that average people understand and that can be used to effectively engage them in the fight against hunger and homelessness.

That would be a good start.

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jonetta rose barras is an author and freelance journalist, covering national and local issues including politics, childhood trauma, public education, economic development and urban public policies. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com