{"id":7359,"date":"2017-10-06T18:15:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T18:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=7359"},"modified":"2017-10-06T18:15:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T18:15:41","slug":"food-banks-harvey-victims-may-need-help-for-year-or-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=7359","title":{"rendered":"Food Banks: Harvey Victims May Need Help for Year or Longer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Houston<\/a>

Houston Food Bank officials say their volunteers have processed and distributed more than 1.5 million pounds of food since Hurricane Harvey. Photo: Houston Food Bank<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

HOUSTON \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0After the initial influx of food and other donations following Hurricane Harvey, southeast Texas\u00a0food banks<\/a>\u00a0are preparing to serve the region\u2019s long-term needs.<\/p>\n

While most of the emergency shelters have cleared out, thousands of people returned to flood-damaged or destroyed-homes, or lost their jobs and need help putting food on the table. Brian Greene, president of the Houston Food Bank, one of several in the 39-country region affected by the storm, said food banks may need to provide food assistance for many thousands of flood victims for as long as a year or more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been distributing through a network of about 270 partner distribution sites that agreed to step up and help the people in their neighborhoods,\u201d he said. \u201cThe immediate aftermath has been extremely busy, so our challenge is going to be sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greene said his and other food banks normally receive food donations from grocery stores or food distributors. After Harvey, he said, trucks began arriving from all over the country with food and other supplies. He said he expects the challenge will be that as the level of donations taper off, the need for food assistance across the region will remain high.<\/p>\n

Because the storm damaged neighborhoods in all parts of the region, Greene said, they find that people from all walks of life need assistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the middle of the storm and immediately after, you literally could have a person whose net worth is over $1 million sharing space in a shelter with a person who previously was out on the street,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, we can be serving people that never would have guessed they\u2019d be needing help from a food bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his organization is grateful to the people and groups who donate food or clothing to the relief operations, Greene said, the best way to help is through cash donations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the Harvey Relief Fund that the mayor and the county judge set up, United Way \u2013 these funds are probably the best way,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re learning what the needs are of the different organizations in the community. Money is the best way, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you have to pick one charity to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several other state, federal and local government agencies are providing food assistance, including emergency food stamps, or D-SNAP benefits. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has estimated that about 450,000 people in the affected areas will need disaster assistance.<\/p>\n

Background on food banks is online at\u00a0fabackup.feedingamerica.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson HOUSTON \u2013\u00a0After the initial influx of food and other donations following Hurricane Harvey, southeast Texas\u00a0food banks\u00a0are preparing to serve the region\u2019s long-term needs. While most of the emergency shelters have cleared out, thousands of people returned to flood-damaged or destroyed-homes, or lost their jobs and need help putting food on the table. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7360,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7359\/revisions\/7360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}