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<br /> 41 <br /> <br />Chapel Hill <br />Hillsborough <br />Figure 33: Population with Limited Food <br />Access, Low Income, Percent by Tract <br /> <br /> <br />Food Insecurity and Financial Assistance <br />Food security is defined as access by all people at all times to have enough food for an active, healthy <br />life. At minimum, this includes the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods in geographic <br />proximity. The USDA uses one mile in an urban area and ten miles in a rural area as the threshold <br />measure. That is, if a physical location in an urban setting is further than 1 mile from a grocery store, <br />that location is considered to be in a food desert58. Subject matter experts have expanded this definition <br />to include economically accessible food as well as encouraged consideration of other barriers to food <br />access such as transportation. <br /> <br /> 21% of children and 15.4% of the overall <br />population (20,900 people) live in food <br />insecure households in Orange County. <br /> <br /> Figure 33 shows residents experiencing the <br />highest levels of food insecurity (over 50%) <br />reside in the southern part of the county. <br /> <br /> 26% of children in North Carolina live in <br />food insecure households. <br /> <br /> In our neighboring (Durham) county, 20% of <br />children and 18% of the overall population <br />are food insecure59. <br /> <br /> NC ranked among the top ten states, from <br />2010 - 2015, with the highest percent of <br />citizens experiencing food shortages. <br /> <br /> 28% of food pantries in NC turn clients <br />away for lack of food. <br /> While community residents feel that food insecurity is an issue, especially within our low income <br />areas, survey respondents who are low income were nearly 10 times as likely to have cut the size of <br />meals or skipped meals in the past 30 days compared to those of higher income. <br /> There are approximately 160 - 170,000 different people in NC receiving emergency food assistance <br />in a given week. Many of these families are forced to choose between heating their homes, paying <br />for housing and purchasing food for families. <br /> <br /> The number of families receiving food stamps has almost doubled over the past five years. <br /> <br />The Food and Nutrition Services Program (formerly Food Stamps) is a federal program that provides a <br />monthly allotment of benefits issued via Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (EBT cards) that can be used <br />to purchase most foods at participating stores. <br /> <br />