State House News Service: Poll measured food insecurity levels in 14 cities, including Fall River

BOSTON — Chris Lisinski State House News Service

BOSTON — Thousands of Massachusetts families in more than a dozen cities and towns experienced food insecurity over the past year, despite expanded assistance programs rolled out during the pandemic, according to a new poll.

The MassINC Polling Group surveyed 10,650 parents and guardians in 14 school districts, most of which are in cities, and found that 47 percent of respondents faced low to very low food security at some point during the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pollsters contacted families in Chelsea, Lawrence, Fall River, Malden, Chicopee, Pittsfield, Everett, North Adams, Brockton, Framingham, Greenfield, Methuen, Attleboro and Dartmouth.

Ten of those 14 districts had more than one third of respondents report food insecurity.

Across all households surveyed, 12 percent said they "often" ran out of food and did not have money to get more, while 37 percent said they "sometimes" encountered that problem.

About one-quarter of respondents said they or others in their household cut the size of their meals or skipped meals at some point in the past year because they could not afford food.

More than 8,800 received Pandemic EBT, or P-EBT, a COVID-era program providing money to families to purchase meals while schools were closed due to the pandemic. Ninety-four percent said P-EBT was "very helpful."

While many families surveyed likely qualified for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, only about a third of respondents said they received benefits from that program during the pandemic.

Many said they did not realize income cut-offs were as high as they were or that families could use both P-EBT and SNAP.

"The level of need we found shows food insecurity is an ongoing concern even as the worst of the pandemic passes," MassINC Polling Group President Steve Koczela said in a statement. "The sheer number of respondents we reached for this poll, over 10,000 households, lets policymakers at the state and local level respond in a very nuanced way."

The poll ran from April 9 to May 30, including when it was a pilot survey in Chelsea Public Schools, via text and email to web survey with English, Spanish, Portuguese, Cape Verdean, Haitian Creole, Arabic and Chinese options available. It was sponsored by The Shah Family Foundation.