Dallas County has one of the worst food insecurity rates in Texas — and the nation. That’s according to data briefed to elected city officials during Monday’s Workforce, Education and Equity Committee meeting.
In Dallas County, the food insecurity rate was 25% in 2022, compared to around 20% nationally and 23% in Texas.
“Texas and Dallas County are worse compared to the overall United States,” Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Philip Huang said during the meeting. “[Dallas County] child food insecurity rates were actually worse than the state.”
Huang’s presentation defined food insecurity as the “inability to afford nutritionally adequate and safe foods” and “limited or uncertain access to adequate food.”
There are 47 million people across the country dealing with food insecurity — 14 million of those are children, according to the briefing.
Around 50 million people “turned to food programs” in 2023 and 100% of U.S. counties have some form of food insecurity.
Main causes of food insecurity include low income or unemployment, lack of affordable housing — and lack of access to affordable and healthy foods.
Food insecurity and food deserts — especially in historically underserved areas like southern Dallas — have persisted throughout the city’s history.
“That is a constant conversation that I have,” District 4 Council Member Carolyn King Arnold said. “Why can’t we get a…quality grocery story in our neighborhood so that we can have broccoli, so that we can have peas, so that we can have fresh beans, so that we can have fresh meat that’s not mystery meat.”
Food insecurity is also associated with other issues. Parts of the city with the highest amounts of food insecurity also experience the highest chronic disease burden too, according to the presentation.
That includes Joppa, a historic Freedman’s Town, where the majority Black and Hispanic residents are almost surrounded by heavy industry.
Austin Bridge and Road asphalt batch plant once greeted visitors entering Joppa. The factory shut down after a years-long campaign to convince city, state and federal environmental regulators that it was harming their health.
United States Department of Agriculture data shows large swaths of southern Dallas in low-income census tracts “where a significant number or share of residents is more than 1 Mile” from a grocery store or a source of healthy food.
Huang said the county has been trying to get more resources through USDA and other federal agencies. But he added that's been made more complicated by the current presidential administration's focus on slashing spending.
He said given the "current climate of everything that’s going on," council members should "really advocate and make sure that there aren’t further cuts in these programs."
“I think that’s a real concern that we’re facing," Huang said.
Huang added that anyone else who is concerned about further cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration “should be making sure that there is [a] clear understanding that there are threats to some of the existing resources that we currently have.”
Trump appointees have been surveying all aspects of the federal government, looking for areas to reduce funding. The move has caused several momentary national crises related to funding at the state and local levels.
The USDA laid off close to 6,000 employees starting in mid-February, according to reporting by NPR. In early March an independent federal board ordered the department to “temporarily reinstate” the employees, NPR reported.
And last week a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze USDA funding allocated to Maine. NPR reported the funds had been withheld following Trump’s heated debate with Maine Gov. Janet Mills.
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