Leftovers Page #7

of vulnerable people and

disadvantaged older people.

That these are just statistics.

These aren't just numbers.

And when you cut a program

such as Meals on Wheels

or the Supplemental

Nutrition Assistance Program,

you are going to be making

more people go hungry.

- [Seth] You're 65?

- [Hank] Yeah.

- [Seth] And so, you

are officially a senior.

- [Hank] I am.

- And yet you're CEO of

the Capital Area Food Bank.

- That's correct.

I was seven months

into my retirement.

The board asked

if I would step in

and do this on an interim basis.

But by the time I was here

for about four months,

working with 70 people

who were passionate

about the hunger issue,

seeing the face of

hunger every day

and talking to people who

were receiving this food,

you get so invested

in the process,

the board asked me to stay on.

When I was in the other world,

I was selling people on

buying my integrated circuits.

Here, I'm out selling

people on the fact

that hunger's unacceptable,

and we need to come together

to do something about it.

- [Seth] What, honestly, what

do you think the solution is?

- I think about this a lot.

I think that we have an

opportunity as a country

to come together and

reduce the amount of food

that's getting thrown away.

How do we do that?

I don't know.

I think the President

needs to appoint

a czar of food recovery,

or something like that.

I'm serious right now, okay?

Because, you know,

I was talking to a woman

out in Arizona here

a couple of months ago

and she was telling me

how much money they spend

to plow lettuce into the ground,

because they can't get trucks

to take this lettuce

out of Arizona.

We need to figure that out.

Nobody came to me to say,

"I'm gonna teach

you about hunger."

Just like nobody came to you

and said, "I'm gonna

teach you about hunger."

When you accepted

the assignment,

you went and learned

about it, right?

It's a tough question to answer,

how do you get people

to understand it?

Somehow, the message

has to get out here.

The three simple words

that we use around here

all the time is,

hunger is unacceptable.

It is just unacceptable.

We as a nation

have to figure out

how to not have hunger

in this country.

- In order to apply to get

a concealed handgun license,

it's one page.

In order to apply for

food stamps to get

food on your table,

it's 18 pages.

- You know, I have nothing wrong

against people

wanting to own a gun.

It's one of our rights.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- But something seems wrong

when you have 18 pages

to put food on your table

and one page to get a gun.

- [Claudia] Yeah.

- [Seth] A lot's

broken in this country.

- [Claudia] Quite a bit.

Quite a bit, yeah.

- How long do you think it'll

take for me to fill this out?

- Um, I think you could

sit there a good hour?

The biggest thing is,

seniors when they apply,

they on average get

anywhere from 16 dollars,

which is, I think,

probably the least

that we've heard them receive,

to, I think, I've heard 70

dollars being the highest.

Often what we hear is,

it's not worth the hassle.

- We need to get

past that stereotype,

and get these folks to go in

and actually offer

them some assistance

in helping them qualify,

and fill out the application.

Because even if it

is only 10 dollars,

for a lot of people, 10 dollars,

you know, that's enough for

them to eat for several days.

And so we need to convince them,

in whatever way we

need to do that,

that they need to go

in and apply for this.

Because this is not a giveaway.

This is something

that, you know,

they've been paying

into this system

as long as they've

been Americans,

and citizens in this country,

and they ought to be able

to have access to it.

- It is 7:
45 in the morning

here in Austin, Texas.

We are actually heading

outside of Austin.

We're going to a

place called Lometa,

which is about two hours,

two and a half hours

outside of Austin,

working with the

Capital Area Food Bank.

We're going to the

First Baptist Church

where the food bank

takes all the food

and seniors come and pick it up,

and these are people who are

educators, miners, farmers,

and they are hungry

just like everyone else.

And it's gonna be

interesting to see

how this all comes together.

When I arrived in Lometa,

I was taken aback by a scene

that's all too familiar.

It's something we've

all been witness to

in our history books.

Throngs of people

waiting in bread lines

during the Great Depression.

And I think seeing something

like this begs the question.

How much progress have we

really made in 75 years,

where our seniors

have to wait in line

just to get food that will

probably last them about a week.

- [Roosevelt] The

test of our progress

is not whether we add more

to the abundance of

those who have much.

It is whether we provide enough

for those who have too little.

- [Seth] What was

on the menu today?

I saw oranges, onions, rice.

- [Man] Grapefruit, cabbage.

Pinto beans.

- [Seth] Spaghetti,

spaghetti sauce.

- Yeah.

- [Seth] Peaches and

applesauce, right?

- Green beans.

- [Seth] You've got seniors

who are not only coming here,

but they're going to the other

food distributions around.

- That's our information.

- [Seth] Because that may be

their only source of food.

Maybe.

- Well, it'll be one

of the sources of food.

This food won't

last them a week.

- Right.

I had learned that

you and your husband

not only come to the food

distribution here in Lometa,

but you go to some

of the others.

How many others do you go to?

- Two others.

- Two others?

- Yeah.

- [Seth] So the food

that you get here

and the food that you

get at the other places,

how long will that last you?

- Uh, usually about two weeks.

- [Seth] Two weeks?

- Or it might be a little more.

- And so after that food's gone,

then you can start

all over again

and go back to the other places.

Is money that tight for you

right now to be able to live?

- It's pretty tight.

We're both on...

- [Seth] Social Security?

- Social Security, yeah.

And that's it.

- What I think is driving a

lot of this, not all of this,

is the rising healthcare cost.

Seniors between 125% of

the poverty level and 200%,

so these are the seniors

that don't qualify

for most of the public

assistance programs,

they are spending 25%

of their incomes now

on out-of-pocket

healthcare costs.

- [Seth] 25?

- 25% of their total incomes

on out-of-pocket healthcare

costs, on average.

- [Seth] Did you think though,

when you were making

the good money

and you were saving for

retirement and all that,

that you would be in a position

to where you would need

to come to a food--

- [Woman] No, no.

- [Seth] You thought

you planned well?

- Yeah.

I never dreamed that I'd

be coming to a food bank.

- [Seth] Does that make

you a little upset,

that you're at a point

now where you've retired.

And now you have to work.

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