According to the SF-Marin Food Bank, 23 percent of San Francisco residents struggle with hunger.

The number is a striking amount, and much higher than the city’s homeless population, which the city said was 6,686 in 2015 (though others estimate it to be much higher), making it less than 1 percent of the population.

Food insecurity is an often-misunderstood topic that has been thrust into the national conversation, given the White House’s federal budget proposal that aims to cut the food stamp program by $193 billion over 10 years, a reduction of 25 percent. In the Bay Area, staffers at San Francisco’s Human Services Agency recently said that immigrants’ fear of deportation is keeping eligible San Franciscans from signing up for food stamps.

Back to Gallery Nearly 1 in 4 San Franciscans struggle with hunger 6 1 of 6 Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle 2 of 6 Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle 3 of 6 Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle 4 of 6 Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle 5 of 6 Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle 6 of 6 Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle











Yet the hunger statistic is supported by data from several sources. Clear definitions do exist, generated by numbers surrounding the poverty line and a city’s cost of living.

“Hunger is the general term related to not having enough food,” said Teri Olle, director of policy and advocacy for SF-Marin Food Bank, a 30-year-old nonprofit that provides free produce and other groceries to 225,000 people in San Francisco annually.

Food banks and governments talk a lot about ending hunger, which incidentally is the goal of the city of San Francisco by 2020, yet they use the broader term food insecurity more frequently.

Food insecurity incorporates the physical sensation of hunger, but there’s more to it than that.

“What are the circumstances in which someone does not have enough resources to obtain enough nutritious food for themselves and their family?” said Olle, who also co-chairs the city of San Francisco’s Food Security Task Force.

For example, an average of 50 families from Bryant Elementary in San Francisco, where 78 percent of students qualify for free and reduced-price school lunch, line up each week for a food pantry hosted by the SF-Marin Food Bank. On Tuesday during the last food pantry of the school year, Carmen Aguilar picked up a bag of free eggs, bread, milk, oranges, apples, onions and cereal. According to Aguilar, who works at a nearby taqueria and has three school-age sons at home, “summer is very difficult” without the pantry, she said in Spanish through an interpreter.

When asked if her family experiences hunger, Aguilar said no. “With food stamps it’s enough,” she said. “I find a way to get food.”

So in Aguilar’s case, it may not be about true hunger pangs. But her family certainly qualifies as food insecure, which also means worrying that you’re not going to have enough money to buy food. There are other potential outcomes of food insecurity, including eating less healthy food, skipping meals and binging when you do have food as a response to scarcity, said Olle — and those habits can last a lifetime.

The reason Olle and others advocate for food stamps or the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is that it provides a consistent source of food to prevent some of those problems and uncertainties.

“SNAP recipients are at least 20 percent less likely than eligible non-participants to be food insecure,” said Craig Gundersen of the University of Illinois, citing a study on the impact of SNAP in the current American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

When evaluating food insecurity, cities and nonprofits look at the number of people living below the poverty line as well as the cost of living.

On both scores, San Franciscans have it the worst in the Bay Area. In the 2015 census, San Francisco County had the highest rate of poverty in the Bay Area, with 12 percent living below the poverty line (which was then $24,250 for a family of four) and 23 percent living below 200 percent of the poverty line ($48,500).

The latter income level is the cutoff for eligibility for public federal benefits like food stamps and free school lunch, a threshold that does not vary by region. A family paying $500 to rent in Kansas City, Mo., has the same income eligibility as a family in San Francisco, the most expensive rental market in the country where the median price for a one-bedroom rental is $3,590.

Of course, the problem is not limited to San Francisco. The Alameda County Food Bank said that one in five residents use its services. In Marin, 19 percent of residents face food insecurity, according to the SF-Marin Food Bank.

But does going to the food bank or qualifying for public nutrition benefits mean that you “struggle with hunger”?

Again, it comes down to a definition.

After housing, child care, transportation and health care expenses in San Francisco, food security advocates say there isn’t enough left for 23 percent of San Franciscans to buy nutritious food on a regular basis. According to the Self-Sufficiency Standard calculator from Insight Center for Community Economic Development, a national legal and consulting organization, a family of four in San Francisco needed an income of $61,822 to cover basic costs in 2014 — which is $13,332 more than 23 percent of San Franciscans earned. That includes at least $1,033 per month for food, whereas food stamp benefits top out at $649.

What do all those numbers add up to? Hunger.

Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan

Hunger by the numbers

1 in 4 San Francisco residents are food insecure.

1 in 5 Marin residents are food insecure.

1 in 5 Alameda County residents go to the food bank.

12 percent of San Franciscans live below the poverty line (which was $24,250 for a family of four in 2015).

23 percent of San Franciscans live below 200 percent of the poverty line ($48,500) and qualify for nutrition benefits.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, SF-Marin Food Bank, Alameda County Food Bank