UC Santa Cruz BLUM Center on Food Insecurity

People are considered food insecure if they have limited or uncertain access to nutritious, safe food. Common indicators include fear of running out of food, skipping meals, hunger, and cutting down on portions. Santa Cruz County households with annual earnings of less than $50,000 missed 21 million meals in 2017-18.

Fast forward to 2020 and to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s need for food assistance in Santa Cruz County doubled almost overnight.
Join us on July 7th from 5:00 – 5:30 pm to hear from David Amaral, PhD Candidate and Blum Center on Poverty, Social Enterprise and Participatory Governance Fellow about Santa Cruz County’s newest food insecurity numbers and what has changed over the past two years.  David will review his work for The Blum Center providing you with the most current, up-to-date data on hunger in Santa Cruz County. 

The original BLUM report came out November, 2019. This study, Tracking the Meal Gap in Santa Cruz County: An Index of Food Insecurity, 2014-2018, revealed the Santa Cruz County residents who are most at risk of food insecurity and are likely missing an average of five meals a week.