A class apart

Flathead agencies serving the poor struggle to keep up

In the proverbial sense, Lori Botkin is crying over spilled milk.

As director of the Flathead Food Bank, it's Botkin's job to see that the food bank's five branch pantries provide nutritious food to the Flathead's poorest residents. Milk is one of the basics, but a large supplier has dried up.

This year, the food bank has gotten 62,000 fewer pounds of food from area grocery stores that have long provided products a day or two past the expiration date.

Most of the decreased poundage is milk that's no longer flowing.

"It's a liability issue for grocery stores and it's unfortunate," Botkin said, explaining that grocery stores simply don't want to risk getting sued by providing outdated food. "My milk purchase has more than doubled. I've spent $10,000 on milk this year."

And with milk prices hovering around $3 a gallon these days, the food bank's budget isn't stretching as far as it used to.

In addition to the decrease in grocery-store donations, Flathead Food Bank is short nearly 20,000 pounds this year from private donations. Yet the food bank has given out 708 more food baskets this year than at this point in 2006.

"Fortunately our monetary donations are up a little this year," Botkin said.

Trying to find enough food for the food bank's 250 families every week is a constant struggle.

"THE NEED will grow," predicted June Munski-Feenan, the tireless coordinator of the North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish. "There are a lot of single parents and just plain low-income folks. We're in a wealthy area, but it's two classes almost."

The Whitefish-based food bank has its own wild game processing center, where fresh road-killed animals are cut and wrapped.

"We're the only one doing wild game," Munski-Feenan said proudly. "We've got the crew. Hill Brothers [towing company] loads the big animals. They're super."

North Valley Food Bank serves 125 to 145 families a week. In August, 515 boxes totaling 39,634 pounds of food were given out.

Flathead Food Bank, with outlets in Kalispell, Marion, Martin City, Evergreen and Bigfork, served 12,066 families last year and 9,481 so far this year.

Columbia Falls and Lakeside operate independent food pantries.

PARTICIPATION in the food-stamp and Medicaid programs has grown steadily in Flathead County, but that growth is commensurate with the increase in population, said John Gardner, director of the Flathead County Office of Public Assistance.

Medicaid uses state and federal government money to help pay for necessary medical services for needy and low-income people.

In Flathead County, about 5,830 people relied on Medicaid assistance in the fiscal year that ended in mid-2007, receiving $38.3 million worth of care. That's up from 4,978 recipients and $30.7 million in disbursements five years ago.

Gardner said a new primary-care community clinic opening next month will fill a rising need among residents caught in the health-care no-man's land - between wages that afford adequate health care and programs that serve the extremely low income. The county is taking the lead in the clinic, which will provide a physician's services and nursing care on a sliding fee scale indexed to income, targeting those at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

It's open to everyone; anyone who is able will pay the full fees for services.

"I think they'll see all the clients they can handle," Gardner said.

Thirteen percent of the valley's 85,000 residents last year - more than 10,800 people - lived at or below the poverty level established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

That means a single person lived on $10,210 or less for the entire year. Two people had $13,690 or less, three-person families had $17,170 or less. A family of four lived on no more than $20,650.

Fully 35 percent - more than 29,100 people - lived at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

Food-stamp use continues to increase, Gardner said, with 5,537 average monthly recipients over the past year receiving $6 million worth of food stamps. In 2002, 4,647 recipients got $4 million in food stamps.

New electronic credit cards make food-stamp use less stigmatizing than the old paper coupons, he said.

"It's been a little less cyclical demand because there are more jobs available," he said about food-stamp use.

ONE AREA of the welfare program that's seen a decrease is the cash assistance - Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. More rigorous participation requirements that "really raised the bar" and a surplus of jobs in the Flathead have shrunk the number of cash-assistance cases from 800 in 1996 to roughly 100 today.

"We've been in labor surplus for 30 years, and just in the last two years that's turned around," Gardner said. "It's easier to get a job."

The continuing dilemma, though, is that jobs in the Flathead often don't pay enough to make ends meet. Simply getting the gas to get to work often is a challenge.

"If you work in Whitefish and drive in from Martin City, that's a lot of fuel," he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com