Transcript #3
LR: okay, so let’s start with, what does it mean to you to
be hungry?
R: uh, usually to go a meal or two, and then not have any
way to get food, just to be sitting there and uh not have anywhere to go
really. I mean, maybe the drop or you might get kicked outta there so, if you
live there you’re not supposed to eat there, so basically you’re home and
wondering, where am I going to eat?
LR: so if you’re, at the Drop, you said it was?
R: yeah, it’s over on 9th, and its like a
homeless shelter, like a kind of a day shelter, to go to eat during the day,
but you’re not supposed to go there if you’re housed.
LR: so it’s one or the other?
R: right.
LR: um, so, if you’re housed there, what kind of options do
you have?
R: well you can go to the local food pantries, um,
LR: is it hard to get there? To the food panties?
R: uh, walking’s
kinda hard, I mean you would need to have something to uh carry the food in,
like you could try to carry just the bags but that would get heavy. I would
suggest taking like a rolling bin or something or like a book bag, I have a
couple friends that do that, um, friends or family that have either vehicles or
workers to help them, but if you don’t have a case worker or something to help
you, just a book bag.
LR: okay so walking, as opposed to the bus system doesn’t
really help you? Does it [the bus] not really go to most food places?
R: well, it goes around some of the different pantries, but
you have to think about the money too, bus isn’t free, and plus if you’re
trying to hit two, three pantries within a couple days then you’re not gonna
want to use the bus cuz you’re gonna have to take maybe 3 or 4 different buses
to get to the different areas.
LR: so, how long does it take to walk to a food pantry from
where you are?
R: um well st.
John’s
LR: okay, um, so how often do you experience, I may have
asked this question but I want you to elaborate more, how often do you
experience hunger? Is it an everyday, “when am I gonna get food?” or is it
pretty easy once you go to the food pantry at the beginning of the week to
kinda last throughout the week?
R: um, I’d say it depends on how many people are in your
household, but for me, it’s me and my roommate so um I kinda have to try to
make the food last and um if I’m feeling really hungry and I overeat one day
towards the end of the week here I might need to go hungry for a day. Or two.
LR: so do you find in trying to ration, is it better to have
a little bit of food at every meal or to have one meal where you eat whatever
you want and then you go the rest of the day without anything?
R: no, that’s not really smart; I’d say several small times
a day, rationing it, that’s smarter. Gorging it like right when you get it,
eating as much as you can, cuz you’ve been without food and then you’re so
hungry and you eat it all and then it’s gone. Out of luck then.
LR: so do you find, how do you get food other than food
pantry, or is that pretty much it?
R: I get a social security check, so I have a case worker,
and I only get about 20$ a week in spending money, but um, I get a food check
of about 30$ at the beginning of the month which isn’t much for the whole month
but I will go like to wal-mart and buy a case of ramen noodles or something.
LR: okay, um, are there—what are some of the things you
especially think are good, that food pantries or Indiana
R: well, hmmm…..i’d say that they are pretty reasonable
about the different kind of foods they give, like uh, pork and even powered
milk, eggs, things like that that they give and the amount that they give, like
if you tell them how many people you have in your household and uh you can
usually get a certain amount for each person, even if they’re not with ya, so
those are some positive aspects about it.
LR: good, do you have, how long have you been going to food
pantries?
R: oh, two or three years. I’ve been going to food pantries
my whole life but you know, on my own I’ve been going for about 2-3 years now.
LR: okay, and what are some things you don’t like about the
way food pantries or anything else, any other ways of getting food access—what
things would you change?
R: well, I think I would change the stipulation on how many
times a person could come, I know that matthew and his roommate have been
banned from one food pantry, Hannah center, for lying and going in there twice
and I don’t think that uh, that’s exactly the way to do it, to just ban
somebody for six months just cuz they’re hungry enough that they had to come in
and try to lie. That’s kinda sad and uh I don’t really know, maybe put a
stipulation on it like once every two weeks instead of once a month, then
again, maybe the food supply, maybe there just isn’t enough.
LR: okay, so it sounds like you’re pretty understanding of,
like everybody has considerations that have to be met and not everyone can have
everything as ideally as they would like.
Matt was talking about everyone should, they should provide more fresh
food, like a VP, what are your thoughts on that? (pause). It’s okay, we don’t have to tell him what you
think.
R: personally I think he’s an idiot because, no offense but,
uh, when you look at when people are going to coming by, fresh foods are going
to go bad quickly, that’s why you get canned foods or foods that are not gonna
go bad, or you have refrigeration. I mean, the kind of ideas that he has are
good ideas to have like a VP where you can just walk in and get the food that
they need but like I said, fresh foods, there’s problems with things like that
because outbreak or gnats or something deteriorate all the food then you’d have
a real problem and have a lot of people go hungry.
LR: okay, yeah, those are all great points. Do you see, you
mentioned like the homeless shelter only offers shelter OR food, are there any
other things like that that you’ve experienced where you’ve had barriers to
getting food?
R: like I said, when you go to the food pantry, you can only
go about once a month, and I have gone in there with no food, not had food for
a few days and been really hungry, really needing that food, and they told me
that maybe I was a week too soon, I had just got food three weeks ago so I had
to wait another week and that was really terrible so – that’s pretty much all
it’s been, that I’ve been in contact with, is just that.
LR: so do you think that would be a problem though if they
just let you take a little bit more food at the beginning of the month?
R: that might still be a problem cuz if they let you get
more food then you might think, oh, I’ve got all this food, and you might eat
more food, consume more, and then still run out.
LR: so would a biweekly system be better?
R: I think biweekly would be the wisest choice there.
LR: Any other experiences with getting food that seem pretty
normal to you that you’re surprised when other people don’t think that’s normal
to experience the same thing?
R: hmm, well I go like with my case worker sometimes and
she’ll just buy like a bag of candy and things and I’m sitting there buying a
cart of ramen noodles and I feel kinda bad, I’m like, maybe people are looking
at me funny cuz I’m buying ramen noodles, this disgusting food that nobody
really likes and uh it’s just ---
LR: you know, my sister loves ramen noodles, yes, that’s
what she chooses to go out and buy
R: oh, I’d like to go to the store with her sometime then!
No, uh, when I see, with the case worker, I kinda felt bad then. Other than
that, I don’t, I mean, people do what they have to do to survive and ya know…
LR: so when your case worker, when she does something like
that, I take it you didn’t bring it up with her, mention it to her?
R: mention that I felt strangely?
LR:--like “what are you doing buying candy right now?”
R: no, I just thought that, well, she gave me transportation
to the store and she didn’t have to do that, so I’m not gonna burden her with
my little whims.
LR: do you think it would be important for her, or other
people like that, to know about things like that?
R: I think they definitely should be, uh, more practical
about what they are gonna go to the store and buy if we’re there at the same
time and be mindful that we only get a certain amount of money a month and they
control how much money we get so them getting candy bars and things, they
should be mindful of that it can hurt someone’s feelings.
LR: be a little insensitive
R: yeah.
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