At Dewey Elementary, where most kids have military parents, the line forms early at the food pantry for free food staples like bread. The vast majority aren’t homeless or even newly unemployed. They're the spouses of US military service members. (1/5)
Mieir can't afford cable and often leaves her home's air conditioning shut off to keep her utility bill down."I didn't know I'd have to try this hard," she said., Mieir and thousands of other military families around the country routinely rely on federal food assistance, charities or loans from family.
"We should say if you come to the military, your kids are going to get a good education, you're going to get good housing, and your kids are going to be fed," she added. Almost everyone who gets groceries at the Feeding San Diego pantry at Dewey Elementary is military, and everything is free, so Carlisle and other military spouses start lining up early to fill their bags with fresh produce, snacks for the kids, and basic staples such as flour and bread.
But the housing allowance, which can range widely depending on where a service member lives, is often enough to push a family out of the eligibility bracket for federal food assistance. "They don't even have adequate data about how many people are impacted," Josh Protas, the vice president of public policy at, said. That's a problem, said Protas, whose group has been a leader in researching military hunger, because without accurate data on how many families are affected, it's hard for policymakers to address the issue.
A Feeding San Diego truck arrives every two weeks with free groceries at Dewey Elementary School in San Diego."I think for DOD this is a public relations issue," he said."They would rather it just went away or was dealt with quietly. Unfortunately for the families that are struggling, ignoring the issue won't help their circumstances."
The Defense Department points to the fact that in addition to their basic salary, service members receive an allowance for housing, and a food allowance, called a basic allowance for subsistence , as part of their compensation. But according to a 2018 survey by Blue Star Families, a group that supports military families, the majority of respondents spent hundreds out of pocket to obtain housing that actually worked for them.
The food allowance, called the BAS, that enlisted service members receive is about $360 per month, but that sum is intended for the member alone, not his or her family, so unlike the allowance for housing, it does not increase if one has dependents. The money is also taken away when a service member is deployed.
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