At 74 years old, William never thought he would struggle as much as he does.
Throughout his youth, William enjoyed working, picking up odd jobs here and there to earn a little cash.
He worked until the 1980s after an accident left him disabled.
“I was working underneath a car when the car fell on my head,” William said. “The guy who raised it up didn’t put the jack all the way under it, so the car that was in park slid out.”
William lost sight in his right eye and can no longer hear from his left ear. Although William tried to keep working, he was laid off by his employer of 20 years.
William said he found himself buried in medical debt and little income to pay for anything else. Social Security Disability Benefits covers a majority of his medical expense, but it’s the Capital Area Food Bank that comes through for his nutritious needs.
“I have a lot of medical bills, and I usually don’t have enough for anything else,” William said. “It’s the Food Bank that helps me with groceries.”
William faces the same challenges many with medical care do. About 80 percent of Food Bank clients say they have to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care in the past year.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, food insecurity was more common for households where disability kept a working-age adult out of the workforce and had a higher prevalence of very low food security than other food-insecure households.
Dennis Borel, the executive director of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, said people with disabilities too often find themselves in a bind as they typically find themselves with some of the lowest income, high unemployment and low mobility.
“All these factors put you into the perfect storm,” Borel said. “It’s an issue, and it’s real. This puts an economic pressure on how much money you have to spend on the simple things like food.”
Borel said the link between disabled and food insecurity can sometimes even be the lack of mobility to access a grocery store or farmer’s market – or to even afford it.
“That’s when a food bank may be a good source for them,” Borel said.
