Navigating Challenges: Why Equity Work is Essential to Ending Hunger
Navigating Challenges: Why Equity Work is Essential to Ending Hunger
By Rut Martinez-Alicea, Director of Equity, People, Culture and Administration at Oregon Food Bank
The current political and social climate presents significant challenges to equity, diversity and inclusion work and values that are fundamental to addressing hunger and its root causes. Rather than deterring us, this moment highlights the significance of our unwavering commitment. The barriers to food security are not coincidental—they are the result of policies, systems and histories that have long excluded specific communities from opportunity. To truly end hunger, to actually be effective in furthering this vision, we must address these root causes with bold, equity-driven solutions that actively promote fairness and justice, ensuring resources and opportunities reach those who have been historically disadvantaged.
At Oregon Food Bank, we did not come to this work lightly. Advancing equity is hard and challenging labor—rigorous, data-driven and research-backed. Our approach is informed by over 30 years of hands-on and direct experience in the field, by extensive studies on the root causes of hunger, economic disparities, and the long-term impacts of systemic inequities. Research shows us, over and over again, that food insecurity is forcefully driven by racial, gender and systemic injustices and that addressing these patterned disparities leads to more effective and lasting solutions.
We center the lived experiences of people most affected by hunger, engaging directly with communities to understand their needs and solutions. Combined with data on hunger trends and economic mobility, we ensure that our strategies are both research-driven and rooted in real-life impact. We do this work not for abstract or empty ideological reasons, but because it is the only way to truly eliminate the decades-long national average of 13% of hunger amongst our communities. We do it because we want to be effective. We do it because the aspiration and need for equity and dignity is a core human drive. Equity work brings about solutions to hunger and many other systemic inequities through efforts that recognize the full humanity and dignity of every individual and community. Giving in to lawless and immoral pressure to backtrack on these efforts means surrendering our most effective tactics.
Efforts to dismantle equity work align with hateful ideologies that strip people of their humanity and push aside communities long denied their dignity and right to exist. These ideologies blame people for being poor and result in policies that increase hunger and other harms. For instance, when words like “fraud” and “handouts” are used to cut food assistance or access to healthcare – it is low-income and marginalized communities that bear the brunt of those policies. As a result, it becomes even more difficult to end hunger and break the cycle of poverty.
The current resistance to equity is “data-less”. It is fueled by discomfort-avoidance—a refusal to engage with the realities of systemic oppression because doing so feels uncomfortable. However, discomfort is not a reason to stop progress in ending the immorality of hunger in a country with such enormous wealth. In fact, it actually proves the point of why this work is necessary. If acknowledging racial and economic disparities makes people uneasy, imagine the discomfort of families forced to skip meals, of parents choosing between rent and groceries, of entire communities locked out of economic opportunity for generations.
The numbers make the case for equity work. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities, as well as gender-expansive individuals, face disproportionately high rates of food insecurity. Feeding America reports that Black households experience food insecurity at a rate of 23%. Our data at Oregon Food Bank shows that 1 in 8 people and 1 in 6 children in Oregon and SW Washington face food insecurity, with the mentioned communities facing hunger at even higher rates.
Households headed by single mothers are far more likely to struggle with food insecurity and stable housing. In 2023, 36% of single-mother households experienced food insecurity, nearly double the national average of 13.5% for all U.S. households. These disparities are not coincidences; they result from systemic policies that have excluded communities from opportunity and stability. Ignoring these facts means overlooking the root causes of hunger.
Now is the time to act. Oregon Food Bank’s Ten-Year Vision is built for this moment—to resist setbacks, close gaps, and drive systemic change. Through our Food for All Oregonians campaign and collective root-cause efforts, we are mobilizing people power and resources to promote and demand policies that advance food security and equity. Backtracking on equity work now and willingly complying with the ideologies of hate, after knowing what we know, after doing this work for this long, is like withholding proven effective treatment to a devastating illness. It would be as immoral as the Tuskegee Study of untreated syphilis on Black men of the 30s through 1972, where effective treatment was available but denied. Racist beliefs allowed this to happen under the law, fully recorded and intentionally carried out.
We can and will create a future where no one goes hungry. We will apply data-driven equity approaches, and we will not withhold effective treatment to end hunger. Instead, we will not leave any rock unturned in this life-affirming labor. The urgency of this moment only reinforces why we must act now and with resolute drive. Together, we will be Rising for All to turn discomfort into action, challenge the status quo, and build lasting solutions to eliminate hunger for good. You can take part in this critical mission by…
