More than half a million Georgia families are living below 200% of the federal poverty level ($48,500 or less for a family of four). The Atlanta Community Food Bank’s strategic plan has the bold goal of ensuring that by 2025, all hungry people in its service area will have access to nutritious meals. To meet this goal, the food bank launched the Stabilizing Lives initiatives, which address the complex relationship between hunger, food insecurity, and household stability.

The vision is that eliminating clients’ concerns around food access and insecurity will result in increased income availability for other basic needs, like housing, utilities, child care, transportation, and health care, which could support working families in transitioning to self-sufficiency.

GHPC is working with the food bank to design a new food distribution methodology, followed by testing and evaluating the model in four partner food banks or pantries. GHPC is conducting policy analysis, identifying evidence-based practices, and validating a new assessment tool to assess essential impact outcomes, such as increase in food security, general increase in family stability, and decrease in trade-off decision making.

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Research & Evaluation