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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. For the majority of us, the idea of not knowing where our next meal is coming from is completely foreign. For many of us, the certainty of food is like the certainty of the sunrise and rain in winter. But for many people in our community and in our state, food stability is completely foreign. Today, on the show and all this week, we're going to focus on hunger in our state. Who is hungry, how institutions try and help, and what more we all can do. Today, we're going to talk with an author and a special assignment correspondent for lookout Eugene, who has done a deep dive into hunger in Lane County, both from her vantage point as a writer and as a volunteer at the food for Lane County dining room.
Lauren, thanks so much for coming into the studio and talking with us.
Lauren Kessler: Thanks for asking me.
Dunne: I really enjoyed your three part series about hunger in our community. Why don't just tell our audience, just generally about this series about the article that just dropped on November 30.
Kessler: So as you said, it's a three part series, and it is part one which was on, what was that Sunday? Sunday the 30th of November, indeed, try to answer the questions, who is hungry in our communities, throughout Lane County, and why are they hungry? And it also separates out hunger from something called Food insecurity. So you can be food insecure in a moment, people who work full time are food insecure, so it expands that. So that's part one, who is hungry and why? Part two is, what are we doing about it? And for this, I went out. I spent about a good two months reporting this, and I went to all around the county and to see what the communities were doing to help those most vulnerable people in their community. So you will get a feeling for Oak Ridge and Florence and Mapleton and Creswell and Mackenzie bridge. Part three is, how does it all work? Because it is, it is a simple system. There's food. How do you get it to people who are hungry? But it is very complicated, so I hope to educate people about that.
Dunne: Yeah, what I enjoyed a lot about the first article that you dropped was, you know, a lot of time people write about hunger, and they talk to the organizations that serve people, and that's great. That's very important. But you really did spend a lot of time talking to people who are hungry. You talk to citizens. Sometimes you change their name or not change the name, but you change your identity, because sometimes that's a difficult subject to talk about. But talk about that, talk about what they told you about their lives and about their need for calories, for food.
Kessler: Well, thank you for highlighting that, because there are two ways of approaching a big issue. One is top down, and the other is bottom up. And top down is talk to the people in charge, you know, and bottom up is talk to the people who are vulnerable, who are being helped. So my method in everything that I do, not just this series, but in the books and other pieces of work that I do is starting from, I don't mean the bottom, but starting from who's really affected. So you're right. There's shame involved, often with people who need help, and that's one of the reasons why, in many places, you don't get people's full name. So what they told me, the diversity of why people are hungry or food insecure is pretty extraordinary. So it goes from maybe somebody's stereotype of somebody who's living in a tent underneath a bridge? Sure, yes, but it also goes to two income families with children, both of the people working, but they're working low wage jobs, or they're working part time. And when you have. Yourself to support and others you've got rent. And in the first series, you'll see what the rents are like. In case you don't know, and you've got to pay for it. Otherwise, you're on the streets, there's utilities you've got to pay for or they turn it off. There's your car that you might need to get to work and the gas for the car, and at the end of all of that, there's food. So that's where people begin to skimp and that's where they're just, you know, a paycheck away from not being able to feed their family.
Dunne: Yeah, I think too, when you talk about this. And one of the things that I really enjoyed about the article, you know, and you just talked about this a little bit. There's this sort of mythology about who's hungry or who can't afford food. And you talked about the tent under the bridge and whatnot. But I think your article does a little bit of myth busting, you know about, about who needs food, and you talk about the fact that there are many working people who have jobs and stuff that still can't get enough food on the table. And you talk about an acronym, I believe it's Alice, and that I understand is sort of the working poor. Talk a little bit about that, because I think that it's still something that maybe a lot of people don't necessarily understand.
Kessler: It is hidden. Yes, so Alice, I wish I could remember what it stands for. A L, I, C, E, maybe you have that in your notes. So please inform your listeners. But it is when, when you have income, but you're still challenged, and your income is going to for shelter or sometimes insurance or medical, whatever, but you still have, you continue to need help, maybe at the end of the month, maybe you have SNAP benefits. The SNAP benefits have never been generous, and of course, we just went through a crisis with them anyway. But even now that they exist again, one of the women that I spoke to in Oak Ridge, I believe, is a disabled and her husband is not alive and her SNAP benefits are $62 a month. Wow. So yeah, that does not go very far. So she's at one of the food banks getting boxes of food so that the wages just don't keep up with the cost of living. We happen to live in a place called Eugene, Springfield, and even out into the county where rents are high, and people cannot really afford to pay that rent and then have a bunch of money left over for nutritious food. So that's another thing I want to mention. Is that junk food, fast food is generally cheaper, right? So if you've got five bucks and you're hungry, you could get $5 worth of vegetables, you know, or you could get a, you know, some burger someplace, sure, and what's going to fill you up immediately. It's not about nutrition, really. It's about calories and fill and satiation.
Dunne: Satiation, yeah, absolutely. Let me quickly reintroduce you to the audience, talking with author Lauren Kessler, who is on assignment for lookout Eugene, doing a major investigative work, a major piece about hunger in our region there was interesting too. You know, when I was, when I was reading your piece, you know, there's this, this sort of and you talk about household budgets, and I love this term between survivability and stability.
Kessler: Can you explain that stability is when you're not food insecure? Okay? Because it's the opposite of security, yeah, so at the moment, you might be able to afford your groceries, but when the utility bill comes, or when the doctor bill comes, or whatever, and you have to pay that, otherwise, it's not good, then All of a sudden you are unstable. So having stability means for your family that you don't have to worry about your kids.
Dunne: You know that you that your kids will be able to eat, being at the dining room and seeing both you know the struggle that you just talked about, and obviously being part of a solution, you're there. You're providing important calories, nutritious calories, to people in our region. You know, you're there on the ground floor, if you will, where the rubber meets the road, but in your piece, and talking to some of the leaders of organizations that are. Trying their best to feed people. But also, you know, is there frustration when you talk to these leaders, just about how, how big of a challenge it is to feed the people who need it here, in a county, in a state, in the wealthiest nation in the world, where we still have this basic challenge.
Kessler: Absolutely everybody understands it as a challenge. In order to work, I think, in the nonprofit world, or the faith based world, which is really the who's making this work in our county, you have to, I think you have to lean into the optimism of, you know, look at, look at the incredible number of volunteers we have in our communities that are showing up to make this work. So yes, we have a big problem, but we also have a lot of people who have devoted time and just a sense of compassion and generosity. And I can't get inside the minds of everybody who's doing this, but of the folks that I have talked to, there's not a sense of defeat, there's not a sense of supreme sadness. We can't do everything. We can't do nothing. We're doing something.
Dunne: Yeah, let me reintroduce you again to the audience, talking with Lauren Kessler, who is an author who's also on special assignment with lookout Eugene, doing a large piece about hunger in our region. Towards the end of your first article, you brought up a bit of a history lesson about the fact that, you know, during, I believe, was LBJ and the great says there was a, I don't know, a tipping point, an inflection point, where we seem to be doing a lot better about feeding the people in Our nation that needed it to the point where seemed like we were pretty close. Talk a little bit about that, talk about what you learned, because I think it's instructive going forward.
Kessler: Yeah, so I studied history in college. That was one of my big things. And so everything is history, okay, and hunger has history, and solving hunger has history. So when I was doing the research for this, I looked back on, well, on FDR and all of those programs, and all the way through the Great Society as you're talking about and the war on hunger. That was Richard Nixon, and there was a federal government push, bipartisan, to deal with the hunger of our own citizens in, as you say, the richest country on Earth. So part of it, part of the solution, and it looked like we solved it. I mean, hunger was down to a single digit percentage, I think you said about 3% or something, and now it's, now it's like 15 or 16, yeah. So it's, it's bipartisan effort, but it is also taking away the stereotype and the shame. And this, I think, happened during the Depression, that the mindset changed from no, these are not lazy people who are trying to just take advantage of government programs. These are people that got caught in circumstance and they need our help, and we can help them. And that attitude started with the depression and the FDR social programs, and moved all the way forward until Ronald Reagan and actually Bill Clinton, who looked at that system and said, well, people are taking advantage of it. We can't make that we're not going to make that work. And we pulled back from that, and now there is no such thing as bipartisan. So that's not happening? No, no.
Dunne: I know, when we air this episode, it'll be sort of halfway between the three part series that you're dropping, but I am wondering if we could talk a little bit about, you know, in your research, in talking to people, are there maybe? Maybe solutions? Is too big of a word, but, but are there really important steps that as a community, we can take to make hunger less of an of an insidious problem in our community? What are some steps that organizations, individuals, whatever are looking at, that could truly help towards an ultimate solution towards hunger?
Kessler: That is an excellent question, and I will just say that food insecurity and hunger is a symptom, okay? So if you want, it's like a disease, right? So you can. Take something to help the symptom, and we're doing that already in a big way, with the farms that are donating, and the food banks and the dining room and all that kind of stuff. If you want to deal with the core issue, you build more affordable housing. That's, I mean, that's, that is just a number of different answers, but that's the big answer, yeah, yeah.
Dunne: It's a great piece. I encourage everyone to read it. And as it comes out, read the entire series. Lauren Kessler, who is on special assignment from lookout Eugene, and is a multi book author living in Eugene, Lauren, thank you so much for coming in and talking to us. You are so welcome. We're going to take a quick break. I'm Michael Dunn, and you're listening to Oregon on the record.
You and we're back. I'm Michael Dunne, and you're listening to Oregon on the record. We're going to finish out the show by talking with our own Nathan Wilk, who's produced a story about the trial of a Eugene police officer. KLCC, Nathan Wilke, thanks for coming in and talking with us.
Nathan Wilk: Thanks so much, Michael, for having me.
Dunne: You had a big story about a trial regarding a Eugene police officer involved in a shooting way back in 2019 just tell us what happened, right?
Wilk: So in November of 2019 in November, early in the morning, a little after midnight, police officer Sam Tykol stopped a man, Eliborio Rodrigues Jr., who was walking in a neighborhood street unarmed, and after a brief interaction, he ended up shooting him three times and killing him. So on the body cam footage, which shows part of the event, you can see that officer Tykol stopped Rodriguez and asked him why he was walking in the street. Rodriguez was seemingly collecting bottles and cans, which is something his family said he did often, and after Rodriguez didn't really immediately respond to some of Tykol’s orders, he ended up trying to physically restrain him. Said he was going to arrest him and pepper sprayed him. And then there is a scuffle, and the body camera turns off. And so what officer Tykol described happening afterwards is that Rodriguez fled, and he chased him down, and they started fighting. Then Rodriguez fled again, and Tykol tackled him to the ground, and on the ground, they started wrestling, and essentially Rodriguez out wrestled him, got on top. Tykol tried to tase him, but it didn't work. Tykol was holding down the button of the taser, and Rodriguez pushed it into Tykol's body. Tykol was afraid for his life. He was afraid he would be incapacitated, and that he took out his gun and he shot Rodriguez and killed him.
Dunne: And so that precipitated a lawsuit, is kind of take up the story from back in 2019 this happened, take us forward in terms of what would, what were the legal proceedings going forward, right?
Wilk: So, you know, the family saw this as a situation that was needlessly escalated by the officer's actions and use of force. You know, I described the pepper spray there, the Taser and then, of course, the deadly use of force, ultimately. And so they sued for a couple things, including, you know, violations of constitutional rights, unreasonable seizure, unreasonable use of deadly force. The judge didn't let those move forward, but what was allowed to move forward was, was basically negligence, a negligence wrongful death lawsuit and and, you know, that's based on the idea that really the actions that Tykol took and his interpretation, or in in the the estimation of the family violation of of policies of the city police led to this event, happening things like chasing down, you know, when you're alone and you're waiting on backup to come potentially and are exhausted, or, you know, the escalation of force not establishing a rapport with this guy to figure out what was going on before. Were jumping to pepper spray and arresting him, and so they wanted compensation for the family, for the wife, the widow and the four kids, basically for the loss of their family member.
Dunne: So it goes to trial, you get a verdict.
Wilk: So it was a seven day trial. It stretched, you know, right up to sort of Thanksgiving time, and what the jury ultimately decided is that both men were negligent in this case. To expand on what I was saying earlier, one of the arguments that the city was making is that Rodriguez was negligent in his in own death, in the actions that he took in not complying with the officer, and the other things that I described and you know, what the jury found is that while both men were negligent, they gave 55% of that blame to Rodriguez in his own death, and the officer received 45% and what that means is, because the majority of the blame goes not to the officer, the family does not receive any money or compensation.
Dunne: So Nathan, I know that the city of Eugene has an independent police auditor. Did that individual weigh in on this case?
Wilk: Well, the Independent Police Auditor at the time did find issues with Tykol’s response, specifically the way that he articulated or failed to articulate, the cause of why he was stopping Rodriguez, and also that action of giving chase when he was already potentially in danger, and putting himself in more danger by giving chase instead of just allowing this unarmed man to flee. But the DA looked at this case at the time as well, and they found that Tykol’s actions were in policy and did not move to charge Tykol. And it's worth noting that Sergeant Tykol is still with the Eugene Police Department.
Dunne: Well, Nathan, really appreciate your reporting and coming on the show to talk about it. Thank you so much.
