Target Hunger Hurricane Harvey Recovery Fund

More than ten months following Hurricane Harvey’s landfall and subsequent devastation, Target Hunger has continued to provide disaster relief and recovery support, primarily in a five zip code area within northeast Houston. This area includes the zip codes of 77016, 77020, 77026, 77028 and 77078 and covers the Houston neighborhoods of Fifth Ward, Denver Harbor, Kashmere Gardens and North Forest. After experiencing an increase of approximately 25,000 clients during the four-month period following the storm (as compared to the total number of clients served during 2016), Target Hunger has served approximately 3,600 individuals monthly during the first five months of 2018.

A review of client data indicates that many individuals and families will continue to need food assistance for the foreseeable future. While some families were displaced from their homes and have been unable to return, others lost employment after the storm and simply have not yet been able to recover financially.

The food assistance that is provided by Target Hunger assists individuals and families to stretch their budgets and avoid having to make the difficult choice between buying food and paying for other basic needs, such as housing, prescription medication, utilities and home repair. And, because our experience responding to other devastating storms such as Tropical Storm Alison, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and Hurricane Ike has taught us that recovery can last months and even years, we understand that many people who were not previously utilizing our services will now need them on a long-term basis.

Target Hunger will continue to provide disaster relief and recovery services on an as-needed basis for clients who anticipate no longer needing services beyond August 31, 2018. Clients who were impacted by the storm and anticipate needing services beyond August 31 will be assessed to verify continued need and further determine eligibility. Approximately 2,500 clients will be transferred to one of Target Hunger’s other food assistance programs, such as Food Pantry, Senior Home Delivery or Senior Day Site Delivery. The organization is also planning to establish a food distribution site in zip code area 77078, one of hardest hit areas of the city as well as to engage community and government partners in the design and implementation of a community-based disaster response plan.

 As a result of our work over the years and after Hurricane Harvey, it has become clear that disaster response has increasingly become a regular and very important component of service delivery. As the second largest distributor of the nation’s largest food bank (Houston Food Bank), Target Hunger is prepared to make disaster-related service delivery a regular component of the agency’s program model as well as lead a community-based planning effort to help ensure the prompt and efficient distribution of food, water and supplies to people in need in response to a disaster.

 Target Hunger remains very grateful to individuals, foundations and corporations that have and continue to support our efforts related to the important work of disaster relief and recovery and disaster planning.