Black households face highest food insecurity rate at 61 percentBy Chinta Strausberg
More than one in three Chicago households are struggling to consistently put enough food on the table, with Black families experiencing the highest rate of food insecurity as reductions in federal food assistance and rising living costs deepen the city’s hunger crisis.
The 2026 Hunger in Chicago Report found that 36 percent of Chicago households — approximately 417,000 — are food insecure. The crisis is substantially worse among Black households, 61 percent of which reported experiencing food insecurity, compared with 44 percent of Hispanic households and 14 percent of white households.
Families with children are also being hit particularly hard. Forty-seven percent of Chicago households with children reported food insecurity.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository partnered with NORC at the University of Chicago to conduct the survey in June. Nearly 1,200 Chicago adults participated in the probability-based survey designed to represent households across the city.
The findings come as hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents have lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, following changes enacted under the federal tax and spending law signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025.
Danielle K. Perry, vice president of Policy, Advocacy & Community Engagement for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, called the reductions in food assistance “devastating” during a recent appearance at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and in an interview with the Crusader.
Perry said the combination of federal reductions and persistent affordability problems is forcing food banks and community organizations to reconsider how they reach families who increasingly need help.
The disparities revealed in the report are particularly significant for Chicago’s Black communities. In addition to the 61 percent food insecurity rate among Black households, 51 percent of South Side residents surveyed reported low or very low food security.
The report also challenges the assumption that hunger is primarily associated with unemployment.
Fifty-six percent of adults in food-insecure households were working but still struggled to afford enough food while paying for housing, utilities, health care and other necessities.
Thirty-one percent of Chicago households reported delaying, reducing or skipping payments on basic necessities such as utilities or medicine to afford food. Among food-insecure households, that figure climbed to 70 percent.
The findings illustrate what hunger advocates describe as a broader affordability crisis that cannot be addressed by food pantries alone.
Perry said federal policy changes have made that challenge more difficult.
The 2025 federal law expanded SNAP work-reporting requirements for some recipients and made other changes to the nation’s largest food assistance program. The Greater Chicago Food Depository has opposed the reductions and called for strengthening SNAP and other programs supporting families struggling with food costs.
Illinois has already experienced a sharp decline in SNAP participation. The number of Illinois residents receiving benefits fell 16
percent compared with 2025, dropping to nearly 1.6 million people as of June, according to state data.
For Perry, the consequences are already visible in Chicago neighborhoods.
Asked how the Food Depository plans to meet increased demand, Perry said the organization will continue monitoring where pantry use and food needs are growing so “the pantries in the communities that have the highest need are receiving the food they need.”
The organization will continue fundraising, seeking food donations from local grocers and purchasing food when necessary to help fill the gaps, Perry said.
“We are considering all options to stand up in a moment of crisis and also to consider what is the food bank of the future,” Perry told the Crusader.
The Food Depository is also taking its work directly into neighborhoods through its Longest Communal Table events, where residents receive meals, learn about available resources and participate in conversations about solutions to hunger.
After Perry’s appearance at Rainbow PUSH, volunteers hosted a Longest Communal Table on South Kildare Avenue between West Madison Street and Washington Boulevard near New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, headed by the Rev. Dr. Marshall Hatch.
Perry said approximately 300 people received food while participating in conversations about ending hunger and learning where families can obtain free food.
Another Longest Communal Table is scheduled for Wednesday, September 30, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. between 65th and 66th streets in Ald. William Hall’s 6th Ward.
The neighborhood outreach comes as the report shows hundreds of thousands of Chicago households remain unable to meet their food needs, even when some assistance is available.
About 128,000 households, or 11 percent, are food insecure and receive no food assistance. Another 289,000 households, or 25 percent, receive assistance but still do not have enough food.
Approximately 124,000 households receive assistance and are considered food secure, while about 631,000 households meet their food needs without assistance.
The numbers underscore the limits of treating hunger solely as a question of food distribution. Families are being squeezed by grocery prices, housing, health care and other expenses while some forms of federal assistance have become harder to obtain.
For Black Chicago households, the report shows the burden is especially pronounced: nearly two-thirds of those surveyed experienced some level of food insecurity.
Perry said the Food Depository will continue expanding partnerships with neighborhood organizations and exploring ways to provide food in communities where access remains limited.
She said residents themselves must be the “driving forces” in determining how organizations respond.
For the Food Depository and its community partners, the challenge is both immediate and long term — getting food to families who need it today while addressing the economic and policy conditions contributing to hunger across Chicago.
Based on reporting by Gary Crusader.
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