HAYS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Hays County Commissioners Court received a presentation on a Community Food Needs Assessment that was conducted by The Hays County Health Department and the Central Texas Food Bank in 2024 at Tuesday’s regularly schedule meeting.
Tracy Ayrhart, Central Texas Food Bank Strategic Insights vice president, said the CTFB serves 21 counties, including Hays.
“We’re known for our food distribution; we not only believe that everyone needs immediate access to food, but we also believe in giving people resources to access food on their own,” Ayrhart said. “We’ve been investing in partnerships that address the root cause of hunger and poverty. And in more recent years, we’ve also been investing in food-system solutions, strengthening the food supply chain, so that people can get food on their own and not have to rely on food pantries and food bank services.”
The data was gathered by conducting 20 stakeholders interviews across various sectors of the county, 243 neighbor interviews with a recruitment strategy intended to ensure those interviewed were both demographically and geographically representative of the food insecure population and focus groups were conducted to allow a deeper understanding of certain topics.
“The Hays County Food insecurity rate is 15.9%, so that includes about 39,000 people in Hays County who don’t know where their next meal comes from, including almost 11,000 children and over 5,000 older adults,” Ayrhart said. “Over half of the food insecure population have a household member with a chronic illness that has an implication in the types of food they need. … More than one in three would be unable to afford …a $400 emergency and more than one in four have someone in the household with a disability.”
The survey respondents talked about trouble affording food.
“We heard a lot about challenges with affording food. A lot of nutritious foods are too expensive or out of reach for people,” Ayrhart said. “There was not a lot of retail access, so [they had] limited full service supermarkets or grocery stores in Hays County and transportation was a challenge. We heard over one in four cannot easily access transportation for food, and many of them worked outside of the county and allocated most of their transportation budget to their commute, leaving very little for food.”
Ayrhart said when conducting the Community Food Needs Assessment, the CTFB used a variety of research and data resources.
“Community needs assessments are the ones that really elevate that community voice, hearing from those who experience food access barriers and those who live and work in the community to get a hyper local view of what food insecurity looks like on the ground,” she said. “They’re the community’s thoughts on what solutions would be feasible and desired.”
Ayrhart said the drivers of food security are rapid population growth that’s outpacing infrastructure, inflation and the rising cost of living and food, and she identified possible solutions.
“Hays County is experiencing historical farm and ranch operation loss and agriculture land loss. And what that does is it puts the local food supply chain at risk, and it reduces the resilience the county has against disruptions in the global food supply chain,” Ayrhart said. “The other thing is around federal nutrition programs; we heard a lot of themes about confusion about eligibility, cumbersome enrollment processes and just the loss of pandemic-era waivers that have affected families, including those with children. They have lost access to benefits, or they are seeing assistance decrease. Again, these are just opportunities for potentially the county to step in and provide some coordination and leadership in this area.”
Ayrhart pointed to the strong charitable response network in Hays County but said it is falling short of meeting the large need.
“We heard a lot about the community valuing Hays County Food Bank, the Hays Caldwell Women’s Center, the San Marcos Housing Authority [and] Communicare. They also talked about valuing the faith-based community and the work they’re doing to increase food access, as well as Texas State University’s on campus, market- style pantry. So again, I wanted to acknowledge the great work that’s already happening in Hays County,” she said. “The takeaway here is charitable food alone cannot resolve systemic food access challenges.”
Ayrhart added that the county can address these deficiencies by focusing on several initiatives.
“[There are] opportunities to support and protect local agriculture with an emphasis on mid and small sized farms, exploring zoning policies that can incentivize and strengthen agriculture, retail [and] equitable food access. … Then [the county can focus on] Food is Medicine initiatives — [integrating consistent access to diet and nutrition related resources to promote good health, according to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion] — especially with the fact that over half of the food insecure population has someone in the household with a chronic condition,” she said. “We do hope that this needs assessment and report can serve as a resource to you as you consider future initiatives and investments for the county.”
