Study: One in five Chicagoans uncertain about their next meal

• Reprints

Updated: November 30, 2011 12:18AM

One of every five Chicago residents is uncertain where their next meal will come from, according to a new study of hunger in Cook County.

In suburban Cook County, the figure is one in six.

The first community-by-community countywide study, released Wednesday, found some of the city’s 77 neighborhoods with rates as high as a third of residents struggling with “food insecurity.”

The Riverdale neighborhood on the far South Side posted the highest hunger rate in the city — a whopping 40.8 percent. According to the Greater Chicago Food Depository study, hunger in the suburbs was most prevalent in Cook County’s southern pocket. Ford Heights had the highest hunger rate: one of every two residents.

“What it underscores are two things. The rate of food insecurity in Cook County is big. It’s significant,” said Kate Maehr, CEO and executive director of the nonprofit food distribution agency. “There are many people who labor under the belief that hunger is this thing that exists only in a few rare pockets. Hunger exists in every community in the city of Chicago, and frankly in every Cook County suburban community.”

Based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2009 report, Food Insecurity in the United States, the new study found high rates of food insecurity in a community corresponded with high rates of poverty, unemployment and minority populations.

In Chicago, after Riverdale, the highest hunger rates were in Washington Park, 34 percent; Englewood, West Englewood and North Lawndale, 31 percent, and East Garfield Park, 30 percent. In the suburbs, Robbins posted 45 percent; Dixmoor, 38.7 percent, and Markham and Riverdale, 32 percent.

The study also found an uptick in hunger in communities with higher median incomes. More than a third of county residents struggling with food insecurity earned above 185 percent of the poverty level — $20,146 for one person — so were ineligible for most food aid programs.

In the city, the Loop and Lincoln Park had hunger rates of 10.2 percent. Northwest suburban Arlington Heights had 11.2 percent, and west suburban La Grange, 10.6 percent.