Nearly a half century has passed since the CBS Reports documentary aired, and hunger in America has taken on a new face. Indeed, the very term “hunger” has receded from the public policy discussion; today’s debate concerns “food insecurity.” And instead of ten million or so people and a hunger rate of 5%, today’s food-insecure population is estimated at around 50 million people, or one American in six. My talk attempts to tell the story of how we managed to get from one in twenty who were hungry to one in six who are food-insecure.
Dr. James D. Wright is an author, educator, and the Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. Wright also serves as the Director of the UCF Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1973 and taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Tulane University before coming to UCF in 2001. His latest research monograph is Poor and Homeless in the Sunshine State: Down and Out in Theme Park Nation (written with Amy M. Donley). Wright is also the editor-in-chief of the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, published in 26 volumes by Elsevier in 2015. In addition to his University duties Dr. Wright is very active within the Orlando community. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida, the Homeless Services Network and the HOPE Helps Foundation in Oviedo just to name a few.
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