"The need is truly increasing in the suburbs at a rate that is far greater than the rate it's increasing in the city," said Bill Clark, executive director of Philabundance, the region's largest hunger-relief agency. "Not to say that there isn't an increase in the cities, but the increase in the rate for the suburbs is frightening."
According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 670,000 people in the greater Delaware Valley in 2010 were living in poverty, with 40 percent of them in the counties surrounding Philadelphia.
A study of food-stamp usage since 2007 by Temple University's Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project found shocking increases in usage in the suburbs: A median increase of 60 percent in affluent suburbs, 46 percent in middle-class suburbs and 48 percent in stable working communities.
The increases, said Temple professor David Elesh, "are not in any of the traditional places you might think."
"You've got a lot more people in the suburbs having to use food stamps to supplement their budgets," he said. "That's where the growth is and where I expect the growth to continue for some time, because we haven't seen any change in people's ability to find work or raise their incomes."
So food pantries like Manna on Main Street have seen steady increases in users, about 20 percent a year since 2007.
"There are pockets of poverty, but more of what we're seeing is people who were middle class who are being dragged down into the lower middle," Manna's Allebach said. "We're planning for it to continue."
Gabriella Mora, project manager for the Food Trust's Montgomery County programs, said that people don't think that her area, which has affluent pockets, would need help.
