Episode 2: Cantina Publica

One of the most fundamental ways in which we mistreat our fellow person is through malnutrition. When the human race is the wealthiest it has ever been, any person facing food insecurity is a scathing indictment of the system that they live in. As is written in Mark 12:29-34:¹

^"29 Jesus replied, 'This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord, ³⁰ and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. ³¹ The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.' ³² The scribe said to him, 'Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true, that he is one and there is no other. ³³ To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.' ³⁴ Jesus, seeing how wisely he had spoken, said, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' And after that no one dared to question him any more."

For any of our family or friends, we would help feed them if they were hungry. Christ calls us to love everyone as we love ourselves. The abundance of this love means that we should strive to live in a society in which no one goes hungry. As with all action, we should seek to solve this problem locally first.

The simplest solution available is to simply provide anyone in need with a meal. Although this may be the simplest solution, some might worry that it would be too costly to implement. In order to determine this, lets take a look at the local community that I live in, Houston, TX.

This question involves a large number of variables. In order to estimate the cost of this program, we would need information for the following variables: hourly wage of a chef, hourly wage of support staff, cost of food to make the meals, how many meals can be made per chef on average (not considering economies of scale), and how many meals want to be provided per day.

Trying to find as accurate sources as possible, I've compiled some estimates for each one of the variables. They can be found in the table below:

Using the table above, we come to the total cost per meal (including only variable inputs: labor, food) which is $3.37. This gives us a cost per day for 1 person of $10.12, per month $303, and per year $3,692. After obtaining this number, we just multiply the cost of a full year's worth of meals by the number of people served by the program.

One of the first groups that comes to mind is the homeless. Although the problem of homeless is a separate issue that deserves its own treatment, solving food insecurity for the homeless can be one of the smallest first steps we can take in loving our neighbor. There are currently 3,270 homeless people in the city of Houston.⁶ This gives an approximate program cost of $12.1 million. This would mean providing 3.6 million meals annually with 17.2 FTE Chefs and Support Staff necessary. Is this number affordable? The 2024 Houston Budget is approximately $6,183 million.⁷ In other words, the cost of feeding every homeless person in Houston for an entire year is only 0.2% of the city's budget.

With that number in mind, what would it take to completely solve this problem in Houston? In 2017 in Harris County, there were 724,000 people that faced food insecurity.⁹ To feed all of these people would cost $2,732 million which would be 44.2% of the city's budget. This would require a significant increase in expenditure for the city government. The GDP of the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) was $513,000 million.¹⁰ The program would only cost 0.5% of the MSA's GDP. Creating this program then isn't a question of affordability, but rather a question of political will.

The Catholic Charities of the The Archdiocese of Galveston Houston had revenues of $217 million in 2022. The cost to feed the homeless would represent 5.6% of the budget. The cost to feed every food insecure person in Harris County would represent 1,2588% of the budget. The budget would have to increase by $2,515 million. With 1.7 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, every Catholic in the Archdiocese would have to pay $1,500 a year or $124 a month.¹¹ Although not every Catholic in the Archdiocese is in a position to give that amount, this gives us a good idea of how much the average donation would have to be.

Starting locally, the Catholic community has the ability to create a Corporeal Works of Mercy Program. Feeding the hungry and giving water to the thirsty through these public cantinas can be the first step in reorienting our society toward the Corporeal Works of Mercy. Ideally, the cost of the program could be paid for through donations in species and/or in kind. This offers a chance for everyone in our society to practice virtue.

1. https://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=48&bible_chapter=12
2. https://www.indeed.com/career/chef/salaries/Houston--TX
3. https://www.indeed.com/career/janitor/salaries/Houston--TX
4. https://medium.com/adventurearc/how-much-does-a-meal-cost-eating-in-vs-eating-out-92a077aab800#:~:text=Our%20average%2C%20the%20cost%20to,(eating%20out%20%2B%20groceries). (adjusted for inflation)
5. https://www.cheftalk.com/threads/plates-meals-dinners-per-hour.48060
6. https://www.marketplace.org/2024/01/08/houston-has-bucked-the-trend-in-homelessness-can-it-afford-to-keep-it-up/
7. https://www.houstontx.gov/budget/24budadopt/FY2024_Adopted_Budget.pdf 
8. https://www.texaschildrens.org/sites/default/files/uploads/Food%20Insecurity%20Report%20Final.pdf
9. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183830/gdp-of-the-greater-houston-metro-area/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20the%20real%20gross,to%20513.28%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars.
10. https://www.archgh.org/about/about-us/facts-and-figures/#:~:text=The%20Archdiocese%20of%20Galveston%2DHouston,area%20of%208%2C800%20square%20miles.