Jake Lawrence, who lives on the North Side, was a truck driver until several heart attacks permanently disabled him. His disability income is $680 a month, $400 of which goes to pay his rent on an old two-bedroom home.

	Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette Dwayne Harris works on filling bags full of groceries for clients at the Rankin Christian Center. Click photo for larger image.

Since he heats and cools his home with natural gas, his utility bills are soaring through the roof. Although insurance pays for some of the several medications he takes for his heart condition, Mr. Lawrence finds it difficult to come up with the $92 a month needed to pay for his prescriptions.

For about a year now, he's been going every month to the Pleasant Valley food pantry on Brighton Road, North Side.

"Before, I could scramble and make do," said Mr. Lawrence, 67. "But with the high gas bills and my health issues, I just can't seem to make ends meet. I had to go find help."

Mr. Lawrence isn't the only new face showing up at food banks.

"We have a problem in southwestern Pennsylvania," said Joyce Rothermel, executive director of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, and "it's getting worse."

Anti-hunger and food pantry advocates gathered at the Rankin Christian Center yesterday to discuss the latest report on hunger.

In places like Rankin, Pittsburgh, Monroeville and Duquesne, more residents are being driven into food pantries and soup kitchens because the cost of living is raging. Heating, fuel and medical costs are up 20 percent around the nation, while the average wage has increased only 4 percent.

"So, you have people who were making it before, now struggling," Ms. Rothermel said.

Since many of the hungry are invisible to the public -- and fully stocked grocery stores are not -- it's easy for government to trim assistance budgets and limit access to food stamps.

But as poverty climbs, so do the rates of hunger. In Pennsylvania, one out of every 10 people faces food insecurity, the prospect of not having enough nutritional food to stay healthy and active.

This is the worst rating for Pennsylvania since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began keeping records. In 2001, 140,000 households could not afford enough food to feed their families. By 2004, that had more than doubled, to 336,000.

The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank conducted a survey last year, interviewing 400 clients and leaders at 320 food pantries in southwestern Pennsylvania; 90 percent of the people responded.

Of the 42,000 people who used 291 area food pantries in March, almost two-thirds were seniors or children 17 or younger; three out of four were women; 70 percent were white; 16 percent were working; and 1 percent were homeless.

"Pantries are being utilized by working families," said Cynthia Moore, a food bank official who coordinated the survey. "People think hunger is only found in blighted neighborhoods or inner-city communities. Those who use pantries are like all of us."

At the Rankin Christian Center, while officials were outlining the growth of hunger, 65 children were in the cafeteria next door eating a state-provided meal of hot sandwiches, applesauce, juice and milk.

More and more are coming to the center for food, said Gaye Velar, a program director.

Last year, when Ms. Velar began her job, there were 34 families who came. Last month, the center serviced 300 families.

And, it's not just at the Christian center. A few blocks down the street, once a month, families start lining up at 8 a.m. to get food at a pantry that doesn't open until 11 a.m.

Anthony and Marla McCreary, both 27, have three children. Mr. McCreary works in the medical field as a customer service representative; Mrs. McCreary is student teaching. Paying for child care, rent, their car and utilities eats up most of their $1,500 a month income, causing them to struggle to make ends meet every month.

They use the food pantry at St. James Ministries Center in Wilkinsburg, and shop for free clothes from the church closet.

The family goes to St. James once a month, primarily because it has accessible hours. There they get about three bags of food -- canned goods, some meat and cereals -- and toiletries for the children.

"These help with substantial costs," said Mrs. McCreary. "To be struggling financially does not mean one is poor; being poor is a state of mind."