For a family in the Gorge living close to the financial edge, the power bill and the grocery bill are the same money. Rent, power, food, water, gas, and medicine come out of one paycheck, with rarely much left over. So, when a fixed cost like power rises, the only line that can bend is food. You cannot pay half the rent or skip a child’s medication, but you can stretch a dinner or go without. When the math stops working, food is what gives first.
That simple math is playing out in more Gorge households every month. As the costs a family cannot control keep climbing, food becomes the shock absorber — and for a growing number of our neighbors, it has run out. We see it from opposite ends, one of us in the power bills we send, the other in the pantry lines that follow.
Start with the power bill. Northern Wasco County PUD is community-owned, so it does not profit when that bill rises; its only job is to keep power affordable. The utility buys most of its power from the federal hydropower system on the Columbia and Snake rivers, long among the most affordable anywhere. Recent changes to how those dams are run, aimed at helping salmon, mean less power is generated, so the utility must buy the difference at a higher price. The early estimate is a 6-7% rise in the cost the utility pays for power, on top of a similar increase last fall. On our side, it is one line in a rate table. For a family already stretched thin, it is a few more dollars that have to come out of groceries.
For a growing number of families, there is nothing left to give when the grocery budget shrinks. That is when they turn to local food pantries. The Columbia Gorge Food Bank’s network of pantries and partners supports more than 6,000 people a month across Hood River, Wasco, and Sherman counties, nearly double the number in 2017, driven by the rising cost of living in all basic needs. Many who come through the door are not who you would picture. Most have housing; some own their homes. Most are working. Their budget has simply run out of room, and there is no shame in that.
The rate increase is only one of the decisions, made far from here, that land on families in the Gorge. Those forces reach the grocery bill at every level. A tariff set in Washington, D.C., raises the cost of everyday goods, so pricier aluminum means a pricier can of soup. A change to a state program or a county service lands the same way. Wherever these choices get made, they get paid for here.
A past-due bill and a pantry line, two angles on the same neighbors and the same math. The families holding on at the edge are not failing. They are working, budgeting, and still coming up short against costs they did not choose. Those costs end up on the kitchen table.
So, if your budget has stopped adding up, know two things: you are not alone, and help is here. For information on food pantry hours and locations, please visit OregonFoodFinder.org. For your power bill, call Northern Wasco County PUD at 541-296-2226 about our Neighbor-to-Neighbor program and income-qualified options.
We can’t help if we don’t know you’re struggling. Reaching out is not giving up. It is how one hard month stays just one hard month.
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Roger Kline is general manager and CEO of Northern Wasco County People’s Utility District. Breen Goodwin is executive director of Columbia Gorge Food Bank.
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