The Clatsop Community Action Regional Food Bank is experiencing more demand now than it has through the coronavirus pandemic.

While the data may seem counterintuitive, Dusten Martin, the food bank’s chief operations officer, said the picture becomes clearer when taking into account all the support offered to people during the pandemic.

The regional food bank saw an influx of food from the federal government during the pandemic. However, there was depressed need, which Martin and others attributed to the increase in government aid, including stimulus payments and the temporary expansion of food and rental assistance programs.

“(That) certainly created a dynamic where people who were coming to food banks and food pantries stopped because they were getting their needs met through an ulterior avenue, which was all of this new government assistance,” he said.

As many of the government assistance programs during the pandemic began to expire last year, Martin said people started returning back to food pantries. Now, he said, there is increased need, but food is not coming in at the same rate.

Martin believes the shift is a rebalancing of the support system and is not unique to Clatsop County.

Prior to the pandemic, he said there was never enough food to meet demand, but that changed dramatically during the pandemic. He said demand and supply now mirrors the food bank’s norm before the pandemic.

“We’re kind of going back to what we were before the pandemic in a lot of ways,” Martin said. “We were a much greater role in people’s food assistance budget.”

The regional food bank receives most of its food from outside of the county, including from the Oregon Food Bank and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. About half of the food is distributed to local agencies for food pantries, meal sites and backpack programs. The other half is distributed directly to people in need.

During the pandemic, Martin said there was a 50% decrease in the number of people visiting food pantries. He said direct service at the food bank went up because some people who were going to the food pantries took advantage of the food bank’s drive-thru service.

Martin said the shift to more demand and less supply can be jolting and scary for people who rely on the food bank. He said that even for people in the support industry, it was easy to get used to more resources.

“Right or wrong, I think there was just an abundance of resources for enough time for some people to kind of forget about how it traditionally was,” Martin said.

Kathy Arndt, the secretary for St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry at St. Mary, Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Astoria, noticed a similar pattern as Martin.

She said demand decreased during the pandemic, but has begun to pick up again.

Arndt said there appears to be a correlation between demand and the expansion and expiration of government assistance programs during the pandemic.

Viviana Matthews, the executive director of Clatsop Community Action, questions whether the trend would have looked different if the food bank and food pantries opened at times better suited for workers, such as in the evening or on weekends.

She noted the high number of seniors the food bank serves, and the agency’s desire to make sure all demographics are included.

Martin, however, does not believe the food bank is missing any demographic in the county.

He added that the food bank is constantly engaging with the community, supporting other food programs, as well as providing produce pantries at different days and times in Astoria, Warrenton and Seaside.