Also, the Change.org Poverty in America blog (http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/fix_our_food_system_start_solving_hunger) is on board: today they’re arguing for a shift away from the focus on soup kitchens or charity projects to a focus on changes in federal assistance programs. They’re also proposing one solution I hadn’t heard yet: guarantee a fair market value to farmers that that grow specifically for food aid programs as a way to reform the food system and feed hungry Americans simultaneously.

In my book, as well as in all of my work, I have always made it clear that, while having a better functioning safety net would indeed end hunger, the very best way to end hunger in America is to dramtically reduce poverty. I have frequently cited community kitchens as model job training programs that can help do so.

Here’s part of what I wrote in my book:

“If we want to see real change, we need an entirely new framework for addressing domestic poverty. While our leaders still choose sides—and boldly declare that either faltering economics or personal irresponsibility alone are responsible for poverty—the American people know that we need to move beyond such false choices. The public knows that increased government support, economic growth, community involvement, and a focus on personal responsibility are all needed to solve the problem. While the citizenry is ready to move forward based on common sense answers, our leaders are stuck in a partisan and ideological time warp.

To make matters worse, neither conservatives nor liberals spend significant time interacting with poor people. It is no wonder that neither side has advanced a serious plan to empower low-income American families to accomplish their primary goal: to be able to enter—and stay in—the middle class, and have a serious expectation that each subsequent generation has a real shot of moving further up the economic ladder.

The nation must move beyond our current stalemate in poverty politics by enacting an ‘Aspiration Empowerment Agenda’ that gives all families the opportunity to advance their dreams through hard work and responsible choices. Rather than focus only on those rare stories of poor people who climb their way out of poverty against all odds or those rare people with so many problems they can’t move to self-sufficiency no matter how much help they get, this clearheaded new approach would focus on the majority of folks who could climb out of poverty with some help.

The Aspiration Empowerment Agenda would provide an array of government-funded benefits and work supports at levels sufficient enough to enable low-income people to develop assets to move out of poverty. It would emphasize the importance of personal responsibility for all members of society (including the rich), but also design public policies that reward—not punish—low-income people for positive behavior. This new empowerment-centered agenda would create economic pathways for upward mobility—and reverse a trend that is ensnaring more and more working people into poverty.

We need to empower low-income families to end debt and move from owing to owning.”