The Cost of Free Assistance: Studying Nonuse of Food Assistance in San Francisco

The Institute for Research on Poverty released a discussion paper exploring the reasoning behind why some low-income Americans do not capitalize on nongovernmental free food assistance programs in their communities. The study focused on data collected from 63 in-depth interviews with low-income residents from San Francisco who did not use this available assistance. Overall, the report indicated that respondents did not feel that the free food assistance outweighed the psychological costs involved with accepting assistance. Such psychological costs include moral objections with accepting food from others and the emotional toll of accepting assistance.