“Welcome to Park City,” a sign reads as the camera swoops past the wealthy ski town, a transition for a scene set in Meredith Marks’ beautiful $35,000-a-month house. It’s a detail that fellow “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” cast member Mary Cosby loves to point out. Cosby’s scenes in her own 20,000-square-foot home often feature her laying out exquisite head-to-toe Gucci or Alexander McQueen outfits — many of them straight from the runway and costing the equivalent of several months’ rent. Not to be overshadowed by Bronwyn Newport’s introduction of the fabulous $15,000 Yves Saint Laurent red fur heart coat — her couture looks becoming illustrative of a Salt Lake housewife.
Such things can be fascinating. So much so that The Washington Post dubbed 2024 “the year of Mormon women,” and it can seem like Utah has become synonymous with the Salt Lake housewives, the cast of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and high-end real estate series “Sold on SLC.” These shows all spotlight a certain kind of lifestyle — one that I understand and many times have found myself leaning in to — complete with Stanley tumblers ($50), blonde highlights ($200 and up, every six weeks), Range Rovers and G Wagons ($85,000 to $150,000) and large homes in newly-built communities (starting in the $800,000s), all symbolic of Utah — at least in the pop culture moment that our state is currently having.
But appearances can be misleading. While reality show cameras and our Instagram feeds focus on some of the state’s wealthier residents, many here are struggling — and hungry. For me, the lure of a couture life juxtaposed with extreme need in the very same city, can be hard to understand or even believe.
Regardless, the reality is that more than 400,000 Utahns do not have consistent access to food, and over 143,000 of them are children. In fact, 1 in 6 children in Utah is hungry. Nationwide, 33% of families headed by a single mother experience food insecurity, and 1 in 10 Utah households experience food insecurity, with higher numbers for Black families, Indigenous families and people of color.
For students, especially, hunger comes with many costs. Going to school without enough to eat can result in diminished academic performance, delayed development, behavioral issues, higher suspension rates and a host of physical and mental health issues.
Across the state, we at The Policy Project heard stories from students in dire situations. In Logan, a student athlete was found scavenging pizza from the school dumpster. In Ogden, a young woman living out of her car described receiving mac and cheese from the food bank and the frustration of not having any way to cook it “on her dashboard.” In Beaver, we learned of a young student who resorted to eating dog food — because there was nothing else in her home. An elementary teacher in Salt Lake told of monitoring lunch one day — to discover a young boy putting mashed potatoes in his pocket. When asked what he was doing, the boy simply responded that his little sister, at home, was hungry. He was taking them to her. And an elementary school teacher in Granite School District recently shared that when her students learned they’d be receiving pantry packs to take home, they cheered with joy. Historically, students have been too embarrassed to accept extra food, but in the past few expensive years, these take-home packs have been more popular than ever.
These stories are increasingly common, and educators have recognized student hunger as one of the biggest issues they face in the classroom.
Fortunately, there are several practical ways to combat student hunger in Utah. Private donors, businesses and the governor’s office are working to address the state’s school meal debt, while The Policy Project, Representative Tyler Clancy, Senator Kirk Cullimore and hunger experts across the state are working to eliminate the reduced-price school meal category so families at the threshold for eligibility — those who do not qualify for federal programs like SNAP or TANF, who are working to feed their families and are most likely to accrue meal debt — qualify for no-cost meals. We’re also working to extend the Summer EBT program in Utah beyond 2025 to ensure the most at-risk students have access to food during the summer months.
It’s fascinating to watch the housewives argue over what constitutes “high body count hair” or marvel at the hold that a little-known member of the Osmond family seems to have on one member of the cast. But it is time we shift just a bit of our collective attention to the reality of children who live in our own cities and towns, picking food out of the trash or eating dog food and then going to school hungry. This, too, is a “real” side of Utah that we shouldn’t look away from — and it’s something we can change.
This legislative session, we have the opportunity to tell a new story about Utah with House Bill 100 Food Security Amendments. It’s a story about a state that offers opportunity and that cares deeply for its most vulnerable residents — its children living in poverty.
(Emily Bell McCormick) Emily Bell McCormick is founder of The Policy Project.
Emily Bell McCormick is founder of The Policy Project — a nonprofit that creates movements in order to forward healthy, long-term policy at a state level.
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