Authors: Jihyun Shin, Kristina Brant, and Justine Lindemann
What is the issue?
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, over 14,000 people in Pennsylvania experienced homelessness in 2024. This statistic reflects a 12 percent jump from 2023, signaling increased experiences with housing instability across the state. Food insecurity and housing instability are often experienced simultaneously, but it can be difficult for emergency food organizations to reach and meet the unique needs of those who lack stable housing.
In this brief, we outline barriers that inhibit food banks and pantries from adequately serving people who are unhoused, highlight initiatives and innovations that food banks and pantries have developed to reduce these barriers, and provide policy and program recommendations to support and expand these practices.
Barriers serving individuals experiencing homelessness
People facing housing instability may struggle to access other basic resources needed to sustain their daily lives, like sufficient food. Emergency food assistance can serve as a vital lifeline for those experiencing homelessness to meet their food needs. However, certain features of the emergency food system can limit its ability to adequately serve this population.
- Lack of food storage: People who have unstable housing arrangements may lack the equipment needed to store food properly, like refrigerators and freezers. If food pantries only provide products like meat or dairy in forms that require cold storage, food recipients without such capacity at home would be unable to access foods from multiple essential food groups.
- Lack of food preparation tools: People with unstable housing may also lack the necessary tools to cook food, including both larger appliances like stoves and microwaves, and smaller devices like cutting boards and can openers. As a result, much of the food they receive from a standard food distribution could become difficult or even impossible to consume.
- Limited pantry options: Due to a lack of food storage and preparation options, this population may benefit from visiting food pantries more often to obtain smaller quantities of food at a time. However, especially in more rural areas, there may only be one or two food distributions per month in close proximity.
- Limited pantry accessibility: Those without stable housing may also lack a personal vehicle. In areas with inadequate public transportation, those without personal transportation may be physically unable to reach food distributions and transport their food.
- Lack of information: Without a stable address to receive physical mail, people who are unhoused may not receive information about food assistance programs in their communities.
- Substance use: While food pantries sometimes partner with shelters to distribute food, these organizations may exclude people with substance use issues from their premises. Unhoused individuals who use drugs could also lose access to emergency food services as a result.
Initiatives and innovations
Providing ready-to-eat meals: Recognizing the limitations that unhoused people can face without access to food storage or cooking equipment, many food banks and pantries are working to provide ready-to-eat meals, like tuna or chicken salad snack packs. This helps ensures that distributed food is usable and nourishing for those in need.
Carrying food preparation equipment: Some food banks and pantries are also striving to carry basic cooking tools—like cutting boards and can openers—for those who need them. An even better alternative could entail providing unhoused individuals with a safe community space to cook basic meals, equipped with proper appliances and tools.
Walk-up pantries: A few food banks and pantries, particularly those in urban areas, have expanded the "trunk" model of food distribution (see brief #7) to better meet the needs of those without stable homes or personal transportation. In a walk-up distribution, a food bank or pantry drives food boxes out to a common location where many unhoused people may live or frequent, like a public park. Recipients may pick up a food box on foot. Such a distribution could even lend out shopping carts so that food boxes could be transported more easily to a person's home base.
Partnerships with housing organizations: By conducting food distributions in partnership with shelters, some food banks and pantries are directly bringing food to those with unstable housing, aligning supportive services and reducing time burdens on recipients. Such partnerships can also allow food banks and pantries to conduct more targeted outreach to unhoused community members, ensuring those without access to physical mail are still aware of local food services.
Community fridges: Some food banks and pantries, along with some other social service organizations, are operating "free fridges"—refrigerators located in public places that can store items like fruits and vegetables. By allowing people to access these items at any time, this innovation can increase unhoused people's ability to eat foods other than shelf-stable items.
"We've got a huge homeless population in Mercer County. One of the things that we got to make sure we carry is foods that maybe don't have to be cooked or things that… If there's not a pop top, then they can't use it." (Staff member at Mercer County Food Bank, PA)
Policy and program recommendations
- Food banks should ensure that pantries can order sufficient ready-to-eat foods that require no additional preparation. There should be enough options across food groups that unhoused food recipients can adequately meet their dietary needs, not simply their caloric needs.
- Funding programs, such as the State Food Purchase Program, should allow food banks and pantries to purchase simple tools like can openers for food recipients. Such flexibility would allow recipients to access a greater variety of foods at pantries and reduce food waste.
- Food banks should encourage the formation of coalitions between pantries, housing organizations like shelters, and other social service organizations. Such coalitions could help ensure pantries know how to best reach those community members with unstable housing and could streamline supportive services for these community members.
- Food banks and pantries should work towards implementing initiatives that make food more accessible to those outside of the traditional pantry model and schedule. Raising funds for a community fridge or piloting a walk-up pantry could help pantries reach new audiences.
A PDF is available upon request; please email Tara Homan at tls32@psu.edu.
References:
- Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. (2025). "Homelessness in PA." Housing and Development.
Suggested Citation: Shin, J., Brant, K., & Lindemann, J. (2025). Connecting Underserved Groups with Emergency Food Assistance: Unhoused Individuals (Brief #17). Penn State’s Center for Economic and Community Development.
This report is part of a series of policy briefs on the provision of emergency food assistance across Pennsylvania. The full report can be accessed at the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, or by sending a request directly to the authors. This series was created by Penn State's Center for Economic and Community Development in partnership with Penn State Extension. For questions about this report, please contact the authors at jlindemann@psu.edu or kbrant@psu.edu.
This study was funded by a research grant from the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, an office of the Pennsylvania State Government. Additional support comes from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Multistate Research Project #W5001 Rural Population Change and Adaptation in the Context of Health, Economic, and Environmental Shocks and Stressors (#PEN04796, Accession #7003407).
Penn State's Center for Economic and Community Development is an applied research and engagement center dedicated to strengthening local and regional development in Pennsylvania and beyond. The Center works with and for communities to address pressing issues they face by connecting them with information about the issues facing their communities. The Center is housed in the College of Agricultural Sciences’ Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education.
