A 2014 survey found that almost 20 percent of the households using the Feeding Tampa Bay food bank were either veterans or active duty military.
The Norman family is a military family recently arrived from Colorado and transitioning into civilian life in Tampa. Never in a million years did the parents imagine that they would need help feeding their children.
“Everything changed from two, three weeks ago – we have a normal life. I worked. He worked. We’d go to the mall,” Lina Norman said. “Now, it’s nothing like this anymore. My little daughter asks ‘Can we go to the mall, can I have a hamburger? No. We always have to say no for everything now.”
Just a few weeks ago, Keith Norman was still in the Army. But after almost 10 years on active-duty and two deployments to Iraq, he wanted to follow his dream to become a law officer.
“We planned a year out. We made arrangements for housing because that would be the main thing we needed,” he said.
They found online a house to rent. Lina said they got photos of the house and assurances from the landlord that it was in a safe neighborhood.
“We sent a security deposit, rent, everything. And we think okay, he has the job interview, we have the house, we’re good,” said Lina, who met and married Keith in Germany about five years ago.
But things weren’t good. They said the house they rented online ended up being in a bad neighborhood, and was infested with roaches and full of trash.
“My kids just get scared,” Lina Norman said. “They say ‘Where are we?’ They never lived in- they've never been in a situation like this.”
The Normans used up their savings staying in motel rooms while they tried to get a refund and find another house. When their money ran low, they pawned their television, borrowed money from family and then Keith and Lina started skipping meals.
“We just buy food for the kids first. They say ‘Mom why you don’t eat?’” Lina Norman said. “They just give us pieces and just say, 'we going to be fine.' And we try to don’t lose it completely in front of them.”
The family including the four girls, Shelia, 12; Esli, 9; Jeida, 7; and Kiara, 3 started sleeping in their two cars.
“Basically, we had to stretch our money out,” Keith Norman said. “When we were living in our vehicles, it was a big life changer.”
Both parents were embarrassed and distraught by how quickly their finances disintegrated. And they worried that asking for help might affect their job prospects.
But after sleeping in their cars for about a week, the family got a motel voucher and meals from Metropolitan Ministries and help finding a modest, single-family concrete block home in the Palm River neighborhood.
The three school-aged girls are enrolled in school and Keith said he’s taken his first test in the process of becoming a law officer.
“My daughter (Shelia), she has a birthday on (Nov.) 25th. She’s going to be 13. We try to save our last money for cake,” Lina said.
But she said they were not planning on celebrating Thanksgiving because they didn’t have a reliable source of food, that was until they visited Feeding Tampa Bay.
“When I hear a story like that, I’m struck by the idea that they’re willing to do whatever is necessary in order to make the life for their children and their family, what we would all want it to be. The lengths that they have to go to though are extraordinary,” said Thomas Mantz, Feeding Tampa Bay executive director.
The regional food bank provides an estimated 65 percent of the all food used in the soup kitchens and distributed through food pantries in a ten-county area.
Feeding Tampa Bay did a quadrennial survey that found 19 percent of the households they serve have a veteran or active duty military member.
New employee Marlon Sykes, a 18-year Air Force veteran, was only slightly surprised by that statistic.
“It mostly startles me because I don’t feel like any veteran should be in that category. But it doesn’t surprise me because I’ve seen it,” Sykes said.
What happened to the Norman family is becoming a lot more common.
“It’s particularly awful that veterans who we’ve asked to stand up and guard us and defend us should be hungry. I agree with that 1,000 percent,” Mantz said. “I also believe that no one else should be hungry.”
Feeding Tampa Bay provided the Norman family with a box of food and details on how to find their mobile food pantries.
