As they always say, the trends start in California and spread east. Too bad these citizens are not bankers as they would be on the receiving end of trillion $ bailouts.

Selective socialism - VHF

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LA food banks see surge in demand

LOS ANGELES, July 28 (UPI) -- Los Angeles food bank operators say the troubled economy has produced the biggest demand for their help they've ever seen.

The demand is spreading from poverty-stricken residents to those in the middle and upper classes, they told the Los Angeles Times.

"This is probably the most people we've ever seen use emergency food assistance," Darren Hoffman, communications director for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, told the newspaper. "We're seeing people who were making $70,000 a year coming into a food bank for the first time."

Food bank operators say people who have spent their retirement savings to pay their mortgages are turning to the pantries to avoid going hungry. Some told the Times that major job losses in the banking and entertainment industries, coupled with the housing crisis, are hitting the San Fernando Valley area especially hard.

An official with the SOVA Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, which operates a food pantry in Van Nuys, Calif., said the agency served 5,605 people in June, a 28 percent increase over last June and 46 percent jump from June 2006, the Times said.