By Hannah Ballard and Sejal Mistry
Ballard is the associate director of the Center for Community and Public Health at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Mistry is a researcher at the center.
In one of the nation’s most food-insecure cities, Houston mothers and children are particularly vulnerable to going hungry.
Preliminary data published by the Kinder Institute echoes findings from a Stanford survey that found half of households with children in Harris County struggle to afford enough food, burdened by higher grocery costs and the greater nutritional needs of children. This crisis is likely to worsen in the coming years amid uncertainty surrounding the future of federal food-assistance funding.
Families are navigating gaps in food access, inconsistent services and systemic barriers that no single group can overcome on its own. To help keep families fed, the Kinder Institute has joined with two leading food-assistance nonprofits — the Houston Food Bank and L.I.F.E. Houston — and local mothers to launch a new collaborative.
Through the partnership, called “Babies and Mothers: Outreach for Nutrition and Development,” or BOND, we plan to strengthen support for mothers and children by combining data, frontline experience and community insight into one shared strategy. BOND places community voices at the center, a change from top-down partnerships and an approach that will reshape how Houston tackles maternal and child health through nutrition.
Over the next year, guided by the Episcopal Health Foundation’s Collaborating for Healthy Communities Initiative, we will deepen our coordination, pool resources and develop a long-term action plan. This strategy will mark a shift from short-term food relief to long-term investment in equipping Houston families with the knowledge, resources and tools to support their own health and their children’s nutrition. Early goals include expanding food and formula delivery in neighborhoods with limited access to grocery stores and public services, as well as tailoring nutrition education programs for families who need it most.
But first, we got together in late September to gauge what’s working, where we’re falling short and what we should prioritize moving forward. What we learned surprised us: We weren’t as aligned as we assumed on the scope of the challenge or the best ways to address it.
While these lessons will guide BOND, they reveal a broader need for stronger, more connected efforts across Houston’s medical, public health and nonprofit communities. As we set BOND into motion, these initial insights will serve as a compass for our collective work ahead.
We have the map – now we’re setting our mile markers
When we met, each BOND member rated how we’re doing across six core domains — collaboration, communication, advancing equity, planning for action, measuring to improve and sustainability — on a 1-to-10 scale.
When it came to rating our ability to measure impact, partners were all over the map. But when asked about vision and direction, responses were far more aligned.
This highlights that we agree on where we’re headed but not on how to measure whether we’re getting there. To move forward with confidence, we’ll need a collective understanding of our strengths, our gaps and what “success” really means — starting with a long-term action plan.
We need a clear regional path and the shared will to walk it together
Partners reported stronger agreement on our ability to identify and understand inequities in who is most likely to face hunger, a promising foundation. But alignment dropped when it came to developing strategies to address the root causes behind those inequities.
This tells us that while we increasingly recognize what the problems are, we don’t yet have a coordinated strategy for how to solve them. Because nutrition-based support varies widely across Houston, families receive different levels of access and care. To address these inconsistencies, we need a comprehensive regional plan — one that maps out who’s doing what, identifies gaps and helps us work together rather than in isolated pockets.
Community voices will be essential to charting the course ahead
Partners showed moderate alignment in our ability to identify community needs and assets. But turning that understanding into goals shaped directly by Houston families didn’t come as easily.
These ratings point to a larger issue: We often assume what families need instead of asking them. For BOND to succeed, local mothers must be at the center — helping to define goals, shape programs and guide how we measure progress.
Their day-to-day experiences will surface practical solutions we might otherwise miss, ensuring the work we do addresses the real challenges families face. And their guidance, paired with what we learned from our ratings, will help us build a more resilient, responsive and equitable support system — one capable of meeting families where they are and strengthening food security across Houston.
