Volunteers work at a San Francisco food bank over the Thanksgiving Holiday this year. (Photo via Creative Commons)

The U.S. Conference of Mayors surveyed 29 major U.S. cities, and 86 percent reported that requests for emergency food aid had increased since 2010. In fact, only two cities reported equal requests, and none reported a decrease.

From Reuters:

Unemployment led the list of causes of hunger, followed by poverty, low wages and high housing costs.

No survey city expected requests for emergency food aid to drop over the next year, and 93 percent expected a rise.

The number of homeless people rose by an average of 6 percent for the survey cities, with 42 percent reporting an increase and 19 percent saying the number stayed the same.

The number of homeless families was up an average of 16 percent.

One of the cities surveyed was Portland, Oregon, where the Portland Housing Bureau says the number of homeless families alone has risen 29 percent.

From OPB News:

“When the count was completed it showed a large jump in the number of homeless families and that's very concerning. That means that there's children out on the street,” says Traci Manning, director of the Portland Housing Bureau.

The portion of the survey on hunger showed a 15 percent increase in requests for food assistance. City officials expect these requests to increase more next year. And they anticipate that food assistance will decrease. This year food pantries and emergency kitchens had to turn people away due to lack of resources.

The period of the survey ran from September 2010 to August 2011.