Nearly half of enlisted families struggled to afford enough food last year. Congress has known for decades how to solve the problem

• This article was produced with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, and supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

The Armed Services YMCA in Harker Heights, Texas, is a state-of-the-art facility, with a swimming pool, gym and coffee shop. There’s also a food pantry tucked away in a small room at the far end of a hallway on the second floor, where active-duty soldiers stationed nearby at Fort Hood can receive free groceries. More than a dozen pantries surround the army base, where about 40,000 soldiers are stationed.

The pantry’s parking lot is where I found Miguel Pérez on a July morning, lugging a heavy reusable grocery bag to his pickup under the already blazing central Texas sun.