Baltimore officials had an idea to help neighborhoods that were torn by last year’s riots: They wanted to expand a federal program that provides free meals to children during the summer.
But federal regulations made it nearly impossible to offer a third daily meal. Breakfast and lunch could be served, but an afternoon snack or supper was off limits.
Then a group of Obama administration officials that has been working behind the scenes to help Baltimore got involved. The task force, which includes senior officials at the Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies, got the city into a pilot program that made the third meal possible.
Baltimore is one of three places in the nation with a dedicated White House task force, along with Detroit, which became the largest U.S. city to declare bankruptcy in 2013, and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, one of the poorest places in the country with high unemployment, poor health outcomes and substandard housing.