by Michael J. McCarthy

About the author: Michael J. McCarthy is a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

For four months, John Fisher has waited in nutritional limbo.

The 86-year-old retired Michigan truck driver has been on a waiting list, along with a thousand other elderly Detroit residents, for free hot meals delivered weekdays. Widowed, Mr. Fisher can’t cook because arthritis makes it difficult for him to stand long, even to boil soup.

His monthly $541 Social Security check barely covers rent, utilities and other basics. With the nearest grocery store more than a mile away from his tidy
downtown apartment, Mr. Fisher, who suffers also from diabetes and glaucoma, treks three blocks with his cane to Theodore’s Family Dining and buys the
cheapest entree: the $3.50 fish and...