Hunger Remains Pervasive in the City

(Food Bank of New York City)

By Josiah Omotosho

Real Life Church in the Bronx has organized a free turkey dinner for the needy and homeless on Thanksgiving Day for the past five years. Each year more people attend. This past Thanksgiving, upwards of 500 people showed up.

Freddy, a Bronxite in his 50s, said it was his second time. Clad in thick winter coat and hat, Freddy ate and carried on a conversation in Spanish with a fellow diner. “The people here are nice,” he said. “They’re doing good work here.” He refused a second round, thanking the volunteer.

“I’m not homeless,” said Freddy. “But there are many homeless people in this neighborhood. During Thanksgiving, they don’t have anything to eat. That’s why this event is so important.”

Hunger is a growing problem in the city and charitable organizations have struggled over the past year to adjust to increasing numbers of the needy. The New York City Coalition Against Hunger says that between 1.3 and 1.4 million New York residents were food insecure in 2013, including over 20 percent of the city’s children. A 2012 survey by City Harvest revealed that 22 percent of the Bronx faced food insecurity, or over 300,000 people.

Programs like Real Life Church’s annual Thanksgiving meal depend on the charity of individuals and independent organizations. In 2013, Food Bank for New York City revealed in a survey that 76% of food pantries and soup kitchens reported an increase in demand, with nearly one-fifth of those reporting an increase of more than 25%.

About half of these facilities reported problems in supporting the growing number of dependents, with some reducing the number of meals they could provide and others having to turn people away altogether. Even Real Life’s Thanksgiving program, while not seeing much increase in this year’s number of attendees, is much larger in size and scope than it was at its inception.

“We’re feeding about 500 to 700 people today, about the same as last year,” Pastor Reggie Stutzman said on Thanksgiving. “There has always been a percentage increase of attendees since we started this program though.”

(Food Bank of New York City)

In 2010, Congress legislated cuts in the SNAP program through the innocuously named Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which went into effect last year. Part of the reasoning behind the legislation was that money saved from the cuts could be redirected to pay an increase in federal school lunch reimbursement. This, however, meant the loss of over $20 in monthly benefits for families dependent on SNAP. In New York City alone, 56 million meals were lost this year due to the cuts according to the Food Bank of New York City.