The report “Reflections of Hunger From the Front Lines,” by the Food Bank,
shows that food pantries themselves also are in need of food.
Food costs, SNAP cuts
fueling food insecurity
BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
In Manhattan, food costs are rising,
according to a recent report from the
Food Bank for New York City.
Since 2013, the cost of a meal in Manhattan
increased by 46 percent.
“This is not something that just impacts
those who are living in poverty,” said Margarette
Purvis, president of the Food Bank.
“It impacts all people living in the city.”
Food’s rising cost has exacerbated what
is known as food insecurity — when a
household lacks access to affordable and
nutritious food.
The Food Bank’s “State of Hunger” report
revealed that 40 percent of food pantries
and soup kitchens said their visitors
have increased by more than half since
2013, when the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program, or SNAP, colloquially
known as food stamps, was slashed by $8.7
billion.
Around 70 percent of food pantries and
soup kitchens serve New Yorkers from
more than one borough, according to the
report, which surveyed 735 soup kitchens
and food pantries citywide this October.
Manhattanites had 37 million missing
meals, ranking fourth among the boroughs,
according to the Food Bank’s analysis of
food insecurity data from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture.
Although Brooklyn, Queens and the
Bronx had more meals missing over all,
Manhattan’s Central Harlem had the city’s
seventh-highest “meal gap” — meaning
how many meals a household is missing because
of a lack of access to food.
In Central Harlem, 28 percent of residents
COURTESY FOOD BANK OF NEW YORK CITY
were food insecure this year. The
neighborhood’s meal gap was nearly 6 million
meals, according to the report.
“Food insecurity is so bad across our city
that it can be so easy to imagine that because
things are so bad in the Bronx that
then things are not bad in Manhattan —
when nothing could be further from the
truth,” Purvis said. “Food insecurity is basically
just about not having the food you
need.”
In East Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Manhattanville,
West Harlem, Chinatown and
the Lower East Side, around one in fi ve
people were food insecure. In the rest of
Manhattan, around one in 10 were food
insecure.
Queens’ Jamaica, Hollis and St. Albans;
Brooklyn’s Canarsie and Flatlands;
Bronx’s Belmont, Crotona Park East and
East Tremont; and Staten Island’s Port
Richmond, Stapleton and Mariner’s Harbor
were among the community districts in
each of the other four boroughs with the
highest meal gaps.
The Food Bank’s survey also found 44
percent of food pantries and soup kitchens
operate on less than $25,000 a year and
that more than half rely on unpaid staff,
mostly women and seniors, Purvis said.
Purvis stressed that better policy is critical
to ensuring everyone has enough nutritious
food to eat.
“We can’t food bank our way out of this
food insecurity,” she said. “You can’t good
spirit your way through bad policy.
“A pantry should really be the place you
go when everything else has failed,” she
added.
Schneps Media TVG December 20, 2018 29