We renewed our commitment to serve all across NYC when we jumped into the citywide effort to address the effects of Superstorm Sandy.

This commitment was also reflected when YCP was given the first ever Kathy Goldman Community Innovation Award by Food Bank For New York City for innovations like online ordering for our Choice Pantry.

You support this city-wide mission when you take part in efforts like our Souper Bowl food drive or the Fill the Bag Benefit on March 7th and help us meet the needs of more New Yorkers!

Stay active with YCP, because we are doing more in 2013! We offer food and more (benefits and services) serving more individuals (up 15% last year), for Manhattan and more (our impact is city-wide.) And watch here for big changes to come...

During October we observe World Food Day (the 16th) representing the global movement to end hunger.

We also observe the U.S.-focused Food Day (the 24th), "a nationwide celebration and a movement toward more healthy, affordable, and sustainable food," and National School Lunch Week, (the 15th to 19th), focused, as the President's proclamation says, on helping "to ensure more children have access to the healthy, affordable food they need to learn and grow."


During such special days and weeks we join with others to recognize the facts we face every day at Yorkville Common Pantry--too many people are hungry, not enough have access to the healthy food they need, and too many of our children are facing lives that will be burdened with diabetes, obesity, or other food-related health issues.

The action we take to address these issues at YCP is visible in our programs, like our Choice Pantry that encourages families to seek healthy food by giving them a choice in what we provide, or our Nutrition Initiative for Children and Families, that teaches children and adults new ways to prepare and enjoy healthy meals.


As we move out of October and enter the season of Thanksgiving and the other holidays--far and away the time of year when to the most people request our help--watch for news of the upcoming events in those YCP programs.

And be sure to seek out other emergency-food organizations that can be found wherever you live, and are also taking part in October observances and Thanksgiving projects.

It will take the effort of our whole community to address the issues of hunger and poor nutrition, and there are many ways you can get involved.

Only those with incomes of 130% of the poverty level or less are eligible for SNAP benefits. The Poverty level is around $15,000 a year for a single person. That means a single person must make no more than approximately $20,000 a year to be eligible. In New York City, that's impossible to live on without help.

The amount each person receives depends on their income, assets and family size, but the average benefit is $133 a month and the maximum for an individual with no income at all is $200. This benefit makes a big difference in bridging the expense/income divide for some people, and without it many would end up hungry and malnourished. No one is getting rich on Food Stamp benefits.

About half of food-stamp recipients are children and 8% are elderly. Only 14% have incomes above the poverty line and 18% have no income at all. Cutting benefits impacts lives- children, parents, seniors surviving on fixed incomes, under-employed people making ends meet and of course, the unemployed.

Less than a tenth of SNAP recipients also receive cash payments from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or what some might call "welfare". Roughly one third get at least some income from wages...but can't make ends meet on their income.

People needing Food Stamps may not be who you think they are.

Excerpts of this blog entry were taken from The Economist, "The Struggle to Eat", July 16th, 2011

Another program currently targeted for massive cutback is SNAP or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, what many people refer to as "Food Stamps" Proposed changes will greatly reduce or even eliminate the ability of programs like SNAP to respond to changes in need as economic changes dictate---expand to serve more people when need is greater and contract when economic circumstances improve.

Yet Food Stamps help stimulate the economy more than other forms of government spending since the recipients are so poor they tend to spend them immediately. Moody's Analytics found that Food Stamps were the most effective form of stimulus, increasing economic activity by $1.73 for every dollar spent. How does that compare to tax cuts or unemployment? Tax cuts yielded about a dollar or less in stimulus. Unemployment came in second, at $1.63.

Food Stamps are the best form of government stimulus, bar none. Why cut something that is so effective and that works to keep people nourished?

Excerpts of this blog entry were taken from The Economist, "The Struggle to Eat" July 16th, 2011

Now that the deficit ceiling debate is over, the Senate will be focusing its attention on budget appropriations bills. On the table are across-the-board cuts, caps or other measures to amend the federal emergency food program (TEFAP).

The recession has driven the need for emergency food to an all-time high, with 1.4 million New York City residents relying on food pantries and/or soup kitchens. TEFAP is the single largest source of emergency food in New York City. The food TEFAP provides, including fruit, vegetables, whole-grain products, low-fat dairy and lean meat, poultry and fish, is among the healthiest available to emergency food participants. In the last three years Yorkville Common Pantry has received close to $700,000 in food through TEFAP.

The House of Representatives has already passed an agriculture appropriations bill that would put TEFAP on track to provide 10 million fewer meals for New Yorkers in need over the next year. The current negotiations will influence the Senate's version of the budget, which is the next step in the process. Once the Senate's budget is introduced, the two Houses of Congress will then have to work to reach a compromise for a final federal budget agreement. Massive cuts to TEFAP will have a direct impact on YCP and our clients.

I encourage you to write to your congressional delegation and let them know how you feel about this program and what it means to the people we serve.

What would a person need to earn in order to NOT receive ANY subsidies from public sources? What would it take for one worker with two young children to be economically stable, that is, to make $57,756 or what would it take for a worker with no children to make $30,012 a year?

Working at minimum wage, one would need to make at least double, and in some cases more than three times in benefits or subsidies than they earned working. They would need to apply for, and access, subsidies and supports like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. If employed during the year, they could receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Yet they still would not bridge this gap. If they were lucky, they would be able to get some sort of housing subsidy or live in public housing. If unemployed, they would need unemployment insurance, or if not eligible, public assistance. Even this may not entirely bridge that gap. In effect, the patchwork of programs and credits operate to help people 'make due', but not necessarily to 'make ends meet.' Those ends often remain far apart.

That is not to say that entitlements like SNAP don't make a difference. They surely do. In New York City, from 2008 to 2009, the SNAP caseload grew by 13.2 percent, or more than 100,000 cases from 2008 to 2009, at the height of the recession ("Food Stamps and Tax Aid Kept Poverty Rate in Check", New York Times, March 21, 2011). If one used the Federal Poverty guidelines, 250,000 more New York City residents would have become poor had they not received SNAP and or received tax assistance during the recession. However, since the poverty line is an inadequate indicator of what is required to 'make ends meet' in New York City, these individuals continue to be unable to afford basic necessities.

Many people who work full time still don't earn enough wages to meet basic needs. Can you believe that? A recent study on economic stability indicated that "many of the jobs being added in retail, hospitality and home health care, to name a few categories, are unlikely to pay enough for workers to cover the cost of fundamentals like housing, utilities, food health care, transportation and, in the case of working parents, child care" (Many Jobs Seen as Failing to Meet the Basics, NY Times, April 1, 2011). At YCP, where we screen every new client in our pantry using a benefits calculator, we find that cashiers, telemarketers, home health aides and home attendants need to supplement their income with other benefits and emergency food, and be connected with free tax help from trained professionals on site, to pay their bills.

Let's drill down on this issue of jobs and wages for a second: A single wage earner working at minimum wage and raising two children earns a little over $15,000 a year, or approximately $3,000 less than the federal poverty level. If you live in NYC you know that the cost of living is so high that the federal poverty level is grossly insufficient at explaining what our earnings need to be. A 2007 Mailman School of Public Health study indicated that in order to afford basic necessities, a New Yorker needs to make 250% of the federal Poverty Level. A recent study, commissioned by Wider Opportunities for Women, reported in the New York Times, took it a step further. They aimed to "set thresholds for economic stability rather than mere survival" and took "into account savings for retirement and emergencies." The findings? A single worker with two young children would need to make $57,756 to be economically stable. Using that same standard, a single worker needs an income of $30,012 a year to cover basic expenses and save for retirement and emergencies. In each case, that is approximately three times the 2010 federal poverty level. Well, we knew we weren't in Kansas...

Those of us involved in emergency food see this every day: poverty impacts regular access to food in general, especially healthy food. Consumption of foods high in saturated fats and sugars leads to what has been referred to as the "Obesity-Hunger Paradox". Low-income neighborhoods, undeserved by grocery stores and the resulting lack of nutritious, affordable fresh food, have residents with higher rates of diet-related illnesses including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity. Instead of providing energy and balanced nutrition, food causes spikes in sugar levels, inadequate absorption of vitamins and minerals and weight gain. Poverty makes it very difficult to overcome these factors, unless there is unwavering commitment, high awareness, and lots of supports like food pantries, sufficient income and nutrition education in place to help.

Right now in the New York City, 335,000 people remain unemployed, that's just below a rate of 9%. People that never found themselves in this situation before are still searching for work, and struggling. Others who had previously left the ranks of the unemployment have now cycled back. This has taken its toll on family savings and 'rainy day' savings. The Food Bank for New York City's study indicated that a record 68% of residents with annual incomes below $25,000 would not be able to afford food within three months of losing their household income, up 24% from 2009. People are using, and in many cases have used up, their savings just to eat.

- Stephen Grimaldi

Spring weather may be elevating some moods around town, but not mine. I am not in a cheerful kind of mood lately. As talk in the media outlets and deliberations in the halls of government focus on mantras like 'tightening our belts' and making 'hard decisions', the truth of the matter is that working and poor people struggle to make ends meet already and make a series of hard, restrictive and circumscribed choices each and every day. In effect, their belts have already been tightened. Talk of 'benefits gone wild' has always been overblown, and luckily the fervor describing poor and unemployed people as 'bilking the system' has died down lately. Perhaps this 'quiet' has to do with the fact that more people have entered the ranks of the unemployed due to the recession, and that we all know people who did not escape unscathed. Perhaps we had never considered that this could happen to us or those close to us.

Poverty is many things, and no matter what the particular circumstances, it is no 'piece of cake' and difficult to describe if you have never experienced it. Unless you are choosing a monastic life or 'living off the grid', few people choose to live economically impoverished. Living in poverty is frequently filled with successively hard choices, like which bill to pay so the lights stay on, your family can remain housed, or you can feed yourself or your family. This last item is striking. The Food Bank for New York City released a study in January, 2011 titled "NYC Hunger Experience 2010: Less Food on the Table" and found that in order to make ends meet 30% of New York City residents reduced their food intake and 29% reduced the quality of food they ate last year. Poverty is no piece of cake.


- Stephen Grimaldi