From the Hunger Front

New York City, already having levels of hunger that dwarf levels in any other major city in the industrialized world, is planning to cut funding for the Emergency Food Assistance ProgramBloomberg AGAIN Proposes Reduction in Pantry, Kitchen Funds

$670,000 Cut Would Slam Church, Synagogue, and Mosque-Run Programs

Even after the City Council proposed maintaining level funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP), the City’s main source of funding for food pantries and soup kitchens, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2006 again calls for slashing funding for this program by $670,000.

The Mayor’s proposed cut in EFAP, which was originally proposed in his Preliminary Budget but opposed by the City Council, would take nearly three-quarters of a million dollars away from community-based feeding charities, most of which are housed in churches, synagogues, and mosques. According to a survey by New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH), limited resources forced more than half of such agencies in the city to ration their food in 2004 by either turning away hungry New Yorkers, reducing portion sizes, and/or cutting hours of operation – a 20% increase since 2002 in the number of agencies forced to ration food.

This proposed cut comes just 10 days after the Mayor refused to accept a federal and state waiver to enable able-bodied adults without dependents (known as “ABAWDs”) who live in areas of high unemployment to continue to receive food stamp benefits as they actively seek work.

“Even before Michael Bloomberg became Mayor, New York City had levels of hunger that dwarfed the levels in any other major City in the industrialized world,” said NYCCAH Executive Director Joel Berg. “By making it more difficult for low-income New Yorkers to obtain federally funded food stamps at the same time as he has tried to cut funding to feeding charities, Mayor Bloomberg has only worsened the hunger problem in New York. It is no coincidence that, in his three and a half years as Mayor, Bloomberg has refused our repeated requests to visit so much as one food pantry or soup kitchen in the City, even though there are now more than 1,200 such agencies, which collectively feed more than one million low-income New Yorkers per year. If the Mayor really wants to make New York City a showcase for the world, he’ll spend less time promoting corporate subsidies and more time reducing hunger.”