Hunger-Based Lines Lengthen at the Faith-Based Soup Kitchens
By FRANCIS X. CLINES
Published: April 8, 2005 NYTimes.com
The 1,130 soup kitchen guests, as they're respectfully called, began
gathering outside the church doors an hour early, curling around the
corner in a long line to await a free main meal - their safety-net
highlight in another day of being down and out, part of the working
poor, or surviving somewhere in between.
The repast, at 2,500 calories a serving, steamed aromatically: chicken à
la king, rice, buttered spinach, peaches. A staff member in the nave of
the building, the Church of the Holy Apostles, cued dozens of volunteer
helpers: "Ladies and gentlemen, it's showtime. Thanks be to God." And
from Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, the diners flowed in.
The sight of masses of Americans gratefully chowing down on free food is
indeed a show, an amazingly discreet one that is classified not as
outright hunger but as "food insecurity" by government specialists who
are busy measuring the growing lines at soup kitchens and food pantries
across the nation. There were 25.5 million supplicants regularly lining
up in 2002; they were joined by 1.1 million more the next year. And even
more arrive as unemployment and other government programs run out.
Much as the diners at Holy Apostles peered ahead to see what was being
dished up at the steam tables, soup kitchen administrators across the
country are currently eying governments' trilevel budget season and
wincing at all the politicians' economizing vows. They know that "budget
tightening" eventually means longer lines outside their doors.
"It's a desperate thing," said the Rev. Bill Greenlaw, director of the
Holy Apostles charity, one of the largest among 1,298 kitchens and
pantries regularly helping more than one million residents in New York
City. "Every level of government seems to have the same mantra, that
these programs are vulnerable.
"We're bracing that all three levels of government are coming down at
the same time."
Most immediately, food charities are pleading against further cuts in
the federal emergency food and shelter program, which directly fights
hunger. Last year, 48 soup kitchens closed in the city as supplies were
exhausted, and hundreds of others reported to be making do by cutting
back on daily portions.
Beyond that, however, administrators know that the myriad of severe
program cuts looming in Washington - for everything from low-income wage
supplements to health care spending for poor people - can only lead to
further cuts down the revenue food chain in statehouses and city halls
and, finally, longer lines of people silently begging for food.
The budget debate in the Republican-run Capitol presents a Hobson's
choice between the House's five-year, $30 billion-plus in program cuts
for the poor and the Senate's $2.8 billion in cuts - one-tenth the pain,
but focused most heavily on nutrition programs.
read the rest here ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/08/opinion/08fri3.html?ex=1113624000&en=88ad4b7130add481&ei=5070
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