Nation’s Largest Food Bank Reduces Portions, Turns Away Needy After Massive Food Stamp Cuts
Thanks to billions of dollars in food stamp cuts over the past year, the nation’s largest food bank has seen need jump so dramatically that it can’t keep up, the Food Bank For New York City (FBFNYC) announced Monday.
At least one facility out of every three that the FBFNYC operates has had to turn people away at some point in the past year. Almost two thirds have started giving out smaller amounts of food to try to stretch their resources, Al Jazeera America reports, as four out of five food bank locations reported a rising number of people coming in the door since last November’s food stamp cuts.
The cuts followed the expiration of an increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that Congress enacted as part of the 2009 stimulus law. The emergency increases to SNAP during the depths of the Great Recession helped the system respond to a massive leap in food insecurity and hunger nationwide. They were intended to last through 2015. But various other budget priorities eventually lead Democrats to give grudging support to a pair of 2010 bills that pushed the wind-down up first to 2014, then to three weeks before last Thanksgiving.
In New York City alone, the cuts wiped out about 56 million meals’ worth of benefits, the FBFNYC guesses. The group estimates that 1.4 million people in the city rely on emergency food services like food banks and food pantries, meaning that the country’s most densely populated metropolis is also one of its hungriest areas. Feeding America, the hunger charity network that includes the FBFNYC, estimates that it serves 14.5 percent of the national population each year, and the FBFNYC numbers put city participation at 16.5 percent.
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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/11/25/3596689/food-bank-new-york-city-cuts/
Gotta keep that war going! Sacrifices must be made! 