Nation’s Largest Food Bank Reduces Portions, Turns Away Needy After Massive Food Stamp Cuts

[RiverLover]

Nation’s Largest Food Bank Reduces Portions, Turns Away Needy After Massive Food Stamp Cuts
11/25/2014



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, three have 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.

The New York charity is the single largest food bank in America, but the strain it faces is hardly unusual....

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/11/25/3596689/food-bank-new-york-city-cuts/

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[joshdawg]

2. No Democratic congressperson should have allowed this to happen.

[Scruffy Rumbler]

4. Right, it's all the Democrats' fault...

It is so easy for Democrats to do anything with the ever so cooperative republican'ts.

[RiverLover]

5. You can keep telling yourself that & blocking out all evidence to the contrary

or you can wake up to the fact that the Democrats have been taken over by the right. Almost all of them anyways. There are still a few, bless them, that actually walk the talk of their campaign speeches.

1.4 million are hungry & go without food in NYC alone.

Where is the outrage!?!

[skydive forever]

6. to scruffy and river

You guys know that you're both right, don't you?

[Doctor_J]

29. there was a democratic majority in the Senate, and a democrat holding a veto

pen in the white house. Why did these cuts happen?

[liberal_at_heart]

30. +1.

[progree]

32. Democrats had the House too in 2010, The new Repug - majority House didn't start until Jan 2011

From OP:

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.

[daleanime]

3. Kick....

Hey, the best time to cut some is when people need it the most.

[glowing]

7. The SNAP program should be increased in every manner possible. It is one of the MOST stimulating

economic program that we do in America; it by far, out paces the economic "trickle" than a tax cut does for anyone in any class. Not only should the program be expanded in giving more money towards buying grocery foods for a family's budget, but the "poverty" threshold should be increased to reflect reality. The "working poor" and "lower class middle-class" families really should be allowed into the program. It's too rigid because of their jealous of someone getting something for free. Instead of supporting politicians trying to cut back on the poor in our society, they should have been demanding assistance from the program to help their own family's survive the instability that is America. When we have money, good paying jobs, and a savings account, we pay our taxes; during times of hurt and personal family destabilization, the govt should be working with people during this vulnerable time in trying to keep family's in distress able to continue living in their home, continue having heat/ AC, water, lights, and have food on the table for their family to eat. Once a family loses an income or goes through a harsh economic instance, and then they lose their "way of life", it is not only much harder for them to recover again, but it causes economic blight for their neighbors, their local economy, and actually harms the system all the way up the economic food chain. It would be much cheaper for the govt and the country as a whole, to actually help insulate a person or family from economic harm for a few months, rather than have the system fall apart as it did during the recession in 2008. AND we all know that once the country has gone through a massive job destroying event and economic losses in real money for Main St to utilize, the corporations who are responsible for much of the economic pain to begin with, use the excuse of the economy to create an environment with workers who are desperate, hurting, and willing to do almost anything just to work again. The amount of money people can expect from a job, benefits within a job, and the amount of time and job responsibilities that companies have gotten away with since 2008, is absolutely disgusting. AND at the end of the day, people who aren't making much money, spending all of their money on "living", and aren't saving anything, are creating a vacuum for the future. Who and how do we pay for all the people 40 and below who are now unable to save for their children's college or retirement? Where do we get the money from when people don't have a large taxable income?

It's time to swing the pendulum back away from greed capitalism; almost to the point that we are socialistic in many aspects of making people "whole" again. We need to heal people's peace of mind to be "safe", and then it would be much easier for us to focus on other issues facing our world, like climate change that need to be addressed.

[mountain grammy]

8. You are so right, glowing, it is time to come back from the far right ideas that got us here

but it's not gong to happen any time soon, and maybe not in time at all to save Americans from complete oligarchy.

If the people have no bread, let them eat cake!

[nc4bo]

9. Time to eat the rich.

When are people going to wake the phuck up?!

Hunger can force people to do whatever they can to fill that gnawing pain in their bellies or worse, their children cry from that pain.

[Pakid]

11. If not eat them put them in there place

every time someone sees one of these greedy SOB they need to here in no uncertain term just how we feel about them and there greed. Same thing goes for there bought and paid for members of Congress make there every meeting a living hell for them.

[BlueJazz]

10. I, the great Bluejazz, have a 6 point plan to save this country.

1. Less taxes on the rich.
2. More help for large Corporations
3. Less regulation for the Banks
4. Fuck the Poor
5. Less money to help the needy
6. Did I say, fuck the poor?

[Gary 50]

13. You forgot 4.5. Destroy the middle-class.

And 7. More wars.

[libodem]

15. I'm telling on you

Maaaahhhhmmmm, Bulejazz sounds just like a Republican.

[toddwv]

12. These 89 Democrats Voted to Cut SNAP Benefits.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/29/1273428/-These-89-Democrats-Voted-to-Cut-8-7-Billion-from-Food-Stamps

[Bohunk68]

21. It was all part of a farm bill that gave huge giveaways

to the corporate farmers. My pre-redistricting critter told me why when I stopped in and saw him. The bills are not stand-alone bills, because of Boner. So, in all fairness, take another look at the bill and what it contained. Meanwhile, in our new district, represented by a Teabagger who did vote for the bill, he got re-elected in my county, which is in Upstate NY and was devastated by the flooding from Irene and Lee. I am on our Senior Citizen Council and it is hitting them very hard, yet they still voted for the Bagger because they hate DC. Stockholm Sundrome.

[RiverLover]

24. Jesus, such a large # of third way/fake democrat reps

enabling suffering of the poor & welfare to corporate farming.

Thanks so much for posting the list, even though it make me sick. It makes me mad too. Maybe if enough of us get mad enough, we'll work to find democrats who actually ARE democrats.

For the people, by the people.

[WillowTree]

26. DWS.......Surprise ... Surprise ... Surprise ...

[Odin2005]

28. FUCK COLLIN PETERSON!

I will not vote for that DINO fucker every again, EVER!

[libodem]

14. Yeah but....

What about the poor Pentagon?

[TxVietVet]

18. I believe many of low ranking military folks use food stamps also.

It had been that way for quiet a while.

[libodem]

19. Yes they do

My mom did food stamp eligibility and a lot of her cases were for AFB families.

[marmar]

16. K/R

[blackspade]

17. Austerity=starvation

[Lars39]

20. Since the US is exceptional, we didn't get 'austerity', we got 'sequestration'.

Lovely word that nobody can remember, if they knew it in the first place. So, sadly, your original definition of austerity stands.

[Gary 50]

22. January 29 2014 the House votes to cut 8.7 billion from food stamps.

162 Republicans voted for it , 63 against
103 Dems voted against it, 89 for it.
Thanks a lot Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Shultz and the other 86 Republicrat fellow travelers. Any day you can take 56 million meals away from starving people is a great day for the Republican party and their enablers. Almost as much fun as starting a new war or cutting taxes for the one percent and/or corporations.
A little off topic but I just saw a poll on MSNBC which said Hillary would beat Chris Christie in a presidential election 42% to 41%. Yeah, 41% of the electorate would vote for that belligerent, corrupt, vindictive, vile, posturing, bloviating pig.

[grahamhgreen]

23. They cut food stamps, then found billions for a new war. Disturbing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. And, they wonder why people don't bother to vote or vote 3rd Party.

[4139]

27. Don't shoot the messenger... 2010 Nytimes article on the cuts

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/us/24food.html?_r=0

[Dawson Leery]

31. Tons of money to pay Michelle Bachmann/Kristi Noem/Chuck Grassley to not grow.