food stamps collab article 11-4-2011

Are Food Stamps Programs Working for the Working Poor?
Garrity Guenther
11 April 2011
New York, NY

For Jose Torres, 32, sous chef at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, preparation for the next day’s  meal service begins the night before.  “Often,” he said with a smile, “I fall asleep going over a mental list of what I have to do the next day.” He ticks off a list of ingredients, figures out who will be volunteering the next day, and when they will arrive at the soup kitchen, located at 296 9th Avenue (near 27h Street), the timing for the steps and preparation of the meal and even the 8 big dumpsters of scraps and produce boxes that will have to be wheeled out for the morning trash pick-up. It’s quite a list for one person to handle, but Jose has a positive attitude. “I am constantly reminded why I do this. It’s a very fine line between me and having a job and being on the other side of the service station. I’m glad to be where I am... and not over there.” His worries are substantiated by the fact that, in the past, many of the volunteers, coordinators and other sous chefs have relied on the services of Holy Apostles and other soups kitchen in the area.

Jose and his colleagues arrive at Holy Apostles at 6 in the morning to roll the dumpsters out to the street for the trash pickup, run inventory to make sure everything that is going to be used during day is in its right place and clean. With everything situated, they move on to the well rounded daily meal, turkey ham and pasta casserole with healthy sides of broccoli and carrots as well as peaches, 4 slices of bread (and butter) and a glass or two of iced tea. They have to work quickly, meal service begins at 10:30 a.m.

Holy Apostles can expect between 900 and nearly 1,200 mouths to feed on any given day. Although Holy Apostles is in Hell’s Kitchen on Manhattan Island, people come from all over the city to present their meal tokens but also to work with the 60+ volunteers and coordinators that help to run some of Holy Apostles advocacy, education, job seeking and child care services. A warm meal is welcomed, but many who visit Holy Apostles find themselves there for the services and workshops that help people like Rudy Washington, 48 of W. 126th Street and a regular at Holy Apostles, to pursue “someway, anyway, out of the cycle that keeps [people like me] on the streets and out of work.”
    Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen first opened its doors on October 22nd of 1982, under the Reverend Rand Frew. Rev. Frew was motivated by the influx of homeless men and women to the area, specifically around Chelsea Park and hoped to serve as long as the need was there. At first need dictated that the soup kitchen served around 250 meals per day, but the need steadily grew, now nearing 1,200 meals per day. Holy Apostles has adopted well and is now considered a model program, according to Rev. Maxwell, the current leader, for serving the hungry of New York City (and most of the east coast) not only food but also a path out of poverty and hunger.

According to records of Reverends Frew and Greenlaw, the soup kitchen existed first as a human response to an observed need. Surrounding Holy Apostles Church was an entire community of people that congregated around Sunday service and the guidance of the church, regardless of socio-economic or employment status. Since then the church has lost it’s strictly Christian tinge. Through the development of the soup kitchen from that first day in October of ’82, the church and community has continued to open its doors to “brothers and sisters of need, regardless of race, religion or any other dividing factors,” said Rev. Maxwell through e-mail.

Many soup kitchen and advocacy organization across the city offer counseling and referral services, following the examples set by Holy Apostles and America Works, an advocacy and support non-profit that offers services and meal support as long as the individual is actively pursuing some sort of job. Counseling and referral services (C&R) make it their mission to help individuals sort out problems arising from poverty, mental illness, neglect and drug addiction by offering drug/alcohol rehab, housing, legal aid, health care, additional food services and possible employment (with the organization).

Such programs require a person to go search for jobs, stay clean and motivated, go to interviews and follow up with future employees for around 6 hours per day. Leaning on soup kitchens and food stamps is not meant to be a lasting way of life, and the system is almost designed as such. For people that are actively pursuing a way out of poverty, people that are working towards being a member of the “working poor” and later just working people, organizations like America Works and places like the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen are working to fill that need.

Impoverished and homeless individuals, however, paint a less rosy picture of the food stamp system. Ideally, programs like Holy Apostles and America Works provide short-term shelter, food and support for people with access to food stamps as they work towards getting themselves out of the cycle of poverty. But practically, this is not the case. For Ariashley Pichardo, AGE, the food stamp program and support organizations were not accessible at all. She “had to go through A LOT of red tape... just to be able to receive the minimal amount that I do.” She went through many different welfare counselors and repeatedly had to over-substantiate the fact that she was unemployed. “You only have a brief... 30 minute window, and if you’re late by 2 minutes they turn you away.” This is very much the case for other homeless and hungry, like Rudy Washinton.

Washington and Pichardo were both very critical of the way they had been treated by the volunteers and employees that they had encountered along their way. Though Steve Fanto, volunteer co-ordinator at Holy Apostles, maintains that volunteers at Holy Apostles  cannot be “judgemental at all. if they make the people that come in here feel uncomfortable or guilty, then they’re out...a good volunteer is ideally welcoming, warm and lively,” he is contradicted by common experiences. According the Washington there is a sense that “the guy across the table from you is different and he thinks he’s better than you.” For Pichardo not only were the volunteers and employees “ridiculously rude and treat you like scum,” but also the process of accessing the program moved at a snail’s pace and often snagged on meticulous details like metrocards, lack of proper documentation or “whatever lame excuse they come up with.”
    Yet coordinators, volunteers and even the senior researcher at the Center for Economic Opportunity, Christine D’Onofrio, insist that the needs and goals of “designing and implementing evidence-based initiatives aimed at poverty reduction,” saying that their “very specific programs managed to keep people out of poverty during the recession.” Ideally, she is right. The program is designed in a certain way that will work if substantiated with funding, benevolent volunteers and a better attitude.

However, the program is lacking that funding, those “welcoming, warm and lively” volunteers and that can-do American spirit. In order for food stamps programs and advocacy organizations to best serve those they seek to this must change. “I would be lying if I said that the food stamp/welfare program has not helped me,” said Pichardo. Though it is not accessible, not substantial and not pleasant, the food stamps program provides Pichardo with “$180 dollars that [she] didn’t have before.” Yes, the program needs funding, as nearly every government program does. But ask Pichardo, Torres, D’Onofrio or Falco what the program needs when able to choose between money, power and volunteers and you will get a resounding answer. “[Good] VOLUNTEERS!”

Around 5pm, Holy Apostles volunteers finish their closing tasks, cleaning pots, pans and all kitchen surfaces, running inventory and storing the ingredients that will be used the next day. “Sometimes it feels like I’m doing the same thing every day [with no change],” said Torres, but on others “you feel differently, someone in line smiles at you and it’s a good day.” It’s moments like that, respectful and gracious volunteers and service members that give places like Holy Apostles their good name. Were it only that there were more places like that for New York City’s hungry and homeless to turn to.