Published on :
–
In the United States, the Covid-19 crisis has led to a record increase in the number of new unemployed. In New York, food banks run by charities saw many people who suddenly lost their jobs come to stock up there last weekend.
Sachets filled with oranges, sweet potatoes and onions, sterilized milk, cans of tuna, salmon… Hundreds of people came to stock up on March 28 and 29 at one of the food banks run by a large New York charity, City Harvest, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of northern Manhattan.
Here, there are no long queues: people arrive gradually, often wearing protective masks, and are kept at a distance from each other by volunteers. “It’s the first time I’ve come,” says Lina Alba, 40, who, like thousands of New Yorkers, is now deprived of income due to the coronavirus epidemic which caused the stoppage of almost all of the activities of the American economic capital.
>> To see: In the United States, Trump continues to refuse containment in New York
Alone with five children between the ages of 11 and 23, she worked as a housekeeper in a Manhattan hotel until it closed two weeks ago. His two eldest children also lost their jobs. “We need help now, she said. It’s crazy, we don’t know what will happen in the coming weeks.” Yet she tries to keep smiling. “At least I’m spending time with my kids. I’m the teacher, the mom, everything. We’re alive, healthy, we just have to pray.”
“That Won’t Be Enough”
This single mother took a week to register as unemployed. The computer servers are saturated. But since Friday, “it’s done,” she said, relieved. Benefits should begin to arrive in three weeks. She also hopes to receive at least $1,200 from the federal government soon, thanks to the historic aid plan approved last week by Congress. “It will not be enough”, but “we will already be grateful for what they can give us”, she confides.
José Neri, 51, one of the many Hispanic employees running New York restaurants, is also using the services of a food bank for the first time. At home, they are five. “We are drawing on our savings to survive,” he says in Spanish, wearing a mask and protective gloves for fear of catching the disease. “We have what it takes to hold on for now,” he adds. He too is counting, in order to be able to “get out of it”, on the aid promised by the federal government to low incomes.
>> To see: Avoiding mass unemployment, a priority for States
Jhordana Ramirez, 39, is forced to continue working, despite the risk of contagion in a metropolis with tens of thousands of confirmed cases. She is a home help for the elderly, who “depend 100%” on her. The effect of the crisis on her home is “enormous”, she underlines. Her husband and eldest daughter lost their jobs. Her 8-year-old daughter is “anxious” and can’t stand still. “I try to save as much as I can, especially for rent, bills like hydro, cable, food and all those things,” she says, also eagerly awaiting the federal check.
“Nothing compares”
Testimonies to which Geraldine Fermin, employee of City Harvest, has become accustomed, for almost two weeks that New York has been living confined. “It’s heartbreaking that it’s like this for so many people,” she says. “People who were poor are poorer, and those who had decent jobs, who could get by, are now poor too.” “There used to be 1.2 million people in New York who needed food assistance. Right now it’s three times that, it’s more than 3 million New Yorkers,” says Eric Ripert , vice chairman of the board of directors of City Harvest.
The charity, which in addition to its markets provides food for some 400 centers for the homeless, has no supply problem for the moment, he says. But she is looking for funds to buy more food and joins forces with other associations to form a common front in the face of “a situation that will get worse”. “We experienced September 11, the great recession of 2008-2009, we experienced a lot of things, but it is not at all comparable to this disaster that we are experiencing”, worries Eric Ripert.
With AFP
–
