Since the pandemic, one in three New Yorkers has turned to a food pantry, according to a recent study by Robin Hood and Columbia University. City Limits features a list of places where people can find food aid and other hunger resources.
NYC Council/John McCarten
A delivery of turkeys in 2019.
This article was originally published in English on November 22. Translated by Daniel Parra. Read the English version here.
This week many New Yorkers will enjoy a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal. But many others will not be able to do so or will have difficulty affording it, which is a stark reality in a city where the high cost of living, inflation and other factors exacerbate food insecurity year-round.
This need has only increased in recent years: one in three New Yorkers reported having visited a pantry in the three years after the pandemic, according to a report published by Robin Hood and the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. In the case of families with children, the percentage is even higher: 40 percent said they had used a pantry to meet their food needs.
“Our lines have been longer than ever. “We are serving more families than ever before, and it is a consistent volume never seen in more than 40 years of existence,” said Judy Secon, deputy executive director of NY Common Pantry, which manages food pantries in East Harlem and the Bronxas well as a hot meals program for the homeless.
The organization served 6 million meals to people during the pandemic, Secon said, and the numbers have grown every year since. “This year, we are on track to serve more than 12 million meals,” he said, attributing the increase in part to inflation, temporary increases to the food stamp program (SNAP) ending in 2023, and the cost of living in New York.
“It’s hard to live in the city on the wages that people make, because they’re not really living wages, and with housing costs as high as they are, it’s very difficult,” Secon said.
“It’s a lot of food,” Secon said. “We do this because obviously the people we serve who are food insecure don’t really have the means to be able to provide their family with a traditional Thanksgiving meal, and so we really feel it’s important to be able to do that, to create normality for their lives.”
Below, City Limits has put together a list of food assistance resources, some of them specific to Thanksgiving and others available year-round.
Do you know of any programs or events that we should add? Send an email to [email protected]
Food aid resources:
- If you need help finding resources over the phone, call the National Hunger Hotline. US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which operates from 7 am to 10 pm Eastern Time: 1-866-3-HUNGRY for English and 1-877-8-HAMBRE for Spanish.
- You can also call 311 and ask for the nearest food resources.
- The city’s Food Help NYC website allows users to search a map of resources, including food banks, pantries and soup kitchens: https://finder.nyc.gov/foodhelp.
- To find out if you qualify and apply for SNAP or food stamps, call the city’s Human Resources Administration at 718-557-1399 to have an application mailed to you. To apply online, visit the website Access HRA. To apply in person, visit one of the SNAP centers in the city.
- He Hunter College Food Policy Center in New York has created food resource guides, broken down for each of the city’s 59 community boards: https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/coronavirus-nyc-food-reports/.
- Plentiful is an app you can download to your phone to search for food assistance programs, get information on hours, and reserve a spot in line:
- Food Bank for NYC has a map of food assistance programs and resources across the city:
- Hunger Free America has neighborhood-specific resource guides available in Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, and Polish:
- The Bowery Mission offers breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, 365 days a year, to anyone in need at its headquarters at 227 Bowery, in midtown Manhattan. Breakfast starts at 8 a.m., lunch at 1 p.m., and dinner at 5:30 p.m. More information here.
Upcoming specific Thanksgiving events:
- The Common Pantry will host a restaurant-style Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday, November 27, from 1:30 to 3:30 pm, at its location at 109 East 8th Street in Manhattan. More information here.
- QNS.com has a complete summary of turkey and food in Queens.
- Brooklyn Magazine offers a list of free events related to turkey in the county.
