New Haven Independent

One speaker, Gus Cuomo from Atwater Senior Center in Fair Haven, is already a senior, and a lively one at that. He told the audience, which included U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (pictured), about the need he sees all around him, and about possible solutions.

Cuomo (pictured) advocated increased funding both for the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program and transportation to get people there. It’s all about fresh air and fresh food, he said. Click here to listen.

Anti-hunger advocates want to increase the current level of this program from $15 for a summer’s worth of produce to $30, which would bring it closer to the national average of $33.

The forum was held at the Graustein Memorial Fund offices in Hamden, and was co-sponsored by the Connecticut Association for Human Services and End Hunger Connecticut! Inc. Listening to testimony was DeLauro (pictured), who chairs the Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, which oversees funds for federal food programs. The forum was an opportunity to speak in favor of food programs that are included in the 2007 Farm Bill. This massive piece of legislation is reauthorized every five years.

Nancy Carrington, director of the Connecticut Food Bank, said that in 2005, 8.2 percent of Connecticut residents (283,000 people) did not have “safe, assured access to enough food to meet their basic needs. While hunger has increased over the past five years, in the past two years the food bank has seen a 29 percent drop in available food.

The Rev. Barbara Cheney of the Church of St. Paul and St. James in Wooster Square said her church has been running Loaves and Fishes food pantry for 25 years. (Cheney is pictured on the left with pantry coordinator Wendy Mcleod on the right, up front in the roomful of people at the hearing.) Now 250 people come each week to pick out the items they want, and TEFAP [the Emergency Food Assistance Program] is vital to their efforts. They need more funding to keep up with demand, and to be able to provide healthier food choices, which are more expensive. Mcleod described those who use the program as “working poor, senior citizens, recent immigrants and veterans.” She said TEFAT subsidizes the cost of food so they can fill a grocery bag for $2.88 with two to three proteins, grains, produce, dairy and canned goods. “Though this is impressive,” she said, “our costs have increased steadily as TEFAT offerings have declined.”

The third effort that speakers testified about was the federal Food Stamp Program. Some focused on the benefit level, which they said is inadequate to meet nutritional needs; others on the asset limit, and they recounted bizarre examples of applicants being denied or disqualified upon redetermination by such factors as receiving a lump sum payment from a non-custodial father, which pushed the mom over the income limit at that particular time (but would not have if the payment were spread out).

Darcy Cobb (pictured), director of city government’s elderly services department, said the city received an increase last year in the number of farmer’s market coupon booklet voucher program. All 1,600 booklets were distributed, she said, but that was not nearly enough for all the people who were eligible. Based on receiving 4,000 rental rebate applications from seniors, Cobb estimated the unfilled need for vouchers was 2,400. She told a story with an unhappy ending about the travails of one senior who came to her office in search of the vouchers. Click here to listen.

After listening to about 20 people testify, DeLauro responded that the farm bill currently moving through Congress includes a $1.3 billion increase for these low-income food programs. She said people often question the role of government, and cited Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, as well as this year’s Walter Reed Medical Center scandal, as examples of when government failed its own people. She said government — elected officials — have a moral obligation to help. She she added that she’s seen some bi-partisan support for these programs, therefore giving them a better likelihood of passing.