Hunger On Rise In New Haven

More New Haveners are facing food insecurity, particularly if they are Latino and live in any of the city’s six lowest-income neighborhood.

That’s just some of the disheartening information alders heard Tuesday night from a report on ​“The State of Hunger in New Haven.”

Produced through a collaboration of local organizations that work on food insecurity issues and the city’s Food Policy Council, the report reveals a snapshot of who is going hungry in the city and what can be done about it.

Alycia Santilli, director of the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE) at the Southern Connecticut State University School of Health and Human Services and a member of the New Haven Food Policy Council, told alders that across the city 22 percent of residents are food insecure, meaning they don’t have enough food or money to buy food at some point in the month.

In the city’s six lowest-income neighborhoods the number of people who are food insecure rises to 34 percent. And when you drill down even further and specifically look at the Latino population in those neighborhoods the number of people without access to enough food rises to 50.1 percent.

“The most distressing, I think is knowing that our children are going hungry,” said Santilli, who is a co-author of the report.

The number of children in New Haven public schools who are eligible for free meals has increased dramatically from 83.8 percent in 2014 – 2015 to 93.7 percent in 2016 – 2017, she said.

Kim Hart is the mother of one of those children.

The 56-year-old mom was disabled after suffering a brain aneurysm and no longer able to work. She relies on a combination of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the school breakfast and lunch, and food pantries to make sure she and her son eat. Going to food pantries often means getting to a location up to three hours early,” she said.

“If they’re open from 11 to 1 and I get there at 10:30, the line will be wrapped around the building,” she said.

“I’m a woman of faith,” she told alders Tuesday night. ​“My son nor I have ever went to bed hungry.”

Hart said when her son was younger, if push came to shove, they could go to a soup kitchen and eat. But now that he’s older, she said he’d rather go hungry than be seen in a soup kitchen.

She said if the city schools could further expand their evening meals programs — a policy recommendation of the Food Policy Council — it would help. (Read here about funding the school district received to expand such meals.)

Santilli said that food insecurity has a detrimental impact on health with those who are most food insecure experiencing problems related to high blood pressure, diabetes, and being overweight or obese. Food insecure children are also more likely to have diabetes and asthma, according to the report.

New Haven has a network of some 70 food providers but she noted that of those organizations ​“almost all are run by volunteers.” And more could be done about food insecurity if there were a better-coordinated strategy, more paid people doing that work, and system for addressing the problem, she said.

Austin Bryniarski, vice chair of the city’s Food Policy Council, said that the council is advocating three policy prescriptions: expanding the school meals program with the goal of serving three meals every day; streamlining the food emergency system; and protecting food system workers from theft and abuse.

Bryniarski also urged alders to continue to support the city food system policy director position that was created in 2016. Its current occupant, Joy Johannes, has submitted her resignation.

Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear a recent interview with Santilli about the report on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.