“At times the only thing that was in our house was water and flour. We would mix the water and flour and put it in the oven. And that was breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
So reports Myra Smith, who lives in the Hill.
Smith offers that information in a new mini-documentary released by New Haven’s Data Haven and Purple States. It documents the widespread hunger in New Haven neighborhoods, the links to diabetes and heart disease, and the need to make healthful food affordable, along with the work being done at grassroots to address the challenge.
“At times the only thing that was in our house was water and flour. We would mix the water and flour and put it in the oven. And that was breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Wanda Perez says in the mini-doc. “Healthy food costs so much.”
A month’s worth of food stamps? That can get you through maybe two weeks of such food.
Click on the video at the top of the story to watch the 6‑minute 51-second mini-doc.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. Things weren't always so desperate for so many. Decades of legalized corruption brought us here. There needs to be a national general strike (work stoppage) to demand a single payer health care system (that would save billions...don't believe the B.S.), a guaranteed basic income and make the minimum wage a living wage, (adjusted for inflation it should be well over $20/hour). Demand a progressive tax system similar to Eisenhower's. Make top marginal rate of 90% on income over one million dollars to pay for it all, and a green new deal (just like Roosevelt's new deal) to protect the planet for our children and create jobs. And most importantly demand campaign finance reform so that our elected representatives have to actually represent us and not just their wealthy donors. Stop all the wars and put those soldiers to work restoring America's infrastructure. The people that say none of this is possible are either the ones benefiting most from our current system or they have just been fooled by the people that do. Other countries are shocked by how we treat our citizens, and those countries are not the communist hells-capes the Oligarchs, and the media they own, would like you to think they are. The leaches in this country are not the poor and working class, it is the billionaire oligarchs and they need to start paying their share. We don't need them, they need us.