NY Daily News: Mayor de Blasio urged to renew $25 million emergency funding for NYC food pantries

By SHANT SHAHRIGIAN

A New Yorker receives a box of food at a Mobile food pantry for New Yorkers Impacted By Covid-19 Pandemic at Barclays Center on April 24, 2020 in Brooklyn. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Food Bank For N)

The city should give another $25 million to food pantries struggling to feed hungry New Yorkers reeling from the coronavirus outbreak, say leading Big Apple charities.

In a recent letter to Mayor de Blasio, they noted that an emergency allocation of $25 million ran out at the end of 2020, as more people than ever have been relying on food pantries.

“The city ended the funding, but the emergency has continued,” Met Council CEO David Greenfield told the Daily News on Monday.

“That new, permanent half a million New Yorkers who lost their jobs — those are the ones who swelled the ranks of food-insecure New Yorkers,” he continued. “Every month that goes on, they’re in a worse state.”

He was referring to a 400,000-person increase in food-insecure residents over the course of last year, to 1.6 million New Yorkers, according to the city — a surge fueled by widespread layoffs and a slow economic recovery.

The initial outbreak prompted the city and state to allocate $25 million each to food pantries last year.

Some of the cash enabled the Met Council to open a new warehouse to store food for the city’s more than 500 pantries — but with the funding gone, the site was set to close Monday, Greenfield said.

“New Yorkers’ food insecurity needs remain at unprecedented levels,” wrote Greenfield and the heads of Catholic Charities, City Harvest, Food Bank for New York City and United Way of New York City. “Simply put, many New Yorkers are not getting the food they desperately need.”

A de Blasio spokesman did not immediately answer a request for comment.

The charities are also seeking renewed state funding but are focusing on the city as Albany spread its funds beyond the Big Apple.