Harlemites queue early for food

By Frances McInnis
September 28, 2009

It’s 8:15 on a warm Wednesday morning in September. Eighteen small wire shopping carts are lined up outside Chambers Memorial Baptist Church on East 123rd street in East Harlem. They sit snug to the church’s white wrought-iron fence, and each is lined with a plastic garbage bag.

Most of the carts’ owners stand away from the fence in groups of three or four, save a short, overweight Hispanic man and an elderly woman in a bright blue windbreaker who sit on folding stools next to their carts. More than 25 people wait on the street, quietly chatting and sipping from small cups of coffee.

Photo Credit: Frances McInnis

They are waiting for 10 o’clock when the church’s double set of mirrored doors will open and volunteers will distribute groceries. It’s a normal business day at the church, because nearly one third of East Harlem residents live below the federal poverty level, according to the US Census’s 2005-2007 American Community Survey.

In the year since Lehman Brothers failed, triggering the collapse of the American economy, unemployment, foreclosures and financial unease have spiked. America has watched huge companies fail, some housed in skyscrapers only a few miles south of the Chambers Memorial Church. But East Harlem residents have been battling poverty and hunger long before the start of the current recession. The demand for food at the church’s pantry has always been there, says Kim Calese, a deacon at the church. She says the church helped 600 to 800 people eat each month before the recession, and still do about the same volume.

Andrew Smallman directs the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program for United Way, which is Chambers Memorial’s biggest supplier. He said New York City has had a surprisingly small increase in demand for food in the last year. “We expected with unemployment rising to see a lot bigger numbers,” he said on the phone Wednesday. Smallman said he now believes that many of the people who lost their jobs were already using food pantries because they had low-paying jobs or could only find part-time work. “And financial sector workers who have lost their jobs are probably not turning to food pantries,” he added.

The people on 123rd street are not financiers. They are largely retirees, veterans and people who rely on social security or disability benefits. About half the recipients at Chambers Memorial, Calese says, are not enrolled in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), widely known as the Food Stamp Program. Some are income-ineligible, some are undocumented immigrants and some find the paperwork, long lines at city offices, and fingerprint requirements intimidating.

Those enrolled in SNAP still face hunger every month, Calese says. “Food stamps are great, but they don’t last, by the second week they’re gone,” she adds. “Now you’ve got two weeks to go: that’s where the pantries come in.” On Tuesdays, Calese issues cards that patrons may use once a month to get enough eggs, rice, potatoes, juice, canned food, fresh fruit and vegetables and other groceries for about three days. She says that many of the people lined up outside rely on several food banks to feed themselves each month.

Eura Lee Warren, 84, regularly visits three pantries including Chambers Memorial. She walks up to 123rd street once a month from the seniors home on 111th street and Park Avenue that she moved into seven years ago last July. Warren has eked by on Social Security since she retired from her job operating an ironing machine at a large laundry on 96th street, a job she worked for forty years. Her clothing is impeccably pressed and her grey hair is twisted into a neat bun, secured by hairpins.

“I arrive at 8:00, and I used to always be the first person in line,” she said. But in the last month, people have been arriving earlier and earlier. Volunteer Jeanette Gaston says the line of carts starts forming at 6:30 a.m. some days.

There used to be an unofficial rule that putting one’s cart against the fence secured a place in line. “At first, they were doing pretty good with the system with shopping carts,” Calese said, “but after a while, people weren’t respecting it.” Some brought friends’ carts as well as their own, or left after securing a place in line, only to reappear just as the doors opened. After several women complained two weeks ago, Calese and Gaston began handing out numbers to ensure that the people waiting on the sidewalk were the ones who got the food.

Warren says she is happy with the new system. “There was too much pushing and shoving,” she says. “You shouldn’t be trying to push someone out of the way. God will make sure you can eat and sleep.” Adjusting her glasses, she says, “I’ve got number three today…not bad.”

Photo Credit: Frances McInnis

Bronx resident Jose Agosto, 73, has number seven. He leafs through the receipts and cards in his wallet as he steps up to the doors; he cannot find his registration card for Chambers Memorial Church, although he does find cards for the three other pantries he visits. Instead, he offers his Veterans identification card; Agosto is a retired US Navy electrician. Although his income exceeds the $1,174 monthly cut-off for the SNAP, he says he has trouble meeting his expenses. “These days, money goes,” he said. “Rent, car, TV and all that — money goes. Everything’s more expensive.”

As Agosto waits in the doorway, Gaston and Jasmine Rosa, another volunteer, step around piles of cans and boxes, filling his cart. The Food Bank delivered a pallet yesterday, and the hallways and staircase where the food is kept is cramped. The pantry is receiving more than they’ve ever received from their three main donors, United Way, the Food Bank for New York City and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Even so, there is always a need for more food, and by the end of the day the pantry is running out. A few recipients stop part way down the street to take inventory; a thin, grey-haired woman sighs when she realizes she didn’t receive any eggs. One by one, the people in line approach the doorway, receive what is left and leave. Some will return to apartments in East or Central Harlem, others to neighboring boroughs.

Finally, the line, and the carts, are gone. And, as the afternoon stretches into evening, the sidewalk outside of Chambers Memorial Baptist Church is deserted for another day.