The Lead

The New York Times reports how a requirement to have clients prove that they are impoverished could get in the way of the work of San Francisco area food pantries.

Eduardo Giaconi, a volunteer, stood outside St. Gregory’s of Nyssa Episcopal Church on Potrero Hill, as he does every Friday noontime, greeting people by name as they arrived for the weekly food pantry.
“They are good people,” Mr. Giaconi said of the 1,200 households served each month, “and they need it.”

But receiving free food could soon become more difficult in San Francisco. A controversial decision involving the United Way of the Bay Area would require those who patronize pantries to prove that they are poor.

The move has caused dismay in the community that serves the indigent, and has raised concerns about the local United Way’s stewardship of a program financed by federal tax dollars. The plan could also be in conflict — either in practice or in spirit — with San Francisco’s sanctuary law, which requires no-questions-asked services for illegal immigrants.

At issue is the Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program, which is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In many ways it is the aid of last resort, helping finance soup kitchens, shelters and food banks.

The local United Way has taken over control of the funding and believes that too many food pantry clients are both unqualified and double-dipping.

Laura Escobar, the United Way’s director for the program, said she had heard that commercial groceries had gone to pantries to “get food and resell it at their stores.”

Neither Mr. McDonnell nor Ms. Escobar cited specific cases. A check with dozens of food bank operators found a consensus that fraud was not a problem. They say if families are going to multiple pantries, which is not against the rules, the explanation is simple: they are hungry.
Pantry operators said requests for food had doubled since the recession began, and requiring income verification would drain limited resources and raise practical concerns.

Some food pantry operators believe that the problem is that some people are looking for a mechanism to screen out illegal immigrants.

There is also the issue of illegal immigrants. In 1989, San Francisco became a sanctuary city, which means institutions cannot ask about immigration status as a condition for receiving city services or benefits. Some food banks receive city support — raising concern that they would be breaking local law by following the United Way’s directive.
“It’s the trickle down from Arizona,” said Beth Abrams, director of Grupo de la Comida, referring to the recent controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The United Way’s Ms. Escobar said, “That is not the intent.”

FEMA does not require the proof that the local United Way is requiring.

Some people familiar with the situation say a type of turf battle has developed, pitting old ways of feeding the poor, like soup kitchens held at shelters with paid staff, against pantries, which tend to be run by volunteers and allow people to cook their own meals at home. FEMA spending on food banks has doubled since 2003, while money for soup kitchens has been cut 60 percent.
Sara Miles, executive director of The Food Pantry held at St. Gregory’s, said the shift in financing “challenges the social service monopoly that I suspect some would like to see restored in the city.”

Ms. Miles opposes income verification, and could lose $14,000 in FEMA financing under the new rules. However, the pantry’s doors will remain open, because most of the mountains of fresh produce in the church sanctuary have been donated by others — not via the United Way — with no strings attached.

Comments (6)

We take people at their word that they are hungry and need food. There may be a few who take advantage but that is not our problem.

Posted by Ann Fontaine | October 16, 2010 6:16 PM

I ran the food pantry at my parish for two years before I went to seminary. I always told those work worked at the pantry: The folks we are feeding hungry, and Jesus tells us to feed them. We are not asking them to prove whether they are poor or not. We do not know all of their circumstances. We are not walking in their shoes. We have to trust them. And so we fed the people who came to us, and often went out into the world to find others to feed. When people seemed to be taking advantage of us, we talked to those people, explained the situation, and asked those people to make the decision themselves.

This new policy is both discriminatory and arrogant. Think about it: We who have enough food to eat doubt that you are hungry. You must prove to us that you deserve to be fed, by us, right here, right now. Does Jesus ask US for passports or visas or income tax returns or caloric intake charts before he feeds us? No. So how can we, who tend to have more than enough, tell those who do not have enough that they have to "qualify" according to some arbitrary standard before we will feed them? Where is the Gospel in this?

In all of my time overseas, I learned what it was like to be be hungry every day. I learned what it meant to share food. I lived with people who worked so hard to care for each other, even in the midst of extreme want. The poor tend to care for the poor. Shouldn't those of us who are not poor do the same?

More than anyone else in this country, we in the Church are called to feed the hungry. We must stand up against policies like these, because they are not Gospel.

Posted by laurenstanley | October 16, 2010 6:40 PM

We must resist the temptation to bring our corporate/business ethos into the arena of social services which should rightly be the domain of our Gospel ethos. I echo what Ann and Lauren have said.

Posted by Lelanda Lee | October 16, 2010 10:26 PM

Nearly every parish that I have served has had some kind of feeding program, be it a food bank or a soup kitchen or both. In nearly every instance, some education and pastoral care has had to be done among volunteers and/or leaders about this issue.

Often the anxiety we were addressing had to do with the myth-of-the-day relative to the poor and the hungry.

In the 1980's, we had to address the myth of the "welfare queen." In the 1990's, there was fear of "double-dipping." This decade appears to be dominated by questions of "just how poor are they?" This is in addition to the usual assumptions and prejudices about the poor.

We teach over and over again that we serve whom God sends us, and that our only rules have to do with safety and health. I guess it is also the case that we should remind people not to be shocked when they see among our guests, as well as our donors and funders, the full-range of human emotion, especially in a time stress.

This apparently includes the nagging fear that somebody somewhere is getting a can of fruit they don't "deserve."

Posted by ATGerns | October 17, 2010 5:55 AM

Soup kitchens and food pantries have already established that they don't trust the poor, otherwise they would be giving them cash.

On a similar front, the rector's discretionary fund, rectors know their funds are not bottomless. Part of doing the most good is determining which requests to fulfill and which to turn down. Part of that is getting a sense of the need. Another part is getting a sense of whether the requester has already received help from the minister down the street.

Posted by John B. Chilton | October 17, 2010 9:51 AM

I have volunteered at the Food Pantry at St. Gregory’s of Nyssa and founded a similar neighborhood grocery network pantry, Julian Pantry, at St. John the Evangelist.

We do not give our clients money because we do not have money to give. We share from the bounty we do have - patience, compassion, respect for the dignity of all, and food that has been donated to us to share.

My understanding is that all is a gift from God. The concept of "deserving" anything is our judgment upon this marvelous and complex creation. Steadfastly following Jesus' teaching to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves helps guard against this conceit of judgment while filling our hearts with joy.

Posted by Lauren Dietrich Chavez | October 19, 2010 12:21 PM

Add your comments

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Reminder: At Episcopal Café, we hope to establish an ethic of transparency by requiring all contributors and commentators to make submissions under their real names. For more details see our Feedback Policy.

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

CATEGORIES

Organizations