Guest Post: Doreen Wohl on Food Stamps

Following last week's effort by Public Advocate Gotbaum to call on the Mayor to change course on his decision to refuse a provision of the federal stimulus bill that would bring millions of dollars into the city, today's guest post comes from Doreen Wohl, Executive Director of the West Side Campaign Against Hunger.

Single unemployed people need to eat, too
By Doreen Wohl

At the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, we are committed to providing food to everyone in need, employed and unemployed, single or in families. We provide three days of food, once a month, and we assist people in finding solutions to income and food insecurity, such as enrollment in SNAP (food stamps), enrollment in health insurance, and enrollment in job training programs to help free them from food insecurity.

The refusal to extend food stamps to able-bodied unemployed adults without dependents, beyond three months while they look for work, is based upon old prejudices that see the poor as lazy. 

At West Side Campaign Against Hunger, our perspective is different. We function as a customer cooperative. Many of the people coming for emergency food assist in the operation of the store where customers select their food. We find that if we treat people with respect, they are eager to work.

In 2008, the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, the largest food pantry in New York, provided New Yorkers across the city with food for 710,415 meals. In the current economic crisis and with the rise in unemployment, we are struggling to keep up with a striking 26% increase in New York households.

Extending SNAP to able-bodied unemployed adults without dependents while they look for work is not only humane, but essential at this critical time.

Comments

[Thomas F. Coleman]

Single people are not a fringe segment of society whom the Mayor can ignore. We work and pay taxes like married people and those who have children. But sometimes we lose our jobs and need a helping hand.

Doreen, you are correct: jobless singles need to eat too!

I am encouraging people who visit our website to contact the Mayor's office to protest his callous attitude and stingy refusal to extend food stamps to every segment of society in need of food.

http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/whatsnew.html

Many thanks to those public officials who are speaking out against the Mayor's inhumane position.

Thomas F. Coleman
Unmarried America

[Imee]

It all boils down to her concluding sentence, "Extending SNAP to able-bodied unemployed adults without dependents while they look for work is not only humane, but essential at this critical time." If I were unemployed, and I'm single with no dependents, I wouldn't die if food stamps weren't given to me... It WOULD help a LOT though.

[Trormipt]

hm.. really like this thoughts :)