Mayoral hopeful Justin Elicker dropped by the Broadway soup kitchen to discover that the line is nearly twice as long at the end of the month as at the beginning. That gave him an idea.
The city can’t control how much people get in food stamps each month. But, suggested Elicker (pictured above), the city can help people plan their food-stamp spending to make it to the end of the month without needing a soup-kitchen meal.
Elicker, an East Rock alderman and one of six Democratic mayoral candidates seeking to succeed retiring incumbent John DeStefano, was mulling over that idea Tuesday as he left the New Haven Community Soup Kitchen after helping serve 305 hot lunches.
Elicker stopped by at the invitation of soup kitchen coordinator David O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan has invited all six of the mayoral candidates to visit; Elicker is the first to take him up on the offer.
“They may not hear these people,” O’Sullivan said, referring to the soup kitchen’s clients. He said he wants the candidates to see what happens at the kitchen and talk to the people there.
Elicker arrived wearing jeans and a faded baseball cap and donned an oversized red apron. Before the blessing of the meal, Elicker took an opportunity to speak to the first batch of people lined up for chili, rice, vegetables, salad, and dessert. He told them he prides himself on being responsive to people, and announced his cell phone number.
He took a place at the end of buffet line, where he handed out napkins and plastic cutlery, along with packets of sugar and Sweet & Low. He traded jokes with people and talked with other volunteers, from whom he learned that the line was much longer than usual because it’s the end of the month.
The soup kitchen serves about 175 daily lunches at the beginning of the month, staff said. The number shoots way up at the end of each month, as people’s food stamps run out and they’re forced to turn to the soup kitchen. On Monday 389 people came for lunch.
After the Tuesday lunch rush died down, Elicker sat with a man named Walter, who told him that his food stamps aren’t enough to feed him for a whole month. Elicker asked Walter if he can plan out to make them last. Walter said it’s tough because the refrigerator in his Section 8‑subsidized apartment is so small. He said buying fresh vegetables is a challenge because they don’t keep well.
Even the best planning won’t make it easy to live on food stamps, Elicker later acknowledged. He spoke about Food Stamped, a documentary film he recently saw. The film follows two people trying to eat a healthful, well-balanced diet for a month on food stamps. They ended the month famished, despite their best attempts. (Click here and here to read about U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy’s own experience on the food-stamp diet.)
The city can’t change the amount that people receive in food stamps, the federal program now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The average daily food-stamp budget is $4.80. In Connecticut, the maximum benefit for an eligible family of four is $668 per month.
Nevertheless, “the city could help people plan more,” help them “strategize” to eat better the whole month long, Elicker said.
He suggested that help could take the form of classes and education through the Housing Authority of New Haven, which administers federal Section 8 vouchers to tenants in town. Organizations like CARE, City Seed, the New Haven Land Trust, and the school board could be enlisted in the effort as well, he said.
Ultimately, soup kitchens and food stamps won’t get to the underlying causes of poverty, which can be addressed with economic development and new jobs, Elicker said. He said the city’s Prison Reentry Initiative will be key, since many of the soup kitchen diners he spoke with told him that criminal records are keeping them from employment.
Elicker talked about extending his “no wrong door” philosophy to social services, so that someone can walk into City Hall, the housing authority, soup kitchens, or farmers markets and get information about signing up for SNAP. He said the city needs also to do more to “close the gaps” when emergency food is less available, like on weekends.
After lunch O’Sullivan (at left in photo) and Elicker sat down and talked more about coordinating food services for the hungry and homeless. O’Sullivan said city soup kitchens get together quarterly as part of the Greater New Haven Emergency Food Council. He said he hasn’t been too involved with the New Haven Food Policy Council, which works on similar issues. O’Sullivan said his impression is that the Food Policy Council has been more geared toward “white, middle-class people” concerned with farmers markets.
O’Sullivan suggested the city could look to a program like DC Central Kitchen, which is just what it sounds like: a central kitchen that recycles food donations and sends meals out to social services agencies throughout the city. It’s also a job-training program.
“We may want to look at that long term,” O’Sullivan said. “The health department would love it,” having only one kitchen to inspect. And it might lead to more churches handing out food, since they wouldn’t need a kitchen of their own to do so, O’Sullivan said.
Elicker called the concept “interesting and worth exploring.”