Food Prices Rise, Send NYC Food Bank Into Crisis

reply to post by jackinthebox



Perhaps this may be a touchy subject, but if you are relying on the food bank and make less than 10K a year (according to your own posts)

My first decision would be to stop paying for an ISP as well as a few other things.

It is sad that working people need to go to a food bank, but I know from seeing them with my own eyes at the local church food bank, they are NOT in need... they just dont want to sacrifice things like internet, or the cadillac they drive or the nice new clothes they are wearing while picking up the boxes of charity.

Directly behind them will be someone who you can tell is having a truly hard time with second hand holey clothes and taped up shoes.

People need a kick in the ass that are taking fron the TRULY needy.



[edit on 29-4-2008 by Arkangel4time]

reply to post by Arkangel4time


You just ASSUME he pays for internet?? Or where did you get that information?

Just wondering, you obviously know more than probably he does about the subject

reply to post by Arkangel4time

It is sad that working people need to go to a food bank, but I know from seeing them with my own eyes at the local church food bank, they are NOT in need... they just dont want to sacrifice things like internet, or the cadillac they drive or the nice new clothes they are wearing while picking up the boxes of charity.

Directly behind them will be someone who you can tell is having a truly hard time with second hand holey clothes and taped up shoes.

Appearances can be deceiving. Just because the person isn't wearing clothes wth holes in them, does not mean that they are not needy. Perhaps they just received a donation. Perhaps they were recently laid off from work. You have no idea what these people are going through unless you've walked a mile in their moccasins.

I can tell you this much right now, no one is going to the soup kitchen for lunch as a way to "beat the system."

My first decision would be to stop paying for an ISP as well as a few other things.

You are deceived by your own arrogance and station in life. I pay for no ISP, or anything else for that matter. I have not had a dollar of income in months, and live out of my car.


EDIT to add: I happen to drive a pretty nice car, so people like you probably think I have it made when I pull up to the food bank, never realizing that I live in the thing, and that it needs work.


[edit on 4/29/0808 by jackinthebox]

reply to post by LostNemesis


I assume nothing, I havent a clue about him personally, I only stated if it was me, I would consider things that everyone wants but doesn't NEED...

the rest of my rant is from actually seeing with my own eyes for a long time now what occurs at the food bank where I have volunteered and donated to regularly



[edit on 29-4-2008 by Arkangel4time]

reply to post by jackinthebox

J I B Sorry to hear of your specific situation,
Lets clarify...you were speaking of FOOD BANKS, not soup kitchens,

I DO KNOW for a fact that a certain several families and individuals are most definately abusing the sytem here locally to me.

How do I know? I see the same people going on 3 years now. I converse with them and know them on a first name basis seeing how we see them every week. After a few years we at the food bank all know who is needy and who is just there because its free.

I have no problem if people are having a hard time(recently laid off etc), but the rant I went off on was really aimed at people who can't destinguish between a luxury and a survival item.

No one is ever turned away, so my point still stands...

In these increasingly difficult times, the food bank where I have been helping for a long time is actually getting to the point that we don't have hardly anything to give... Perhaps that comment should have been at the beginning of my rant *shrug*

I know what I have witnessed

NO offense to you was intended personally J I B



EDIT TO ADD: SInce you edited your post as I was typing this.....

Lets say you continued to pull up in this car for a year, then it became a new car, then it was obvious by the bling on your neck you were making money or bartering something of high value... how would you percieve this?

The bling alone would buy a damn motel room for months not to mention clothes or food... Come see my reality.


[edit on 29-4-2008 by Arkangel4time]

[edit on 29-4-2008 by Arkangel4time]

reply to post by Arkangel4time


Who gives you the right to define who is truly needed and who is not? They may not seem needy to you, however, you fail to realize there situation



I do agree that there are people abusing they system, But that does not mean, that the system did not abuse them first! People can always point fingers at others, but does that solve the problem?

reply to post by Hakii


LOL oh please... I am in no way defining anyone... I am only seeing it with my own eyes? Have you ever volunteered at a food bank or homeless shelter?

perhaps when you see certain individuals over and over with damn expensive bling around their necks and hands you too would wonder WHY on earth they need food when the bling would feed them for a hell of a long time if they sold it.... I am in no way referring to truly desparate people or people down on thier luck....

reread what I posted last more carefully before you get all judgemental yourself.

reply to post by Arkangel4time


Dude.... Who WANTS to be seen at a food box or soup kitchen getting help to feed their family?? I am sorry, but as a provider, myself.. I find it hard to believe that a person who can afford all the essentials in life CHOOSES to parade their children into such a place.

Maybe you have a different definition of dignity than I do, though. I am not judging.

I think it's really a respectable thing, that you donate time and goods to such services. But I really don't think anyone CHOOSES to be there to save a few bucks for dinner.

reply to post by Arkangel4time





Yes i have help in soup kitchens, Yes i have helped poverty stricken family's, Yes our family has cared for family's who are in need, and yes i do donate to people all the time. Your reality becomes alarmingly altered when you work with children everyday who families can not support the very basic medical care needed for there children. Who struggle just to make it by, Its a sad world were living in i only wish for people to stop pointing the finger at others, and start point the finger at themselves to realize that we have helped create this monster. I only wish that instead of judging people form what you are perceiving, witnessing, observing. They would look on there fellow humans with love and support not judgment .



Like ozzy said "Theres no hope for us if we cant learn to help one another"


And the reference to bling, Ever occur maybe that is the last thing they own? Like the guy who lives out of his car, hes obviously down on his luck. But he still has SOMETHING of value? yet you ask people to give up there very last bit of wealth? It would only be a temproay fix, and after they would be right back in the same position

[edit on 29-4-2008 by Hakii]

I have been hungry - really hungry - it sucks. Those poor people in NYC are going to hurt and I can't honestly say that I expect much help for them to be forthcoming. Notice the OP piece talks about 'the cost' of food.

'Cost'?, what, is there a shortage? Or is it that everyone's profit margins are just NOT EVER GOING TO DROP? No one is willing to drop the profit. So people suffer. I will give all I have, but I know that won't be enough.

[edit on 29-4-2008 by Maxmars]

reply to post by Maxmars


I like to hope that NYC has the same kind of participation from stores that I've heard our local food boxes get... Like, our local store boxes up pastries and bread and stuff after a day I think, to send to the food box place. For meats and stuff, once it reaches the sell-by date, I think the stuff is frozen, then sent to food box.

I cannot imagine the food box having to take on the burden of buying food... Sucks if they do.

Honestly, I think most people would do anything they needed to, to avoid needing to go to a food box for help.

I realize I have semi hijacked this thread...my apologies to the OP.

I also have been w/o income and went hungry to feed my children.

I also sold what items I deemed would generate some money to help out.

Was it my last bit of wealth as you said? Yes it was, however it wasn't an option, I chose to do that as opposed to getting a hand out.

Yes I help out the community alot...Once again there was a select few I was refering to in my little Tirade... I am sorry, but to see the donations dryong up and having to scale back our help... it sort of sent me off on a subject, that everyone who volunteers with me sees hapening.


I will shut up now and go back to my cozy little hole

reply to post by Arkangel4time


I don't know where you are so I won't say that you are lieing, but it really does sound like a strawman argument to me. Everyone hears about the welfare queens and bling kings at the soup kitchen, but I personally have never seen it. I spend a lot of time in these places these days, and there are some people who are more down on their luck than others, but none who do not need a meal.

Furthermore, I was homeless once before, more than a decade ago, and the same was true then. The only bling I ever saw at Social Services was on the sugar daddy that the woman had to shack up with the night before, dropping her off at the county line in the morning.

If you really do work for charity, I respectfully urge you to re-evaluate your perspective. Just because someone has cable television, does not mean that it is the luxury you might think it is, if it is the only form of entertainment in the house. You cut off people's connection to the outside world and mainstream America, and we'll wind up with a nation of Ted Kaczynski's running around.



Yup, looks just like the sort of people I see at the food bank.

reply to post by Arkangel4time


No need to shut up. Perspective and fruitful debate are always welcome, in any thread I start anyway.

So, it seems that what really angers you most is seeing that the situation is getting worse. But it seems to me that you are blaming the wrong people.

reply to post by jackinthebox

Got to get this out of the way: LOL at Ted Kaszinski reference


No, no straw man here JIB.

I am not lieing and I do work for a church charity bank, not in a large inner city setting though.

Yes the costs are driving things to bare bones with less and less donations from individuals, still getting the local supermarket handouts though for now.

Please understand I in no way am saying all these people coming to us are abusing us. I wasnt referring to welfare queens (whom in my neck of the woods people would equate with section 8 housing and food stamps etc.).

As far as debate goes... well I am afraid I have to agree, this is going to ba a bad crisis and that means no debate from me lol

reply to post by jackinthebox


the powers that be need to continue this downward spiral in america. why?
first and foremost you must keep the fear level high. and depending on the level of regression that has been decided on, there will follow various shortages across the country. there is still too much wealth in the hands of the middle class that needs to flow up to the wealthy. thus making food, health care, and energy more expensive, while at the same time, decreasing value in labor, benefits, housing, and interest on common savings. and because of the fear that this creates, we become more pliable to harsher economic fixes put out by our government, where the burden will fall on the middle class and poor.

i do ok. we live paycheck to paycheck, but my wife is able to stay home and raise our baby. we don't really skimp yet on things like cable and online games that have monthly fees. the flipside is we NEVER go to a restaurant unless it's a special occasion - even then it's usually only if someone else is paying. our idea of splurging is spending $15 at dairy queen or arby's once in a while. we have talked about what we would do if fecal hit the spinners and the first thing to go will be cable TV. then the online games. that will save us a good $125/month. i need to keep my isp if possible for work - i'm an IT guy and i frequently need to work from home. the next thing to go would be ANY eating out. trim it down to cost-effective home-cooked meals only. i think that alone would help quite a bit.

when i get my rebate check we're going to prepay some of our services for a year (phone, online games, etc) so we can take that money every month to save or pay down some debt. also going to play with building an electrolyzer so i can hopefully dampen the effects of the rising gas prices a little.

reply to post by jimmyx


We're coming into this crisis with one in eight Americans living below the poverty line. Most of them working Americans. Now consider that I lost my apartment scrimping big time (such as heat at 55 all winter), while I was making nearly double the official poverty line. So, considering that, you could say that practically speaking, half the country is already poor.

It won't take much now to eat alive what is left of the middle class that I was once sitting on top of, years ago now.

reply to post by an0maly33


Yes, get prepared now while you still can. It's not easy to describe how it happens. You feel yourself slowly choking, yet when it hits, it's like you were blindsided.

Best of luck to you.

I'm one of the ones who is saying that it's not all that bad. But I haven't told you the way our family is or the way our belongings are (falling apart, you should SEE our car....its BEAUTIFUL (sarcasm)). But seriously, we aren't seeing any change in price at our grocery store. I've seen one evening news report on the food bank saying that they are starting to be a little empty and that's about it. It really isn't that bad for me and my husband right now. We both have jobs, the house and car are paid for and we are lucky for that. We still sometimes get the water shut off, or the electricity, it all just depends on the budgeting of the month and wether or not my husband bought comic books or I went to the bookstore. We don't spend our money on frivilous things and save it for the bills, gas for the car, groceries, and the occaisional movie (JUNO WAS A FANTASTIC MOVIE, go see it, it'll at least make you forget what's going on for 2 hours).

I am sorry that it's bad in other places but it just isn't that bad where we live and I'll keep telling you guys that unless it changes and the city just goes to sh*t some day. Then it won't be ok.

Tela