MIKE KELLY
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
10-02-1994
HUNGER HAUNTS NORTH JERSEY SUBURBS -- NOTHING TO EAT PUBLIC OBLIVIOUS TO
`SILENT EPIDEMIC"
By MIKE KELLY
Date: 10-02-1994, Sunday
Section: NEWS
Edition: All Editions -- Sunday
Series: HUNGER IN NORTH JERSEY: First in a series
The face of hunger in North Jersey comes in all colors, from all
neighborhoods, from all steps on the economic ladder.
And yet it is a face of many disguises.
You see it at a Paterson synagogue, where 85 senior citizens on
fixed incomes line up each day for free lunches. In Park Ridge, it is a
60-year-old bank executive who lost his job, exhausted his unemployment
checks, then was forced to go to a church for an emergency bag of
groceries.
In an Englewood boardinghouse, it is a former drug addict who can"t
find a job. In a working-class section of Fairview, it is a single
father juggling full-time custody of an 8-year-old daughter and
low-paying computer repair jobs. In Fair Lawn, it is a divorced mother
awaiting a court decision on child support for her two toddlers. In the
hills of Ringwood, it is a maintenance man with a wife and six children
whose weekly income fell from $500 to $50 after a disabling injury.
Such stories and the variety of victims underscore a growing need
by struggling families to perform the most basic of tasks -- to put food
on the table.
The problem is being addressed in a variety of ways, from large
food banks that collect tons of food on tractor-trailers to small
churches and synagogues where worshipers leave bags containing
spaghetti, cereal, and soup that are quietly distributed to needy
people. Christ Lutheran Church in Woodcliff Lake has turned a portion of
its lawn into a "Genesis Garden," where vegetables are grown for hungry
people.
"The way I was brought up is, I was taught to try to help people,"
said Robert Van Zee, a 71-year-old retired civil engineer who tends the
church"s garden and goes by the nickname "Farmer Bob."
Several towns away in Allendale, Edgar Curtiss, a 74-year-old
retired chemical engineer, typifies a far more common way of
volunteering. Every three weeks, he delivers food donated by members of
the Church of the Epiphany to a food pantry at another Episcopal church
in Paterson. "People really need this," he said. "All you have to do is
drive through parts of Paterson to see that people are really hurting."
But while officials in government, religious institutions, and in
private social service agencies agree that more people now rely on
emergency food pantries and soup kitchens, the problem of food shortages
remains difficult to portray to the public at large, especially in the
suburbs.
Even in city neighborhoods where housing conditions are dismal and
double-digit unemployment is a fact of life, hunger largely remains
hidden, a lower priority on the list of problems than, say, crime and
garbage removal.
There are no photographs of malnourished children with bloated
bellies, no skeletal corpses of starvation victims. Nor are there the
sort of long bread lines common in America during the Great Depression.
"In America we don"t have widespread starvation like they have in
Africa," said Kathleen DiChiara. "But that doesn"t mean we don"t have
people who have problems getting enough food." DiChiara founded the
Community Food Bank some 15 years ago by giving out groceries from the
trunk of her car and now distributes 1 million pounds of food each month
from a quarter-mile-long warehouse in Hillside.
The effects of not having enough food are often hard to detect.
They range from increased numbers of newborns with low birth weights, to
elementary school children who have difficulty paying attention because
they did not eat breakfast. Among senior citizens, health experts say,
vitamin deficiencies are a common problem.
Most victims, however, do not die.
The state Department of Health reports that only 82 people in New
Jersey died of "nutritional deficiencies" in 1990, the most recent year
for which such statistics are available. Seventy-six of the victims were
senior citizens. Only one was a child -- an infant who was neglected.
What is more, only three actually starved to death. The others died of
complications from not having enough protein or minerals in their diets.
Such low statistics are one reason the problem of hunger in America
-- and especially in suburbia -- is not given the same attention as other
social ills. In 1990, for example, 233 New Jerseyans died of
hypertension, and 192 succumbed to stomach ulcers -- two other rare
causes of death, but with far more victims than hunger.
"Hunger is a silent epidemic," said Hugh Masterson of Second
Harvest, a Chicago-based coalition that supplies food for some 41,000
charitable agencies across the nation, including 1,200 in New Jersey.
A special task force appointed by then-Gov. Thomas H. Kean
estimated in 1986 that some 600,000 New Jerseyans "go hungry" in some
way each day. These ranged from chronically poor and drug addicted city
dwellers to suburbanites who lost jobs and opted to cut back on meals
rather than mortgage payments.
Today, experts in state government and in private agencies who
study the problem say the numbers are higher. But how much? No one can
say for sure, in part because hunger is not as easy to quantify as, say,
armed robberies, auto accidents, or students" test scores. For a nation
accustomed to compiling data on everything from sports to sex to the
salt content of hot dogs, reliable data on the effects of hunger is
thin.
Nonetheless, ominous signs abound.
In a recent survey, Second Harvest estimated that 25 million
Americans face food shortages each day -- roughly 10 percent of the
population. The U.S. Conference of Mayors reports that requests for help
at emergency food pantries increased by 13 percent in 1993. Catholic
Charities, the nation"s largest private service organization, found that
the number of children nationwide coming to church agencies for food
doubled in just one year, from 1.3 million in 1991 to 2.7 million in
1992.
The state Department of Human Services reports that while the
number of New Jerseyans living in poverty has declined somewhat, the
number of food stamp recipients has nearly doubled in two years. And the
most significant area of growth has been among those living just above
the poverty line.
"There are many working people who are pulling in low salaries who
just can"t make it anymore," said Carol Kasenbach, who specializes in
welfare and poverty issues for the state"s Lutheran churches and the New
Jersey Council of Churches.
In Bergen alone, the numbers of working poor on food stamps jumped
by 34 percent between December 1991 and last month to 5,101 households --
almost twice the number of welfare households on food stamps. Passaic"s
increase during that time was 40 percent to 8,844 households -- more than
1,000 higher than the number of welfare households that receive food
stamps.
"We"re seeing a whole new population of people in need," said
Patricia Espy of the Englewood-based Center for Food Action, which
distributes food to needy people in Bergen and Passaic counties. "Many
of our newest clients have jobs and homes. But in the recession, they
may have lost higher-paying jobs and had to take something less. For a
lot of the people we"re seeing, their dream has collapsed."
In the mid-1980s, the Center for Food Action provided food for
7,000 people a year. Last year, more than 20,000 people were helped,
with three-quarters of them receiving emergency food packages and the
rest getting special Thanksgiving assistance. The clients came from
every town in Passaic County and 63 of Bergen"s 70 municipalities,
including such tony preserves as Tenafly and Upper Saddle River.
Statewide, the number of food pantries in churches, synagogues,
town halls, and other community institutions has grown from 100 in 1980
to more than 1,200 now. And that does not include what many believe to
be the hundreds of other places that quietly collect a few bags of
groceries each week to give away.
In Paterson, the city"s nutrition program for senior citizens has
grown by 10 percent in each of the past five years, says its director,
Wanda Tugman. Also in Paterson, Eva"s Kitchen, the area"s largest food
provider for homeless and poor people, says the demand for meals has
risen 40 percent in five years.
It was to Eva"s Kitchen that Charisse Richardson, a 27-year-old
mother on welfare, turned for help one evening last week when she had no
dinner for her two sons and two daughters. She receives $352 in cash and
$120 in food stamps from social services, as well as federal housing
subsidies for her two-bedroom apartment on Carroll Street. By the end of
the month, though, she is short on cash for groceries.
"I went down to Eva"s with two bowls and got some chicken patties
and rice," she said.
Four days later, Richardson, who said her husband left her for
another woman and contributes no child support, was at the Paterson
Coalition on Housing. She was out of food again and received special
vouchers to pick up three bags of free groceries at St. Paul"s Episcopal
Church.
While she was at the coalition offices, staff members discovered
that her 3-year-old daughter had not eaten anything that day, even
though it was almost 10 a.m. As Charisse waited for her vouchers, her
daughter munched on a bowl of Fruit Loops.
"It"s embarrassing," said Richardson. "I have pride. I don"t like
to ask nobody for nothing. I can"t let my kids go hungry."
Twelve miles away in Teaneck, another mother with four children --
the estranged wife of a bank vice president with an $85,000 annual
income -- tells a similar story. In happier times, Mary, a former actress
who asked that her last name be withheld, used to assemble bags of
groceries and bring them to the Center for Food Action.
"I wanted to show my children that it was important to take care of
people in need," she said. "I wanted my children to see that others were
not as fortunate as they were."
But beginning two years ago, Mary found herself going back to the
food pantry on a regular basis -- as a customer.
When Mary and her husband separated two years ago, he agreed to pay
the mortgage and utilities in their $200,000 home. For groceries and
other household expenses, he gave her $600 a month. Because she owns a
house and a car, she was not eligible for welfare, though she was able
to get some assistance with food stamps.
On some months the money runs out, though.
"It"s really scary," Mary said, "but by the end of a few months
there just isn"t enough to put food on the table."
It was just such a predicament that caused the Shortmans of Oakland
to turn to a food pantry two years ago.
Tom Shortman, 36, had managed to build a solid career as a
carpenter for most of the 1980s. But when the recession hit,
construction jobs disappeared. So did his income of more than $40,000 a
year.
Shortman tried driving a truck and eventually settled for an
entry-level job as a janitor at $19,000 a year.
At home, he had three children. His wife, Lorie, a nurse, decided
to stay home and care for the eldest, a daughter who had chronic asthma.
"There were many days when we had macaroni," said Lorie. Another
favorite meal, she said, was bread and soup. "My husband and I sometimes
went to bed hungry. But the kids never did."
After a few difficult years, Tom"s salary increased as he was
promoted into other custodial jobs. Lorie has organized several small
food drives and referred needy friends to the Mahwah office of the
Center for Food Action. One of her daughters organized a food drive at
school.
"I"m trying to teach my kids to think about others," she said.
Illustrations/Photos: 1 - COLOR PHOTO - DANIELLE P. RICHARDS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
- Lorie Shortman and two of her children, Maureen, 3, and Marshall, 7, outside
their Oakland home. Shortman volunteers at the Mahwah office of the Center for
Food Action, where she was a client when her family hit upon hard times during
the recession. 2 - PHOTO - ED HILL / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER - Robert Van Zee, also
known as "Farmer Bob," in the garden at Christ Lutheran Church, where vegetables
are grown for the hungry. 3 - PHOTO - THOMAS E. FRANKLIN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
- Kathleen DiChiara at the Hillside warehouse for the Community Food Bank, which
she founded by giving out groceries from her car"s trunk.
Keywords: NEW JERSEY. FOOD. CHARITY. AID. BC. VOLUNTEER
Copyright 1994 Bergen Record Corp. All rights reserved.
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
10-02-1994
HUNGER HAUNTS NORTH JERSEY SUBURBS -- NOTHING TO EAT PUBLIC OBLIVIOUS TO
`SILENT EPIDEMIC"
By MIKE KELLY
Date: 10-02-1994, Sunday
Section: NEWS
Edition: All Editions -- Sunday
Series: HUNGER IN NORTH JERSEY: First in a series
The face of hunger in North Jersey comes in all colors, from all
neighborhoods, from all steps on the economic ladder.
And yet it is a face of many disguises.
You see it at a Paterson synagogue, where 85 senior citizens on
fixed incomes line up each day for free lunches. In Park Ridge, it is a
60-year-old bank executive who lost his job, exhausted his unemployment
checks, then was forced to go to a church for an emergency bag of
groceries.
In an Englewood boardinghouse, it is a former drug addict who can"t
find a job. In a working-class section of Fairview, it is a single
father juggling full-time custody of an 8-year-old daughter and
low-paying computer repair jobs. In Fair Lawn, it is a divorced mother
awaiting a court decision on child support for her two toddlers. In the
hills of Ringwood, it is a maintenance man with a wife and six children
whose weekly income fell from $500 to $50 after a disabling injury.
Such stories and the variety of victims underscore a growing need
by struggling families to perform the most basic of tasks -- to put food
on the table.
The problem is being addressed in a variety of ways, from large
food banks that collect tons of food on tractor-trailers to small
churches and synagogues where worshipers leave bags containing
spaghetti, cereal, and soup that are quietly distributed to needy
people. Christ Lutheran Church in Woodcliff Lake has turned a portion of
its lawn into a "Genesis Garden," where vegetables are grown for hungry
people.
"The way I was brought up is, I was taught to try to help people,"
said Robert Van Zee, a 71-year-old retired civil engineer who tends the
church"s garden and goes by the nickname "Farmer Bob."
Several towns away in Allendale, Edgar Curtiss, a 74-year-old
retired chemical engineer, typifies a far more common way of
volunteering. Every three weeks, he delivers food donated by members of
the Church of the Epiphany to a food pantry at another Episcopal church
in Paterson. "People really need this," he said. "All you have to do is
drive through parts of Paterson to see that people are really hurting."
But while officials in government, religious institutions, and in
private social service agencies agree that more people now rely on
emergency food pantries and soup kitchens, the problem of food shortages
remains difficult to portray to the public at large, especially in the
suburbs.
Even in city neighborhoods where housing conditions are dismal and
double-digit unemployment is a fact of life, hunger largely remains
hidden, a lower priority on the list of problems than, say, crime and
garbage removal.
There are no photographs of malnourished children with bloated
bellies, no skeletal corpses of starvation victims. Nor are there the
sort of long bread lines common in America during the Great Depression.
"In America we don"t have widespread starvation like they have in
Africa," said Kathleen DiChiara. "But that doesn"t mean we don"t have
people who have problems getting enough food." DiChiara founded the
Community Food Bank some 15 years ago by giving out groceries from the
trunk of her car and now distributes 1 million pounds of food each month
from a quarter-mile-long warehouse in Hillside.
The effects of not having enough food are often hard to detect.
They range from increased numbers of newborns with low birth weights, to
elementary school children who have difficulty paying attention because
they did not eat breakfast. Among senior citizens, health experts say,
vitamin deficiencies are a common problem.
Most victims, however, do not die.
The state Department of Health reports that only 82 people in New
Jersey died of "nutritional deficiencies" in 1990, the most recent year
for which such statistics are available. Seventy-six of the victims were
senior citizens. Only one was a child -- an infant who was neglected.
What is more, only three actually starved to death. The others died of
complications from not having enough protein or minerals in their diets.
Such low statistics are one reason the problem of hunger in America
-- and especially in suburbia -- is not given the same attention as other
social ills. In 1990, for example, 233 New Jerseyans died of
hypertension, and 192 succumbed to stomach ulcers -- two other rare
causes of death, but with far more victims than hunger.
"Hunger is a silent epidemic," said Hugh Masterson of Second
Harvest, a Chicago-based coalition that supplies food for some 41,000
charitable agencies across the nation, including 1,200 in New Jersey.
A special task force appointed by then-Gov. Thomas H. Kean
estimated in 1986 that some 600,000 New Jerseyans "go hungry" in some
way each day. These ranged from chronically poor and drug addicted city
dwellers to suburbanites who lost jobs and opted to cut back on meals
rather than mortgage payments.
Today, experts in state government and in private agencies who
study the problem say the numbers are higher. But how much? No one can
say for sure, in part because hunger is not as easy to quantify as, say,
armed robberies, auto accidents, or students" test scores. For a nation
accustomed to compiling data on everything from sports to sex to the
salt content of hot dogs, reliable data on the effects of hunger is
thin.
Nonetheless, ominous signs abound.
In a recent survey, Second Harvest estimated that 25 million
Americans face food shortages each day -- roughly 10 percent of the
population. The U.S. Conference of Mayors reports that requests for help
at emergency food pantries increased by 13 percent in 1993. Catholic
Charities, the nation"s largest private service organization, found that
the number of children nationwide coming to church agencies for food
doubled in just one year, from 1.3 million in 1991 to 2.7 million in
1992.
The state Department of Human Services reports that while the
number of New Jerseyans living in poverty has declined somewhat, the
number of food stamp recipients has nearly doubled in two years. And the
most significant area of growth has been among those living just above
the poverty line.
"There are many working people who are pulling in low salaries who
just can"t make it anymore," said Carol Kasenbach, who specializes in
welfare and poverty issues for the state"s Lutheran churches and the New
Jersey Council of Churches.
In Bergen alone, the numbers of working poor on food stamps jumped
by 34 percent between December 1991 and last month to 5,101 households --
almost twice the number of welfare households on food stamps. Passaic"s
increase during that time was 40 percent to 8,844 households -- more than
1,000 higher than the number of welfare households that receive food
stamps.
"We"re seeing a whole new population of people in need," said
Patricia Espy of the Englewood-based Center for Food Action, which
distributes food to needy people in Bergen and Passaic counties. "Many
of our newest clients have jobs and homes. But in the recession, they
may have lost higher-paying jobs and had to take something less. For a
lot of the people we"re seeing, their dream has collapsed."
In the mid-1980s, the Center for Food Action provided food for
7,000 people a year. Last year, more than 20,000 people were helped,
with three-quarters of them receiving emergency food packages and the
rest getting special Thanksgiving assistance. The clients came from
every town in Passaic County and 63 of Bergen"s 70 municipalities,
including such tony preserves as Tenafly and Upper Saddle River.
Statewide, the number of food pantries in churches, synagogues,
town halls, and other community institutions has grown from 100 in 1980
to more than 1,200 now. And that does not include what many believe to
be the hundreds of other places that quietly collect a few bags of
groceries each week to give away.
In Paterson, the city"s nutrition program for senior citizens has
grown by 10 percent in each of the past five years, says its director,
Wanda Tugman. Also in Paterson, Eva"s Kitchen, the area"s largest food
provider for homeless and poor people, says the demand for meals has
risen 40 percent in five years.
It was to Eva"s Kitchen that Charisse Richardson, a 27-year-old
mother on welfare, turned for help one evening last week when she had no
dinner for her two sons and two daughters. She receives $352 in cash and
$120 in food stamps from social services, as well as federal housing
subsidies for her two-bedroom apartment on Carroll Street. By the end of
the month, though, she is short on cash for groceries.
"I went down to Eva"s with two bowls and got some chicken patties
and rice," she said.
Four days later, Richardson, who said her husband left her for
another woman and contributes no child support, was at the Paterson
Coalition on Housing. She was out of food again and received special
vouchers to pick up three bags of free groceries at St. Paul"s Episcopal
Church.
While she was at the coalition offices, staff members discovered
that her 3-year-old daughter had not eaten anything that day, even
though it was almost 10 a.m. As Charisse waited for her vouchers, her
daughter munched on a bowl of Fruit Loops.
"It"s embarrassing," said Richardson. "I have pride. I don"t like
to ask nobody for nothing. I can"t let my kids go hungry."
Twelve miles away in Teaneck, another mother with four children --
the estranged wife of a bank vice president with an $85,000 annual
income -- tells a similar story. In happier times, Mary, a former actress
who asked that her last name be withheld, used to assemble bags of
groceries and bring them to the Center for Food Action.
"I wanted to show my children that it was important to take care of
people in need," she said. "I wanted my children to see that others were
not as fortunate as they were."
But beginning two years ago, Mary found herself going back to the
food pantry on a regular basis -- as a customer.
When Mary and her husband separated two years ago, he agreed to pay
the mortgage and utilities in their $200,000 home. For groceries and
other household expenses, he gave her $600 a month. Because she owns a
house and a car, she was not eligible for welfare, though she was able
to get some assistance with food stamps.
On some months the money runs out, though.
"It"s really scary," Mary said, "but by the end of a few months
there just isn"t enough to put food on the table."
It was just such a predicament that caused the Shortmans of Oakland
to turn to a food pantry two years ago.
Tom Shortman, 36, had managed to build a solid career as a
carpenter for most of the 1980s. But when the recession hit,
construction jobs disappeared. So did his income of more than $40,000 a
year.
Shortman tried driving a truck and eventually settled for an
entry-level job as a janitor at $19,000 a year.
At home, he had three children. His wife, Lorie, a nurse, decided
to stay home and care for the eldest, a daughter who had chronic asthma.
"There were many days when we had macaroni," said Lorie. Another
favorite meal, she said, was bread and soup. "My husband and I sometimes
went to bed hungry. But the kids never did."
After a few difficult years, Tom"s salary increased as he was
promoted into other custodial jobs. Lorie has organized several small
food drives and referred needy friends to the Mahwah office of the
Center for Food Action. One of her daughters organized a food drive at
school.
"I"m trying to teach my kids to think about others," she said.
Illustrations/Photos: 1 - COLOR PHOTO - DANIELLE P. RICHARDS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
- Lorie Shortman and two of her children, Maureen, 3, and Marshall, 7, outside
their Oakland home. Shortman volunteers at the Mahwah office of the Center for
Food Action, where she was a client when her family hit upon hard times during
the recession. 2 - PHOTO - ED HILL / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER - Robert Van Zee, also
known as "Farmer Bob," in the garden at Christ Lutheran Church, where vegetables
are grown for the hungry. 3 - PHOTO - THOMAS E. FRANKLIN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
- Kathleen DiChiara at the Hillside warehouse for the Community Food Bank, which
she founded by giving out groceries from her car"s trunk.
Keywords: NEW JERSEY. FOOD. CHARITY. AID. BC. VOLUNTEER
Copyright 1994 Bergen Record Corp. All rights reserved.
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