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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Alex Hughes, Senior Director of Hunger Prevention and Advocacy at Project Hospitality
3:34:06
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152 sec
Alex Hughes from Project Hospitality testifies about the increasing demand for emergency food services and the critical need for sustained funding, particularly for the Community Food Connection Program. He emphasizes the impact of federal funding cuts on nutrition programs and urges the city council to increase the CFC baseline to $100 million to help address growing food insecurity in New York City.
- Describes emergency food programs as the "canary in the coal mine," with rising service utilization and dwindling resources
- Highlights the threat of federal cuts to programs like SNAP, WIC, Medicaid, TFAP, and school meals
- Stresses the importance of considering the human impact of food insecurity, including children missing meals and families making difficult choices between food and other necessities
Alex Hughes
3:34:06
Thank you chair for holding the and the general welfare committee for holding this meeting and hearing and hearing our testimony and frankly our cries for help.
3:34:14
My name is Alex Hughes.
3:34:15
I'm the senior director of hunger prevention and advocacy with Project Hospitality, one of the largest social service providers on Staten Island.
3:34:21
I've been with this agency since 2016 doing lifesaving work.
3:34:25
I know what it is to be hungry and how it feels to have nowhere to turn and it's not something that I would wish on anybody.
3:34:32
We're here as the collective canary in the coal mine.
3:34:35
Emergency food programs whether food banks or food pantries, soup kitchens, funders, all of us, we're all feeling the heat.
3:34:44
And to put it as simple as I can, we're all seeing services go up, utilizations go up, the lines get longer with the resources tackle it dwindling in front of our eyes.
3:34:53
And a critical program in this is the Community Food Connection Program.
3:34:58
Without this program, the 30,000 folks plus that we serve annually on Staten Island would suffer.
3:35:04
The reality is that the work and thereby the people that we serve are under attack with reckless and inhumane public policy decisions at the federal level of our government.
3:35:12
SNAP, WIC, Medicaid, TFAP, school meals and the list goes on.
3:35:17
We all know that these programs work and that these programs are still under siege.
3:35:22
When the USDA cut the LFPA program that was mentioned earlier, they said in a statement that these programs no longer effectuate agency priorities.
3:35:31
In the face of that, I want to say that our drive and our commitment to this work will always remain an unwavering priority.
3:35:38
We always want to do more.
3:35:40
It's not a matter of want, it's a matter of having the proper amount of resources to make the work happen.
3:35:46
I implore the committee, the council, please continue thinking of the hungry.
3:35:50
Think of the children who are missing school meals.
3:35:53
Think of the single mother or the single father who skip meals so their children can eat.
3:35:58
Think about the person struggling to choose between health care, between housing and between food costs.
3:36:04
One way that we can do this and as other orgs here are saying is to increase that CFC baseline to a hundred million.
3:36:10
No, this won't bridge the gap but it really could soften our landing as we work not just to serve meals, but to end hunger.
3:36:18
In a time of discussion about priorities and what should and what shouldn't be cut, please don't forget us, our work, or our people.
3:36:24
As we all know in the hardest of times, New Yorkers band together and we lean into each other for support.
3:36:30
Now is the time that we have to do this.
3:36:31
We have to do this as organizations, as individuals, and as professionals.
3:36:36
The time is now.
3:36:38
Thank you.