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Q&A
Inquiry about mobile food pantries in the Bronx
1:01:10
·
128 sec
Council Member Althea V. Stevens questions the Department of Social Services about the deployment of mobile food pantries in her district (District 16) in the Bronx. She expresses concern that the only mobile pantries she's seen are those funded by her office.
- Commissioner Jill Berry acknowledges funding for some mobile pantries but lacks specific details for the Bronx.
- Stevens emphasizes the lack of access to healthy and fresh foods in her district.
- Berry mentions additional funding allocations to pantries in areas with high needs, particularly those with shelter placements.
Althea V. Stevens
1:01:10
Which ones are you funding?
1:01:12
Because I I'm asking because the only mobile pantries that I've seen in my district are the ones that I fund.
1:01:17
So I'm trying to find which ones you're funding and where are they located because I literally only the ones that I'm have been funding, this is the only time I've seen the mobile pantry in my district.
1:01:26
So I'm trying to get an understanding of in The Bronx where those organizations fund it and and where are you deploying them or requesting them to be deployed.
Jill Berry
1:01:33
So I know we fund a council mobile food pantry.
1:01:37
I don't know off the top of my head all the organizations that have mobile food pantries that we do fund.
Althea V. Stevens
1:01:43
Well I'm just telling you in my district, 16 in the West Bronx, the only mobile food pantry that we have is mine.
1:01:50
The ones that I fund specifically through the council funding and that's a problem for me especially because my district has little to no access to healthy and fresh foods.
1:01:59
And so how are we going to the places where people need it?
1:02:03
I know the chair talked about it's really hard to find people to fund even in my district for this because there's just we don't have a lot and even in the areas that needs to be funded.
1:02:16
Right?
1:02:17
And so when I'm thinking about like Highbridge, there's a vacuum.
1:02:20
There's nothing there.
1:02:21
So I would love to see a mobile food there, which I fund because it is one because I was like, this is crazy.
1:02:28
Would love to see that and how are you evaluating the information to make sure that you're hitting areas that have issues with food access to food and also have high poverty numbers?
1:02:39
What what is the evaluation process for that?
Jill Berry
1:02:43
So we do recognize and understand that there are communities in the city that do not have enough brick brick and mortar pantries.
1:02:53
We do fund some mobile pantries as a result of that, but we
Althea V. Stevens
1:02:57
So my question is, so when you're thinking about the shelter placements because my district is also overrun with that, how are you then countering that to make sure that they have the support that they need?
Jill Berry
1:03:08
Currently what we're doing is we're giving additional dollar allocations to pantry to the pantries that are in those locations that are participating in the CFC program.
Althea V. Stevens
1:03:18
So that's a problem.