Thin Gruel For Soup Kitchens (City Limits)

My bad: Both my City Limits stories actually ran today. The other one is a more in-depth look at the mayor and governor’s proposed cuts to emergency food programs and job-training programs, which is just impeccable timing:

As New York City’s unemployment rate continues to climb above 10 percent, proposed spending cuts by both Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg are threatening to make life tougher for anyone who depends on government programs for food, cash grants or job training.

Potentially hardest hit: the city’s soup kitchens and food pantries. Emergency food providers had already seen the state’s Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program – which provides about $30 million a year to New York’s food banks – sliced by $2.3 million in mid-year budget cuts last year; Paterson is now proposing $1.2 million in additional cuts for 2010… [read more]

See also my budget overview article, and my colleagues Helen Zelon and Eileen Markey’s articles on education and housing cuts, respectively.