It's expensive to be poor in Monmouth County

Top: Volunteers for the Meals at Noon program serve food at the Second Baptist Church in Long Branch.

Demand rises at food

pantries; housing costs, low minimum wage cited

BY CHRISTINE VARNO

& LAYLI WHYTE

Staff Writers

The high cost of living in Monmouth County is forcing some residents to make hard choices, and in some cases, that means whether to pay living expenses or put food on the table, advocates for the working poor say.

"They have to ask themselves, 'Do I pay my rent? Do I eat? Do I get myself to work?' With high taxes and high prices for gas, these are real decisions people are forced to make," said Kay Vilardi, a long-time member of the board of Lunch Break, a soup kitchen and food pantry in Red Bank.

And, as the cost of living in the county steadily increases, more residents must take advantage of soup kitchens and food pantries in order to get by.

Above: The number of those in need served by volunteers at Lunch Break in Red Bank is increasing.

Demand for help

increasing

According to Lunch Break, Drs. James Parker Blvd., the demand for meals has increased over last year.

"Since January of this year," a release from the soup kitchen states, "Lunch Break has provided more than 12,000 hot lunches to neighbors in need. In May alone, Lunch Break served 2,137 meals at the community center, representing an 18 percent increase from May 2005."

"We are seeing so many more working poor in the last couple of years," said Brooke Tarabour, executive director of Family and Children's Service (FCS) in Long Branch, recently. "We are seeing more people in the winter because of the high costs for utilities. We are also seeing a change in ethnicity as more Hispanics visit the food pantry."

In addition, Tarabour said another demographic that has risen at the pantry is senior citizens.

"Seniors always pay their rent and mortgages and utilities, so everything else suffers," Tarabour said. "And today there are more and more grandparents raising their grandchildren."

According to information provided by the Monmouth County Division of Social Services, the 2006 Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Monmouth County is $1,133, while minimum wage is $6.50 an hour.

"It doesn't add up," Tarabour said. "It is so expensive to be poor in Monmouth County."

Dan Petrocelli, president of the Lunch Break Board of Trustees, said last week that there has been an increase in both the hot meal program and the food pantry program over the past year.

"I've seen an increase of the same or more in the number of people coming in for the food pantry," he said.

Petrocelli said that although he has seen an increase in the number of Hispanic and Latino people coming in for food, fewer of them come in during the summer, when many of the day laborers are working full time and are able to afford to buy food for themselves and their families.

"We don't turn anybody away," he said. "If you're in need, we'll take care of you."

Vilardi said that Lunch Break has worked extensively with St. Anthony of Padua Church to reach the growing Hispanic and Latino community in Red Bank.

"In the winter," she said, "a lot of them don't have work and St. Anthony has been great in letting them know that our services are available for them. We've been seeing more Hispanic families coming in, in addition to our traditional clients such as black families, older white people and people trying to get off drugs, trying to get their lives back together."

Vilardi said that most of the growth in the number of people accessing Lunch Break's help has been within the Hispanic community, and that Lunch Break has gone from serving 50 to 60 meals a day to serving 70 or 80.

"The other day (it) was standing-room only," she said.

More children go hungry

Lunch Break also is experiencing an increase of about 15 percent in the number of children coming in during the summer, according to Petrocelli, due to the fact that the schools don't provide the free and reduced lunches for children in need in the summertime.

According to information from a survey conducted by Holleran Consulting, at the behest of the Red Bank Education and Development Initiative and Riverview Medical Center, 630 children in the Red Bank Public School District receive free or reduced price lunches, and 154 receive free or reduced price breakfast.

Also, according to the survey, 25.1 percent of teachers in the Red Bank school district reported some of their students come to school hungry.

According to the Holleran survey, 20 percent of children surveyed reported not eating breakfast most days, and 21.4 percent reported eating only two meals per day, while 2.1 percent of children surveyed reported eating only one meal per day.

According to the U.S. Census data, in 1999, 7.5 percent of children under the age of 18 were living in poverty in Monmouth County. In Red Bank, that same group made up 16.5 percent of the populace, more than double the county ratio.

Grip of poverty on Long Branch

In addition to Red Bank, Long Branch has remained one of the top two municipalities in Monmouth County with the highest concentration of people living in poverty, second only to Asbury Park, according to information provided by the Monmouth County Office of Social Services.

According to the county, after Asbury Park and Long Branch, Neptune and Keansburg have the highest percentage of residents living in poverty - and those rankings have not changed for 35 years.

Tarabour said she also sees more hungry children visit the agency's RSVP Food Pantry on Union Avenue once school breaks for the summer.

"We are seeing seasonal changes," said Tarabour in an interview last week. "A huge problem though is the children. During the school year children get free and reduced meals at their schools and now that it's summer they aren't getting that one healthy meal a day."

FCS is a nonprofit organization that provides 24 programs to county children, families and seniors in need, including the RSVP Food Pantry, one of approximately 14 food pantries and soup kitchens in Long Branch.

"It is an emergency food pantry, which all food pantries are, because they are to help people in times of crisis," said FCS Administrator Phyllis Berndt last week.

Tarabour said that in order to receive the services offered at the food pantry, residents need a qualification from agencies such as Medicare.

"If someone walks in off the street and is hungry, we will definitely give them food the first time, but we then tell them what they have to do for the future," Tarabour said.

Terry Ann Ryan, a parish administrator at St. James Episcopal Church on Broadway in Long Branch, said she too has seen an increase in the amount of people coming to the church's food pantry in the summer.

"We find that in the summer we are distributing more food because the children are no longer in school," Ryan said. "When the children are in school they usually are provided with a breakfast and a lunch."

"The number [of the hungry] has already increased since last month," Ryan said.

In May, Ryan said the food pantry helped feed 235 adults and 153 children, for a total of 134 families. In April the pantry served 114 families.

The manager for the Meals at Noon soup kitchen located in the basement of the Second Baptist Church on Liberty Street, Long Branch, is also seeing hunger increase in the city.

"We are seeing a number of changes," said Byron Griffin, who manages the Meals at Noon program. "We are seeing the numbers change. We are seeing the demographics change. We have also seen a change in the amount of food."

According to Griffin, the kitchen serves between 85-100 each day in the winter and between 65-80 people a day in the summer.

"We have seen an increase in the Mexican [population] coming to us over the past three years," Griffin said. "One of the reasons we see a significant drop-off [of people at the kitchen] in the summer is because work is more steady for the Mexican [population] in the summer."

Donations down

The kitchen receives its food supply from the Food Bank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and donations from the community.

But Griffin added since the devastation caused in the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, the amount of food distributed from the Food Bank has decreased..

"We certainly have been affected by Hurricane Katrina," he said. "But we understand that food has to go where the need is highest"

According to Petrocelli, Lunch Break works with a $160,000 annual budget and receives about $100,000 worth of food donations every year, serving over 2,000 meals monthly.

Lunch Break has taken a proactive stance when it comes to raising money, he said, since fewer donations come in every year from individuals.

"We saw the trend starting a few years ago," he said, "so we hired a person not just for PR, but for grant writing as well."

Petrocelli said that Lunch Break will increase its budget for the first time in five years. In addition to monetary donations, Lunch Break is always in need of food donations to its pantry and hot meal kitchen.

"What we always need are donations of meat," he said. "It's the most expensive, and we provide balanced meals. You can't do that without protein."

Food alone not the solution

According to Pamela Ferdinand, director of the Monmouth County Division of Social Services, donations of food to local pantries is one way people can help those in need, but she said that the problem facing the poor in Monmouth County is more than can be solved in that way.

She said that first, the perception of poverty must change.

"Many blame or fear people who are poor," she said. "This is especially evident when communities are asked to provide affordable housing to populations other than seniors.

Second, build self-esteem in people who have potential, but who don't recognize their own inner strengths.

Third, provide minimum wages that will afford the basics for families/ single adults who are able to work. Fourth, provide government support that will afford the basics for those unable to work.

"Although training/educational programs have been cut in the past few years," she continued, "there are still resources available for building skills for entry level jobs. Entry level jobs at minimum wage do not afford Monmouth County housing and utility costs."

According to Ferdinand, the number of people receiving food stamps in Monmouth County has increased from 14,196 in 2004 to 15,474 in 2006.

"Although some officials say that the economy is improving," she said, "it is not improving for everyone. Many of our food stamp recipients are low wage earners. In fact, the largest segment of food stamp recipients is the Non Public Assistance section, these program participants usually work for low wages, sometimes have several part-time jobs, and still qualify for benefits."