Just Another Day at the Food Pantries That Help the Bronx Survive

Although a man could be barred from the afterlife for letting another man go hungry in ancient Egypt, New York City didn’t cook up the idea of soup kitchens as a way to feed the poor until the Great Depression. Now more than 1,100 soup kitchens and food pantries are sprinkled across New York City.

And with the number of homeless New Yorkers higher today than since those bleak economic times of the early 1930s – more than 60,000 people were checked into New York City homeless shelters at the beginning of December – the lines outside soup kitchens and food pantries sometimes stretch down blocks. Food stamp distribution has also declined since 2013 due to federal welfare cutbacks, forcing more New Yorkers to turn to emergency food sites. Overall, 1.4 million New Yorkers don’t have secure access to sufficient food, according to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.