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newyork

News 12 Staff

PPBX39B_2025-03-09-12-23-59

Thanks for being with us for this episode of Power and Politics here on News 12. I'm Amanda Bossard. With food prices soaring these days, there are many families across the city wondering how they're going to get their next meal, and a local food rescue group is appealing to lawmakers to be able to reach more New Yorkers during this time of need. So joining us now to discuss that and more is Jerome Nathaniel. He's the director of policy and government relations at City Harvest. Jerome, thanks so much for being with us here on Power and Politics. Great, thank you so much for having me. Of course. So I just described City Harvest as a food rescue organization. Can we unpack that a little bit? Can you explain what exactly that is and the work that City Harvest does? Yeah, exactly. So City Harvest is New York City's largest and oldest food rescue organization, and what that looks like is essentially we pick up perfectly edible and fresh food from over 1000 different food donors ranging from wholesalers to farms to even kids doing food drives, and then we deliver that free of charge to a network of 400 different food pantries across the five boroughs. That food is donated, uh, chiefly because people really want to give back to their neighbors, but it's also a way to reduce waste. And also um do something to support our neighbors. Uh, this year we're actually on pace to deliver 81 million pounds of fresh food across the five boroughs with the overwhelming majority of it being fresh produce. Yeah, that's a huge number, and I think that's a perfect segue to my next question, which is right now, how would you describe the current state of need here in the city? You just mentioned the number of pantries that you're working with at 400. Has that number changed or increased at all in recent years? Well, the number of pantries has been stable, but the demand and the number of pantry visits has certainly been exacerbated since COVID. Uh, quite often folks sort of look at 2019 as the baseline to compare where we are today. So compared to 2019, we're seeing 1 million more pantry visits each month across our network. Uh, we're also seeing that 1 in 3 New Yorkers visited a pantry in the last three years with 67% of them, um, being employed, so it really sort of underlines that. Um, a lot of this isn't just about whether or not people are, are working or if there's food scarcity. It's really an affordability crisis where people are trying to balance the cost of food with housing, child care, and other essential costs. Yeah, and affordability, a big theme of budget negotiations this year at the city and state level, of course you just got back from a trip to Albany. What kinds of conversations were you having with lawmakers up there? What ways can the state support the work that City Harvest is doing right now and the need obviously big. Yeah, so I mean earlier this week we were able to bring 100 different pantry leaders with us to Albany, and we were all united in an act for a state budget that creates food security and addresses some of the root causes of hunger, such as, uh, affordable childcare and housing stability, uh, but just unpacking the food security priorities we had a little bit. Um, our first ask was for the state to increase the minimum SNAP benefit from $23 per month, so not a lot, to $100 per month. Uh, this is something that New Jersey did, and we believe that New York State, uh, is positioned and should also bring up, uh, the minimum SNAP benefit. Uh, we also asked for the budget to fund two very important but little known, uh, state programs called Norwich, New York and HipApp or Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance program, and what those two programs do is it allows food banks and food pantries to, um, purchase, have a line of credit to purchase fresh food from New York State farmers. Uh, so it's really a win-win for the food system and for the people that we serve as well. And then finally we also asked for um the governor to make good on her commitment uh to expand universal free school meals across the state. Uh, that's one that we're very confident and um everyone's been pretty consistent um in saying that that's gonna be, um, what we see April 1st, uh, but we're just continuing to make sure that we voice the importance of access to school meals. You mentioned SNAP benefits and at the federal level. Now there are so many talks about cuts being floated in a variety of areas including to programs like SNAP. You mentioned it a little there in your response previously, but what kind of impact do you expect that to have locally if that is ultimately approved at the federal level? And is there any other action beyond what you just discussed that could be taken locally that could offset that if it were to ultimately be approved? Yeah, so, uh, you know, SNAP is a very, very important program. We consider it really the nation's cornerstone program for fighting hunger. Here in New York City, 1.8 million New Yorkers rely on the SNAP program, uh, more than 50 million are seniors, more than 500 million are children, uh, so it's really an important program to make sure that we're feeding New Yorkers and the fact of the matter is, is for every, uh, meal that a food bank is able to provide, SNAP provides access to nine meals. So it's really the. efficient way to make sure that families are fed and it's at a scale that charities aren't positioned or designed to really fill uh if there are cuts to the SNAP program. So we're definitely deeply concerned along with other food banks across the nation about potential cuts to SNAPP. So that's why we're really sort of amplifying that as to increase the minimum SNAP benefit from $23 to $100 per month. $23 per month is the federal minimum, but there's nothing that says that states can't come out. Pocket uh to bring it up, uh, much more for families that are, you know, trying to navigate the rising cost of food. And with everything happening at the federal level, I expect this to be a conversation that will be had at the state and local levels moving forward right now Jerome, everyone talking about prices on products like eggs, for example, and how sky high they are how do you affect uh or expect rather inflation on products like that or other areas to impact the need here in the city during the year ahead? Yeah, I'm sure we're all, all, all filling in and when you hear a $23 minimum SNAP benefit nowadays, that's not a lot of eggs, right? Um, so, you know, we've been here before. There were concerns about food price inflation, uh, during COVID due to supply chain issues, uh, and in 2022, we actually conducted a survey and the overwhelming majority of folks that use our program said that they were making more pantry visits because of the rising cost of food, and that's what we saw in 2022 and um unfortunately, You know we're anticipating that this year is going to look similar uh more families are going to be going to, uh, pantries and it's up to, uh, both charities like City Harvest to make sure that we're meeting that demand but also most importantly that we have public policy in place to really, uh, protect and support families that are, uh, you know, uh, filling it when they're going to the grocery store. Jerome Nathaniel with City Harvest, thanks so much for your time and the conversation here on power and politics. We appreciate it. Great. Thank you so much. Well, more candidates are joining the race for mayor, the latest to add their name to the growing list when power and politics returns.

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PPBX39C_2025-03-09-12-24-16

Welcome back to Power and Politics as we turn to a big update on the race for mayor. Earlier this week, News 12 sources confirmed that City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is in it. She is the first black woman to take on the role of city council speaker and has been representing her Queen's district since her election in 2017. Speaker Adams joins a growing list of candidates in June's Democratic primary. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo threw his hat in the ring last weekend. And of course Mayor Eric Adams fighting to hold on to his seat. We spoke with the current mayor about his latest challenger. Um, not at all. Come on, come all, everybody has to put their agenda for it. Uh, you got 9 people in the race now. There's only going to be 1, and, um, you're interviewing the 1. A reminder that the mayoral primary is on June 24th and the general election is in November. Meanwhile, there is a new push to crack down on illegal parking, specifically double parked cars. News 12's Heather Fordham shares how lawmakers plan to tackle the long-standing problem from East Tremont. No matter the borough or street, you're bound to encounter double parked cars in New York City. It's terrible because you double park and then it affects the buses going by to stop and pick up people. But sometimes it seems unavoidable, particularly on East Tremont Avenue where parking spots are limited. Cases of emergencies like the fire department, the ambulances. The buses, it could be real, real sticky. One lawmaker has a solution automatic ticketing cameras. Using a camera is one of the most equitable ways that we can help identify who keeps uh. Violating this law that we have. Assembly member Stephen Raga is asking for $35 million to be included in the state budget for a pilot program. 150 cameras would be set up on streets that have high volumes of 311 calls for double parking, similar to a red light or speed camera. They would be programmed to ticket cars that are double parked or idling for a certain amount of time. Sometimes people, you know, there's no parking and stuff, and they just to run in and out the store for those drivers, Raga says they're working to include a 5 minute grace period. The tickets would start at $50 for the first offense, but could be as high as $250 for repeat offenders. More than 336,000 tickets were issued last year for double parking, but lawmakers say that number doesn't equate to the number of 311 complaints that come in to report them. They go ahead and they try to file the 301 complaint, but by the time the police come. You know, the car's gone. The city's Department of Transportation says there's proof that automated enforcement does work, and they are reviewing the plan. In East Tremont, Heather Fordham News 12, the Bronx, and that's all this week here on Power and Politics. We'll see you next time.

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