EBT/SNAP, Food Insecurity, & Poverty

No New Yorker should ever go hungry. 

Check out this video of my visit to Calvary’s Mission in Queens, a remarkable organization serving food to its community.

There is enough food in this City to feed everyone, regardless of income level. Additionally, there are more avenues to end hunger besides commercial, for-profit food distribution. 

It takes a holistic and systemic approach. We can map the flow of food from farms to distribution centers to our residents, find the constraints and solve them with available tools already at our disposal.

From farm to dump, 40% of food is wasted at a huge cost to the environment and climate while creating municipal burdens.

As Mayor, I will restructure our food distribution system to better serve our at-need residents by:

• Expanding food distribution endpoints (schools, childcare centers, restaurants and other commercial food services, consumer grocery stores, food pantries, and soup kitchens)

• Wielding the City’s purchasing and public policy power to extract and redistribute edible food from the system before it becomes waste (“unused food”)

• Leveraging pre-existing communities of knowledge, including all non-profit, mutual aid, and other community-based organizations involved in food relief, as well as the traditional commercial for-profit operators 

• Mapping every distribution endpoint, food-insecure household, and flow of food from the sources to identify gaps as well as promoting efficiency to support direct engagement by all participants (especially community-based organizations and food recipients on the ground) 

• Investing in and supporting construction of commercial kitchens available for use by community-based organizations and micro-entrepreneurs seeking to start their own food businesses 

• Incentivizing and supporting alternative organizations and ownership structures (cooperatives, ESOPs), especially given COVID-driven closures of grocery stores that serve lower-income communities across New York City 

• Forming new  intermediate processing points, such as dedicated kitchens for converting low edible food to edible food (e.g. chicken parts and bones to soup)

Technology can streamline and enhance this entire process by: 

• Providing data and encourage community engagement/participation in federally-funded programs, specifically, automating the enrollment process for EBT/SNAP & WIC based on income data the City already has about each resident

• Using income data from every filer in New York City, including majority of undocumented residents to identify people at risk of food insecurity 

• Developing an integrated services system to automate and maximize relief benefits 

• Making outreach more efficient and effective to eligible potential participants 

SNAP, EBT, WIC

• My administration will work with State and Federal elected officials to fight for more money to be allocated to the EBT/SNAP card per month, as many families run out of money/food in the third week of each month. The monthly amount allocated to EBT/SNAP cards has not risen proportionally with rising food costs, leaving families lacking at the end of the month. This is unacceptable in New York City.

• We will use the convening power of the Mayor’s office to advocate for Supermarkets, Food Outlets, and Farmers Markets to offer a specific discount at the check-out registers when the EBT/SNAP card is presented as payment, thus allowing the EBT/SNAP funds to last a little longer. We’ll also work with the City & State government offer incentives to supermarket owners to encourage these discounts.

• We will advocate for the EBT/ SNAP card to be used to purchase hot food/take-out food, as many of our disabled and low-income neighbors don’t have the equipment or ability to cook at home.

• My administration will advocate for businesses to offer EBT/ SNAP card recipients the ability to purchase other items such as diapers, clothes, shoes, and school supplies for their children. Art will also ask that these businesses offer discounts, and similarly ask that the City/State offer incentives to encourage businesses to participate in this discount program.

• Well-being is not limited to just food. In the cultural capitol of the United States, all of our residents should have access to the arts & cultural institutions that tourists come to our City to enjoy. Art will work with the City Council to promote legislation that would allow EBT/SNAP cardholders and their immediate family members to enter all city-controlled cultural institutions for free. Private institutions will also be asked to match this offer, or at least offer steeply discounted entry to EBT/SNAP cardholders.

Planning For Long-Term Food Sovereignty 

I have been a member of the Park Slope Food Coop for nearly 30 years. There, a member committee ensures that food purchasing meets stringent requirements for worker rights, environmental and climate practices, nutrition, animal welfare, and racial equity practices. As Mayor, I plan to incorporate these same policies by:

• Continuously addressing food as a strategic and essential component of a healthy city with healthy communities

• Tracing back to the points of origin of our supply (like we do with our water systems)

• Developing partnerships with farms across the region

• Work with adjacent communities and government leaders to enhance the producers of locally grown products, including those produced in New York City 

• Devoting an office towards maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in our administration as a permanent part of the City’s food procurement system

• Making data publicly available via an open website to influence purchasing decisions beyond the five boroughs 

Dedication To Improved Institutional Meals (Schools, Senior Homes, etc.) 

As a first-generation Korean-American and a former restaurant worker, I recognize the importance of food as a representation of culture and love. I’m also gluten-free, so I understand how important it is to ensure that every person’s individual dietary needs are met. 

Furthermore, we need to re-define our system of health in this City; it isn’t the absence of disease, it’s the presence of well-being. The food we eat is essential to achieving that. As Mayor, I want to put a sustainable system in place to ensure that generations before and after us are fed efficiently and equitably. As Mayor, I will focus on:

• Diversifying the workforce to ensure cultural compatibility for food preparation and service 

• Preparing food on site or at locations in close proximity to maximize freshness  

• Focusing on ingredient procurement: quality and nutritional value starts at the source

• Instituting a Food Democracy System to support under-funded non-profit community-based organizations who prepare and serve meals to aging folks (Senior Centers, Meals on Wheels, etc.) 

• Creating more options to suit everyone’s needs, including Halal, Kosher, and food allergy-conscious choices 

• Developing a more equitable food system for BIPOC and marginalized communities by ensuring equity across the system AND addressing the specific cultural needs of each community

• Creating a “bottom-up” approach that meets every family & every community where they are by enlisting creators who are reflective of the communities being served 

Promoting Food Worker Equity

I have worked nearly every job in a restaurant, including the back of house. Foodservice workers are often members of marginalized communities who experience significant inequity. Therefore, we must strive towards: 

• Supporting restaurant workers in pay parity for equal work 

• Emphasizing  worker development by leveraging the CUNY School of Continuing Education and Adult Education programs.

• Collaborating with the state legislature to eliminate the ban on tip-sharing with non-service workers in restaurants so that we can adopt One Fair Wage 

Decreasing Poverty and Ending Hunger in New York City: 

Hunger and poverty are both human rights crises that are intertwined, particularly in New York City. Eliminating food insecurity is essential to combating poverty. My food insecurity plan will work in tandem with my other policies to lift thousands of children and families out of poverty, including:

• Improving holistic solutions, including improved low and no-income housing

• Instituting my proposal for Universal Childcare 

• Re-imagining an equitable education system that meets every student and their families where they are

• Removing stigma and leveling the playing field at schools by providing free breakfast and lunch for every student

• Supporting Senator Schumer’s and Representative Ritchie Torres’s bill to revise the Earned Income Tax Credit/create a Child Tax Credit to provide direct cash relief to the lowest-earning residents. This could lift 50% of children out of poverty in the Bronx alone.