NYCCAH's Annual Hunger Survey 2007 Findings - Rising Food Lines, Sinking Economy

The Coalition Against Hunger conducted its Annual Hunger Survey of soup kitchens and food pantries across New York City. The Coalition’s full survey report, Rising Food Lines, Sinking Economy: Increase in NYC Hunger is Early Proof of Economic Slow-Down, found that the number of people forced to use these programs soared in 2007, while food stocks declined forcing more than half of the programs to ration food.

The Coalition's survey estimated that food pantry and soup kitchen use increased by 20% in 2007, on top of an 11% increase in 2006 estimated in last year's survey.Fully 59% of agencies – a record number – said they lacked the resources to meet their growing demand in 2007, a sharp increase from the 48% who lacked such resources in 2006.