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Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged $170 million to feed hungry New Yorkers on Wednesday, the same day an agency forecast that close to a half-million city residents will be left unemployed by the coronavirus pandemic that has shuttered businesses across the country.
“What is more fundamental than being able to put food on the table for your family?” de Blasio said from City Hall. “For hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, that is now a question. That is not a certainty, and that’s because somewhere in the neighborhood of a half-million New Yorkers have lost their livelihood in just the last few weeks and money’s running out.”
The initiative, funded through the city’s budget, includes hiring 11,000 taxi and limousine commission-licensed drivers to deliver food to people in the greatest need; purchasing 18 million shelf stable meals to keep in reserve; helping protect existing food supply by getting supermarket and grocery store workers appropriate personal protective equipment, or PPE; and $25 million to support food pantries and soup kitchens.
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Jilly Stephens, CEO of City Harvest, said the funding was “very needed funding at this unprecedented time.”
The group is “looking forward to learning more about how the city envisions these funds being used to help feed the growing number of New Yorkers who need help putting meals on their tables amid the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis,” she said in a statement to MarketWatch.
The need in New York City, and across the country, is skyrocketing “at an alarming rate,” according to Stephens.
“As of April 13, 96 community food programs City Harvest regularly delivers food to have been force to completely shut down, a loss of more than one-third of all normal agency operations, while we still see large increases in demand for food—meaning there are even fewer places for New Yorkers in need to turn to for food as the crisis continues to escalate,” Stephens said.
Before the coronavirus crisis, there were about 1.2 million New Yorkers who were food insecure, including about one in every five children, and the need is only expected to grow.
Since March 16, 4.5 million meals have been served to New Yorkers. During April, the need is expected to be 10 million meals, and in May, “it’s easily going to be somewhere between 10 million and 15 million meals,” de Blasio said.
A total of 111,424 people have tested positive for the virus across New York City.
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On Tuesday evening, the city’s department of health began counting “probable COVID-19” deaths in addition to laboratory confirmed cases. It has recorded 6,840 confirmed deaths and 4,049 probable deaths as of April 14, bringing the official death toll to 10,899.
Wednesday also saw both the mayor and Gov. Andrew Cuomo issue further guidance on face masks.
Cuomo announced that he will issue an executive order directing all New Yorkers to cover their nose and mouth in public and when social distancing cannot be maintained, such as on public transport. The measure will go into effect on Friday, April 17.
The mayor, who in early April advised all city residents to wear masks in public, recommended that grocery stores and supermarkets require shoppers to wear masks.
