Good morning, Chair Ayala, and thank you for holding this very important hearing today. I am here to speak on behalf of Antonio Reynoso, Borough President of Brooklyn, where according to the New York State Department of Health, 30% of adults reported facing food insecurity last year.
Access to fresh and healthy food is crucial to maintain health throughout one’s life. Without it, these 30% of Brooklynites may be experiencing higher rates of chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression, and difficulty concentrating on everyday tasks.
Last year, our office published The Comprehensive Plan for Brooklyn, which examines the intersection between land use, allocation of resources, policy, and public health. Analyzing data across multiple metrics, the Plan identified patterns in which low-income neighborhoods of color are less likely to have access to safe and affordable housing, reliable transportation, quality educational and employment opportunities, active recreation, preventative health services, and healthy food.
The maps below, from The Comprehensive Plan, show those patterns clearly as they are related to food access. Map 1 shows food insecurity in the borough, defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life. Coney Island, Gravesend, and Brownsville have the highest percentage of food-insecure households in the borough (ranging between 20% and 27%). These geographies also correlate to neighborhoods with the highest share of households receiving Supplementary Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) benefits. While Coney Island and Gravesend, where almost half of residents report having limited English proficiency, are surrounded by community districts that are significantly more foodsecure, Brownsville is part of a larger pattern of food insecurity in central and eastern Brooklyn.
Map 2 addresses access to healthy food. When discussing food and healthy living habits with stakeholders, one phrase frequently came up: food deserts, which are typically defined as areas where it is difficult to buy affordable healthy groceries. Brooklynites felt that the traditional metric of food insecurity was opaque or did not respond to observed conditions in their neighborhoods. DOHMH publishes its own measure of unhealthy food access, based on the ratio of bodegas to supermarkets in each community district. By this measure, central and southwestern Brooklyn stand out, with as many as 19 bodegas to a single supermarket.
These trends tend to align with the parts of the borough receiving SNAP benefits, shown in Map 3. While access to SNAP is extremely important to address hunger, the Human Resources Administration failed to process applications in a timely manner for the last three years, leaving many New Yorkers having to make difficult choices about their household expenditures. Additionally, recent surveys have shown that many immigrant families may avoid enrolling in benefit programs due to a now-reversed Trump-era “public charge rule” that took reliance on benefits into account in applications for green cards and visas.
Even when New Yorkers do get SNAP, according to a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), many still struggle to afford fresh fruits and vegetables. Additionally, NRDC found that many SNAP recipients are not aware of or don’t understand how to use incentive programs, such as NYC’s Health Bucks and Get the Good Stuff, which can help them access free and low-cost fruits and vegetables at local farmers’ markets and grocery stores.
To use these benefits, recipients must be able to access farmers’ markets and participating grocery stores, and our analysis shows a mismatch between availability and need. Overlaying the SNAP Assistance map with NYC Farmers’ Markets (from DOHMH data) in Map 4, we see large swaths of the borough where SNAP usage is high and no farmers’ markets are available, for example in South Williamsburg, Flatbush, Coney Island, and Borough Park.
Our Comprehensive Plan makes a number of recommendations about how to address food insecurity and access in the borough, which I will summarize here. The administration, and all of us in a position to address this issue should:
- Use a data-driven approach to siting City food access programs, and work with community-based organizations to develop food hubs that deliver local produce to institutions and households;
- Support food rescue programs, which not only help address hunger, but also keep food waste out of landfills. The administration should better promote the DonateNYC platform, which is already set up to support this;
- Fund community-based organizations to assist with SNAP applications and undertake linguistically appropriate outreach to inform their communities – including immigrants, older adults, and students – about the availability of and how to participate in these incentive and other available food assistance programs;
- Support food pantries and soup kitchens. As of 2020, one in five NYC children rely on them, as do unhoused and migrant families, and it is important that these facilities receive adequate support to offer both dignified hot meals and fresh food. Yet many are unfortunately forced to turn people away because of a mismatch between demand and availability of food. The administration and the Council can use capital funding to help food pantries meet the need for refrigeration so that more pantries can distribute fresh food such as vegetables, fruit, dairy and protein; and
- Improve access to food in schools. According to the Food Research & Action Center, DOE has the lowest school breakfast participation rate of any of the big city school districts in the U.S., with about half of the children who receive school lunches not receiving school breakfasts. The DOE needs to do more to ensure that breakfast is provided in first period classrooms and as grab-and-go breakfast in hallways before the first period.
We look forward to working with the Council and the administration on these and other efforts to ensure that no one in Brooklyn or in the city goes to bed hungry. Thank you.