An annual report of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, released this week by the group that publishes the British magazine The Economist, named New York at the top of the list for the first time – tied with a usual leader of the ranking, Singapore.
The result is not exactly surprising for anyone who lived and circulated this year in the city that emerged from the quarantines imposed by Covid. Along with the relief brought by vaccines and the feeling of life returning to the streets, restaurants and theaters, there was another return: rising costs of living.
Rents, for example, skyrocketed after the moratorium on evictions enacted at the height of the health crisis — this December, the monthly average rose to US$ 4,095. Employment recovery was slower than the national pace – in November, the local unemployment rate was 5.9%, against 3.7% in the country.
And a global phenomenon, inflation, has contributed to the explosion of food insecurity in America’s richest and most populous city. The rise in food prices in New York was the strongest since 1979. A September study found a 69% increase over 2019, pre-pandemic, in the number of visits to public pantries and “food banks”, NGOs who distribute meals and food.
A recent city hall report estimated that at least 1.4 million of the 8.4 million residents are affected by food insecurity —a condition that can range from starvation to not having access to a desirable minimum of daily nutrition.
To complete the perfect storm, Republican governors of Texas and Florida began sending busloads of immigrants seeking asylum in the US to the so-called sanctuary cities, in a cruel political circus. New York is one such place, located in predominantly Democratic states, where officials are instructed not to prosecute or report undocumented persons, contrary to federal Immigration Service guidelines.
At least 23,000 migrants were brought to New York in the second half – including a large number of Venezuelans -, overwhelming shelters already crowded with homeless people.
On a cold recent morning, this reporter reported to a shift of volunteers at the Archdiocese of New York’s weekly food distribution station. The place is in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in northern Manhattan with a large population of Dominican origin, a group that represents the largest segment of the Latino population in the city and also the lowest income.
In two rooms —one for canned goods, the other for perishables—, the task was to fill bags for distribution the next day, when the queue would form early in the morning on the sidewalk, with a preponderance of elderly people and mothers. The station’s monitor was looking for six volunteers, only got three. Alongside the report, there was a silent Dominican woman who worked at assembly line speed and a bored small businessman, who had been arrested for drunken driving and received part of the sentence in the form of community work.
In the room, the goal was to fill more than 300 bags, each one with two packages of pasta, a can of canned fruit, a bag of oats, two cans of tuna, one can of beans and one can of powdered milk.
In the midst of an upward curve of Covid infections at the beginning of winter, the two other volunteers were not wearing masks in the windowless room. Thus, a recent innovation is welcome, the online coordination to donate food, which allows to multiply efforts among small groups and contributes to the reduction of face-to-face work.
December marks 40 years of New York City’s largest food distribution network, City Harvest, which supplies food to more than 400 “food banks”, dispensaries and institutions that offer hot meals. Except during the pandemic —when the city became the epicenter of cases and deaths in the country and the NGO faced an explosion in demand, being forced to buy food—, the operating model is to collect donations, not rescue leftovers. .
It is estimated that the US annually wastes 40% of its food production. City Harvest uses a fleet of trucks to pick up food from restaurants, markets and farmers whose stock, while fresh, has no outlet or is unattractive for retail, such as fruits and vegetables that are unusually shaped or colored.
The NGO’s numbers confirm the food shortage that affects New York. Director Dan Lavoie tells Sheet that, in 2022, the organization will distribute 20% more food than in any year before the pandemic – the annual average was 3,000 tons. He explains that digital donation campaigns facilitate the adhesion of schools, religious organizations and employees of private companies.
If the metropolis has always displayed the contrasts of inequality, what to say about its most opulent satellite, the summer region of the Hamptons, on the island of Long Island, where the house where Woody Allen filmed “Interiors” (1978) is for sale for $150 million?
There are no visible signs of poverty anywhere. Anyone who watches the traffic at the entrance of a small church in Bridgehampton, a 17th-century village, discovers that many do not go to pray, but go to the parking lot. Unitarian Universalist Church reverend Kimberly Johnson tells the Sheet that the pantry that sits there with nonperishable food is emptied daily — and the congregation no longer has enough funds to meet the growing demand among local families.
Johnson will now try to raise donations from weekend mansion owners.
Economic graphs can confirm the tightness of those who rely on donations to feed themselves in New York. But the numbers also reflect the social priorities of government officials and legislators.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
