Council helps CUNY students, pantries

With about one in three of the Big Apple’s food pantries closed, the City Council is giving thousands of dollars to low-income CUNY students and on-campus food pantries.

The legislature is sending $400 checks to 1,595 students and $35,000 to the pantries.

“There’s long been a crisis of hunger, food insecurity and poverty among the lowest income college students, and the coronavirus outbreak threatens to compound the crisis to an extent not seen before,” Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) said Monday in announcing the aid.

The 1,595 students come from families whose household incomes average just $15,605. About 15 CUNY campuses have food pantries, though availability changes day to day, according to Nicholas Freudenberg, a public health professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and expert on food insecurity.

“We don’t want students to sacrifice meals because cafeterias — where [students] could use cityfunded vouchers or swipe cards — are closed,” Council Speaker Corey Johnson said in a statement. “These students need those meals now more than ever to remain healthy.”

The Council is drawing on a $1 million pilot program it launched in December to fight food insecurity among CUNY students.

“Some of our students are facing a hard time,” said Freudenberg. “We’re trying to find the right balance between encouraging students to go to emergency food programs near their homes and making sure if the campus is the only provider of food, that there’s something available there.”

A $400 check might not seem like a lot, but the Council calculates it can buy three $10 meals per week for 13 weeks.

“Anything that puts money in the pockets of students helps them and their families get the food they need,” said Freudenberg.

As many as 50,000 CUNY students were found to be food insecure — meaning they had “limited or uncertain access to nutritious, safe foods necessary to lead a healthy lifestyle,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture — in a 2019 study by CUNY’s Urban Food Policy Institute.

“The Council is committed to addressing food insecurity in the long run,” said Torres.

He recently tested positive for coronavirus and said he’s shown mild symptoms since going into quarantine.