Feeding a family on a food stamp budget

I need one of those I don't know I got to make sure I put this in my bag because sometimes I just leave it on the table one in five American children now rely on food stamps your kids are among them yes full stamps is oh it's very helpful right now it's a necessity being a woman with four kids you have to be strong yeah meet Mercedes Velasco she's 31 and raising four children in the Trumbull Gardens housing complex in North Bridgeport Connecticut Jonathan is 12 shy Elise is 8 Orsino is 5 and Jessie L is 8 months old she lost her job as a teacher's assistant in 2013 since then she's used her SNAP benefits or food stamps to feed her family it's a temporary help until I can sustain myself but finding healthy food in this neighborhood is hard the only place to buy it within a half mile is the corner store which was the site of a recent homicide and like many in her shoes Mercedes doesn't have a car so she takes the bus to the supermarket we are looking at a situation right now that is a true paradox I think it's the first time in the history of the world that we've had too many calories and not enough nutrition and that people have essentially been surrounded by foods that they'd be better off not eating the city of Bridgeport is trying to solve this problem of food access by putting healthier food right in the corner stores this is one of our three healthy corner stores in the longest-standing food desert in Connecticut here on the east end of Bridgeport a food desert means there's no supermarket within a mile from here it would be in another town 45 minutes on a bus or a 15 to 20 dollar cab ride she says a typical supermarket needs three to five million dollars of investment just to open this neighborhood can't support them instead the city spends about $15,000 per corner store to put in refrigeration units and new awnings to market their healthier foods what we've seen here is a 500% growth in the number of fresh fruits and vegetables being sold at these three corner stores they weren't selling much before but it's a start and until one of these initiatives comes to Mercedes neighborhood she needs to commute thank you she gets seven hundred and twenty six dollars a month in SNAP benefits or food stamps that may sound like a lot but it comes out to less than five dollars a day per person and her family I look for fruits and vegetables that look like they'll last longer I just got to know I buy more healthier stuff because what they see is what they take it they have a yogurt and a bag of chips they're going to go for the bag of chips so I don't buy much of that here's the milk the average u.s. household which is smaller than Mercedes gets two hundred and fifty seven dollars a month in food stamps that's down ten percent from 2010 despite the unemployment rate being almost half of what it was five years ago food stamp recipients are up fifteen percent nationwide since 2010 it costs taxpayers seventy four billion dollars in 2014 I just basically got a few things that I ran out of it's happened it's not an everyday thing but it's happened that I don't have there's more month than food the refrigerator in the pantry to fill the pantry thousands of people in this city head to another type of food pantry a lot of things that our guests can't afford to buy in the grocery store because the prices are so high and we also introduced them to foods that they would not normally eat this food pantry gets nearly expired food donations from the Trader Joe's in next-door Fairfield that's a wealthy town they served over a thousand people in April they're happy and grateful and they don't have to worry about food tonight for their families and that yeah but to get teary-eyed but yeah that's really good yeah we're doing a good thing here the desperation in the city like Bridgeport is intense Ric Torres is on the City Council here and he owns Harbor few market a food store in a more affluent part of town poverty is derived from a lack of jobs to repair poverty you need more jobs you can't do it by giving people stuff because the government will only give you enough to just barely survive that's right there but having a large portion of your city be right there is a desperate situation a situation Mercedes knows all too well living on government assistance you can only do so much how can you save if every time you try to save or you have a little bit in debate they say oh this is how much you have we're going to take away half of what we give you I can't - sorry I can't - more right now that is is taking me so long that every time I try to save something there's something else comes up that I have to do something breaks um at this it is it's really my own fault I mean through the choices that I have made Mercedes wants to succeed the rich have figured out a way to do it they don't hold back they go hard so that in the future they would be able to sustain themselves most people are not willing to put in that work and go hard I've saved two dollars and 96 cents today despite the fact that 46 million Americans receive food stamps there is still a stigma I feel so degraded I mean when I go to the State Building how they treat people they think that everybody that's on government assistance is wasting it on drugs or doing something that's not worthy of being respected or looked at as an equal Mercedes is working to build up her personal business as the sales representative but for now the government assistance she receives is how there's food on the table I want to be financially stable and be able to sustain myself and my children I want to give them more

Channel: CNN Business

Views: 4,815,672

Keywords: child poverty, CNN Business, CNNMoney, government assistance, SNAP, budget, poverty, connecticut, poor, News, benefits, economy, bridgeport, food bank, CNNB, hunger, food stamps, shopping, income inequality, children, food access, economics, food insecurity, food pantry

Id: OXKkakwf6Vk

Length: 7min 5sec (425 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2015