Invisible Reality; The Working Poor

America's oldest homeless shelter is now catering to more New Yorkers than ever and it's not just the poor that line up for a hot meal it's the average working American who can't make ends meet during this really cold snap especially we don't typically that guests that stay overnight to get a meal and then you stay overnight the ones that don't go out if you don't have enough beds for everybody we do a lottery but when it's cold like this we this tonight this will carry will be transformed with mattresses on the floor every hallway every space that we can put a chair we won't let anybody go outside tonight because you die in this kind of weather on this edition of inside out we will discover how life has changed for many Americans since the Great Recession and we'll take you on an exclusive tour inside one of the busy shelters of New York City now the US economy has shown some signs of recovery after the Great Recession and official unemployment rates have dipped but the economic outlook for many working families remains to look bleak according to the US Census Bureau nearly one third of working families don't earn enough to make ends meet most American workers are able to find jobs but those jobs are often low-paying there has to be job growth in America they're a people sent out line in the cold waiting to get jobs they want to have jobs but they have to get better job opportunities and higher wages also the minimum wage has to be raised a little bit enough where people can sustain a decent living and kind of nurture people back towards the middle class David Sweeney is an economist based in New York he's lived in the city for the past 20 years right across the street from his office David tells me that people are lined up almost on a daily basis in hope of being hired for one of the many minimum-wage jobs so susan those people i just showed you in line most likely that's a minimum-wage job and there's another possibility that does not enough for them to survive on and they have to go to these soup kitchens or food places where they give out food to the people and it just doesn't seem right and then there's a push to cut those back we cut the food stamps back the US government did and how people are getting less of those so this really makes it tough for people a bloomberg was a mayor for 12 years and all he was about was business rezoning this is the worst spend a quick look at recent statistics show over 146 million americans are either poor or low-income 57% of all American children live in a home that is either poor or low-income 32% of all working families are considered to be among the quote working poor but that's part of the story many can't find jobs and need help as they jump through the bureaucratic hurdles of public assistance and often end up in the streets or relying on shelters for a bed to sleep and a warm meal there should not be people sleeping on the streets in train stations there are not enough housing affordable housing you see that in New York where people are just being priced out of the market where are they going to go how are they going to feed their families you have women who are single parents and they're having trouble feeding their kids it's heartbreaking earlier I headed to the New York City rescue mission they not only cater to those that are homeless but the growing number of the working poor here in New York City established in 1872 it's the oldest shelter of its kind across the United States my name is Craig Mazin the director of this mission which happens to be we're kind of proud of this it's the oldest mission 1872 so for 142 years we've been caring for the poor and homeless of New York City and just you know we're we're under construction we're actually doubling our space and doubling our capacity so you're going to see a building in progress right now for the first time in our history we're going to have overnight emergency shelter for women but we're also doubling our capacity for emergency shelter for men and also doubling our men that are in a year-long program recovery program so lots of we're going on here to offer help - even more so we have currently have 30 beds for men that are in a residential recovery program so this is their home they live here for a year they address issues that underlie their homelessness or poverty so it's addictions it's work issues it's education so this this is their dorm now but during after the renovation this will be the dorm for our women will be an emergency shelter so 30 women will live here every night come out of the cold or out of the heat and have food shower clothing a nice bed to sleep in and hopefully stabilize their life a little bit the men will then go upstairs to the sixth floor and the beds will be double in size another clear indication for the increasing demand of these forms of assistance one out of three New Yorkers is in a situation where they're not adequately able to feed themselves and so that makes the popular that's in the millions of people and you know when you're in Manhattan you see all the wealth and seal the building you don't really see it's but it's hidden even in Manhattan there are pockets here real poverty and then you get out of the other boroughs like the Bronx and parts of Brooklyn Queens or there's a lot of poverty so there it's a big problem last year the Department of homeless services through New York City was putting the census for homeless population in like 50,000 or so but that's just people that come into the shelter system that so they can actually keep track of them but they're putting that number in just 12 months now up around 63,000 so are they counting better or is there an increase I think it's full I definitely there's an increase and we're seeing here at the mission an increase in demand for what we offer to people you go for last year even from last year as we head down to the kitchen maze tells me more about the people they serve we've we've also seen an increase in the population of the working poor we serve we serve the homeless here but we also serve the working poor for this way and this this zip code where the mission exists is actually listed recently as the seventh most expensive place to live in the country yet at the same time we have a population within the zip code that is extremely poor so we do a food pantry three times a week where they can come and they get a bag of staple food they typically they have jobs but when it comes down to whether they're going to pay rent or they're going to put food on the table they got to pay rent so they're not able to put adequate food on the table so they come here and we provide a pasta and beans and you know if we get fresh produce that we can give away we do that as well so we definitely see that demand growing where we're giving more of that away the lines are getting longer the people that sign up for the numbers are increasing but you know we might be able to see 60 or 70 at a time but for every dinner meal we'll sit well serve it to 250 and 300 so they come in as they leave we bring more in Pedro is the chef at the mission and he's been here for seven years you may remember him on the hit TV show chopped the cooking show competition on Food Network Pedro was a contestant on the episode hero chefs chefs that are considered heroes in their communities I'm the head chef at the New York City rescue mission serving at least 500 homeless people a day ready to go we cook all kinds of food Italian Spanish food French not only an amazing chef at the New York City rescue mission but at my local church on the mercy ministry was bow our heads in Excel pray eight years ago I was going down the wrong road I was homeless I was an addict and this church helped me recover I was able to go to culinary school and food changed my life I'm going on chopped to win for the homeless forgotten I'm going up there for them today's menu is Spanish rice stuffed plantains roast chicken and butternut squash soup every day they get a protein starch and vegetable and then Pedro gets creative with the menu we arrived right in time for lunch so I've served a lot of people I don't have the exact number but now whatever number that was it's doubled it's going to double as we continue to obviously you see the construction and you see what's going on so yeah it's going to double and we're going to increase I think that there's more working poor in New York I think the face of the homeless is change it's not only the person that doesn't have a job it's a person that has a job and living check to check you know I just read an article today that um you know in the airport there's two type of security wages we can continue to serve him there's the $8 and the $17 there's the guy and it said it just like this the guy is making $8 an hour and he's he's working security doing the same job as the other person but he has to eat at soup kitchens so the soup kitchen is providing a service for those who are working as well it's no longer you know the way it was in 1872 or 1911 or 1920 excuse me I'm just gonna grab these plantains pretty good right vehicle of meat here you go sir working with Pedro is El Salvador along with Mike who is helping out and is part of the recovery program I am from the Gulf Coast of Alabama I'm from a little little town boy in a little town called cushla cushla Alabama and if anybody's from Christmas watching this roll tide go Wolfpack I know I lost my job cause I was drinking too much after losing his job Mike started hitchhiking hoping to make it to Boston I was hitchhiking trying to avoid New York started starting my travels back around July ish somewhere around there he thought I would make my bust my way up to Boston go to be town and you know maybe work somewhere around the New England coast trying to work on the water I've done a lot of my work on the water down and you know Coast Wing Alabama Mississippi Louisiana and I got a ride and uh what was the name of the town Allentown or something like that I think it's where I was and I got a Lexie to hitchhike the whole way up and got to ride all the way up here from Allentown and the sky was like look I gotta go over to George Washington Bridge just let me know where you want me to let you out so I was like I well there was no place for him to let me out so I ended up in New York didn't know where I was first time I've been in New York I come over is 178 streets where I was yes yeah at the GW bridge right and I uh didn't know what to do where to go so I just started walking and uh I walked 478 straight to here after a brief relapse Mike returned here and says there's nowhere else he'd rather be say well Owen wouldn't be anywhere else right now than where I'm at yeah really ah the one I'm sober yeah and for - you know imagining I'm doing it I'm doing something good in my life that doesn't require me of breaking the law or being regretful for yeah you know because I've always heard the same because they got the scenes you're right where you're supposed to be you know you are with your here for a reason I hated that saying hated it with a passion because I didn't want to hear that because I didn't want to think I was supposed to be here I'm supposed to be out making mock making money and doing what I want to do but I'm doing exactly what we're God wants me out you know I mean you say God to a lot of people in the world they're like oh god yeah what's this God it it it up never know never I've always believed in God I just always ran from him that's how I ended up in New York the New York City rescue mission is supported by caring individuals churches foundations and businesses less than two percent of the missions revenue comes from government funds actually of our of our budget there's about one or two percent that somehow has a government connection to it which might be some food grants that we get but we're an independent organization not relying on the government which is good because taxes and well just like a snap issue right the Supplemental they 5 billion dollar cut out of the budget so now families that we're receiving that are receiving about 29 dollars less per week to buy food and so where they going to look for help they're going to come here and if we're getting it from the government guess what we got cut as well so we don't mind the government we're not anti-government we're just trying to be a privately run organization that that counts on the goodness of New Yorkers to fund us there is also a learning center I actually think when we expand and have you know 250 people living here every night we're going to be able to add a staff person whose whole job will be job placement in aftercare part of it is going to be networking with businesses and organizations so in advance we say hey we can you give us two or three positions a year and we'll get guys ready for it in you can give them a you know give them a chance because you can't you know if you go through a program like this and you can't get work you can't get a home you can buy food so is there is there a limit on how long someone is yeah well right now it's nine months to a year pretty much nine months is the program dealing with issues of recovery addiction whatever it is and then the last three months our transition so it's doing job interviews if they get a job it's helping them to save money up trying to find affordable housing and helping them get into that affordable housing so ultimately their goal is to turn no one away so we might say fifty percent of the men that come here have alcohol or addiction problems the other fifty percent its family issues and child support issues its loss of employment so we address those as well so we kind of put everybody on an individual track we assess where they're at what their needs are and develop a program to help them New York's new Mayor Bill DeBlasio has proposed his first budget plan which aims to help the homeless and low-income New Yorkers and reverses many of the misguided and harmful cutbacks proposed by the previous administration ours is a progressive administration our budget will be a progressive budget one that puts us on the road to giving hard-working New Yorkers a fair shot and I want to make something absolutely clear because I think the discourse in this town and probably all over the country in recent years has missed this point there is nothing mutually exclusive between being both fiscally responsible and economically progressive something we have to do in tandem it may sound counterintuitive to some but we need a balanced budget and a strong and stable city government to facilitate our fight against inequality we have to do both at the same time the reason is being fiscally responsible is what allows us to be a healthy functioning government as better position to serve people's needs and build a pathway to greater equality in addition to these highlights the de Blasio fiscal year 2015 budget plan of course includes other more highly publicized proposals that will enormous ly help homeless and or New Yorkers Ford and then our people have faced another challenge because of the federal cuts to food stamps to the SNAP program food stamps totals will be reduced the food-stamp allotment will reduced for literally a million New York City household households in need let me do that again food stamp benefits will be reduced because of the farm bill that was passed last week 1 million New York City households will get less support regardless of the dire circumstances they find themselves in I think that you're you're going to have poor you're always going to have poor you know our we doing better job or the numbers increasing or decreasing and I don't think the numbers lie I think I think the problem is becoming greater there was just an election for new mayor in the city and one of the one of the platforms or what they talked about a lot in the discussion was the inequality or the gap that seems to be getting bigger so the rich are getting richer in the poor are getting poorer and you know the mayor is talking about policies that are going to try to change that but I think it's a big problem to solve it see it's integrated into the whole economic system the whole taxation system and in the meantime shelters like ours we're left with the problem of actually trying to put more food on the table and create more space for people while we figure this out we wrapped up our tour at the shelter on the sixth floor under construction now but with a vision of wringing hope and security to the increasing number of New Yorkers who need it so this is going to be one of our dormitories that will house a T transient men so there'll be 40 bunk beds in here scattered throughout the room there'll be some lockers to put stuff in overnight and then over here will be ours and restrooms and in through this doors laundry we have to clean all the sheets every night all the towels and start over the next day so it's a pretty Spartan but it's it's safe it's warm it's dry and they'll come up here after they've had a meal they'll come up and get a shower and they'll get a good night's sleep and then we'll feed them breakfast in the morning before we send them out for the day with millions of families and individuals falling through the cracks and living on the edge of poverty the need for adequate paying jobs technology and education is more crucial than ever before now some might argue that this is easier said than done but the question is what is our other option that's all the time we have for this edition of inside out thanks so much for staying with us on watching remember you can always send me your emails to inside out it's Susan Medeiros comm I'm always looking forward to them you can also follow me on Twitter for latest updates and discussions until next week in another show from all of us here in New York City goodbye you

Channel: InsideOut TV

Views: 581,661

Rating: 4.7755361 out of 5

Keywords: shelter, homeless, jobs, poor, poverty, rescue, food, hot meal, new york, Working Poor, Manhattan (Administrative Division), Manhattan Bridge (Bridge), New York City (City/Town/Village), rich, susan modaress, recession, new york mayor

Id: 806PSngTKgg

Length: 18min 46sec (1126 seconds)

Published: Thu May 08 2014