by Hudson Kamphausen CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT – A new report on food insecurity in Connecticut reopened debate Wednesday about the state’s fiscal guardrails, and how much longer they should exist in their current form.
Legislators and advocates spoke at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford about the increase in food insecurity, which according to a report from from Feeding America now includes one out of every eight residents of the state.
One out of every six children are also food insecure, according to the newest available numbers from 2022. The overall increase equates to about 90,000 individuals.
Food insecurity is defined by the US Department of Agriculture as a “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”
Plymouth Community Food Pantry President Larry Chiucarello talks Wednesday, May 15, 2024, at the Legislative Office Building about his personal experiences with people dealing with food insecurity and the problems he’s faced while running the pantry. Credit: Hudson Kamphausen / CTNewsJunkie
Larry Chiucarello, director of the Plymouth Community Food Pantry, said Wednesday that since he became director in January 2020, he personally has seen a big increase in the amount of customers at the pantry.
When he became director, Chiucarello said the pantry was serving 275 customers a month. This March, that figure had increased 136% to 648 customers. In 2020, Chiucarello said the pantry distributed roughly 11,000 lbs of food. That number increased to 17,000 this past March.
Chiucarello said the people who come into the pantry don’t fully qualify for public assistance, but are close to the edge.
“They’re one misstep away from tragedy,” he said.
Advocates say that $10 million annually would fully fund CTNAP – a program that contracts with the CT Food Bank, which buys protein- and nutrient-rich foods and distributes them to food pantries that are deemed eligible by the state.
A bill that would have provided state funding for the program – House Bill 5011 – did not receive a public hearing in the Appropriations Committee during the short session. The bill had 60 sponsors and co-sponsors.
There was $850,000 appropriated in the budget for the 2025 fiscal year to fund the program.
CT Foodshare President and CEO Jason Jakubowski, said that almost all of the funding for his organization comes from individual and company donations, with federal funding making up about 3%.
CT Foodshare President and CEO Jason Jakubowski shares new numbers from a report by Feeding America outlining the severity of the food insecurity situation in Connecticut. Credit: Hudson Kamphausen / CTNewsJunkie
CT Foodshare, he said, receives almost no money from the state. Jakubowski said that the amount of money Connecticut puts toward fighting food insecurity pales in comparison to its neighboring states.
Massachusetts spends roughly $30 million fighting food insecurity, with New York spending $35 million, and New Jersey $85 million, according to Jakubowski. Connecticut is ahead of only Texas regarding how much money it spends funding food pantries and programs that combat food insecurity.
The issue has the attention of many in the General Assembly, who said Wednesday that the issue needs to be addressed next session.
Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw, a Democrat from Avon who led the news conference Wednesday, said that there is only so much a person can do without assistance.
“There are no bootstraps big enough to pull yourself up when you’re already working two jobs,” Kavros DeGraw said, adding that the government should provide a safety net, and she hopes Connecticut will provide more aid in the future to the people who need it.
Of course, any conversation about funding will include the state’s recently maligned fiscal guardrails.
During a news conference on food insecurity in Connecticut at the Legislative Office Building on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, said the state needs to have “serious conversations” about the future of the fiscal guardrails and their effect on the state’s ability to spend. Credit: Hudson Kamphausen / CTNewsJunkie
Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, said that Connecticut will need to have “serious conversations” about where it goes in the future regarding its spending cap, and how it prioritized saving over spending.
He said that “celebrating the guardrails” while at-risk populations like those struggling with homelessness, poverty, and hunger increase, shows that something needs to change.
“We need to have a conversation, like, yesterday,” he said after the event. “Because, if all the trends are moving in this direction, we are digging a big hole for 35-50% of our state’s population.”
Anwar called the current state of food insecurity in Connecticut a systemic failure.
“It’s painful to think we’ve come to this point,” he said.
Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, said that the state shouldn’t abandon the guardrails, and that the legislature voted just last year to extend the guardrails for another five years. He said that there won’t always be enough money to take care of every issue.
“Do we have that discussion [about the guardrails] again? Yeah, perhaps,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s where it gets us, but we still have to maintain fiscal discipline for a little while longer.”
Paying down the unfunded pensions, which was a large part of the guardrails initially being put into place in 2017, is something Martin said needs to continue.
“We’re taking care of the sins of the past, basically, and at the same time we’re trying to keep up with the current obligations for those pensions,” Martin said. Meanwhile, he wasn’t happy to see what he views as a partisan issue brought up during the event.
Martin said that policies that have come through the legislature recently, with the support of the Democratic majority, have contributed to the situation in which many low and middle-income residents find themselves.
An expansion of paid sick leave, and the proposed establishment of an insurance fund for striking workers – which Gov. Ned Lamont has said he will veto – are some of the policies Martin referenced.
