In the last few months there's been a dramatic increase in the number of hungry people in the Milwaukee area. Some are visiting busy pantries in order to put food on the table. Others are joining long lines at the welfare office, where they're applying for food stamps for the first time. In one case both of those things are happening in the same building.
Ayanna Williams is working for the Hunger Task Force in Milwaukee. Her job is to spend the day at the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Building on 12th and Vliet, where people apply for the federal food stamp program. Williams offers help if people have trouble using the computer stations to either apply for benefits or to check their status, if they haven't arrived.
"A lot of people have come in and said that they've done everything right. They've sent in all their information, they've given all the paperwork that they should have given, but they're still not getting their benefits and they don't understand why," Williams says.
Williams says the crowds have been picking up since September, when the country was rocked by the financial meltdown and the credit crisis.
"A very telling indicator is if you come in an hour and a half after the Coggs Center has opened and you see that all the seats are filled because that many people have come early, because they know they're going to wait all day long to get their questions answered," Williams says.
Williams says many people have to wait days or weeks before they get their benefits. So the Hunger Task Force has set up an emergency food pantry in the basement of the Coggs building, along with the group Friedens Community Ministries. David Johnson is the executive director.
"We're designed primarily to be that stopgap from the time people first apply for their stamps until the time they kick in," Johnson says.
Today a single father, Daryl Johnson, is among the dozens of people who stop in. He's unemployed. Johnson is told to go over to a table, where he's allowed to pick out a few fresh items, such as a loaf of bread and potatoes. They're meant to supplement the dry goods that the staff has already packed in a grocery bag for Johnson and his 15-year-old son.
"Mostly canned goods and rice and ravioli and raisin bran muffins. Nothing major though, nothing to cook for an encore meal or something -- but something to sustain us until better times," Johnson says.
Johnson says this is his first visit to the welfare office. He says he was told it could take a month before he gets his food stamp benefits.
Ann-Elise Henzl: "This food is only going to last a few days. What are you..."
Daryl Johnson: "This food is only going to last a day or two, not a few."
Henzl: "So what's your plan for what you'll do between the time this runs out and the time that you get your benefits approved?"
Johnson: "You know what, that's what I'm worried about, I don't know, I'm just going to go to different agencies and hopefully I end up with a turkey or a ham before Thanksgiving."
Across the room, there's a large shelving unit filled with packed grocery bags, designed for families of various sizes. Executive Director David Johnson says the bags won't be there for long.
"We've got the three shelves full here, normally once we get it packed like this it would normally last us most of the week and we're pretty much going through it in a day and a half," Johnson says.
Johnson says the pantry has become increasingly busy in the last few months. Hunger Task Force says that mirrors what's happened at all of the pantries that it supplies with food. Sherrie Tussler is executive director.
"We had seen an additional 5,000 people lining up at emergency food pantries in Milwaukee County in September over August. We waited, we watched, we continued to serve, we supplied everybody, and then when the numbers came in for October and early November what we saw was another 5,000 people. So we went from serving 33,000 people in August to 43,000 people in October," Tussler says.
If the need continues to grow at that rate, Tussler says she's not sure Hunger Task Force will be able to keep up with the demand. She says there's a chance that the food bank system will go bankrupt.
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