Since its inception in 1982, Hunger Action has been a leader in the anti-poverty community. As the only statewide membership organization of emergency food providers, low-income individuals, communities of faith, advocates, community agencies and concerned individuals, Hunger Action works to increase the amount of food provided to hungry New Yorkers, while building a unified statewide advocacy for long-term solutions to hunger and poverty.

Hunger Action addresses some of the most urgent problems facing the 2.7 million New Yorkers who live below the poverty line. New York faces consistently high levels of food insecurity, poverty, unemployment and homelessness that have been intensified by the recent economic slow down and the September 11th attack. A recent report by America’s Second Harvest found that more than 900,000 New Yorkers use emergency food programs (EFPs) each week, and nearly 40 percent of those individuals are working.

Hunger Action works to address these issues through statewide legislative advocacy to promote policies that will ensure economic security, monitoring the performance of local Departments of Social Services, promotion of sustainable community food programs, technical assistance for emergency food programs, and promotion of federal nutrition programs such as food stamps and school meals.

Some of Hunger Action’s accomplishments over the last 21 years include:

• Being the only New York anti-hunger group to testify at the U.S. House of Representatives hearing on TANF reauthorization in April 2002;
• Initiating a campaign for public funding of transitional jobs for welfare participants that has resulted in the allocation of more than $40 million for such programs;
• Passage of legislation to allow work study and college internships for welfare participants to count as work, and passage of legislation to increase access to basic education programs for welfare participants, though later vetoed by the governor;
• Successfully convincing Governor Pataki and the State Legislature to increase the Earned Income Disregard in 1999 to allow welfare participants to keep more of their earnings from work;
• Working with other anti-hunger organizations to make New York the first state to opt into the federal transitional food stamp program for welfare participants who find work.;
• Achieving a $16 million increase in funding to emergency food programs;
• Successfully advocating for gains of $20 million for transportation assistance and $283 million for child care assistance through the Empire State Economic Security Campaign;
• Publishing one of the first workfare survey reports, entitled Workfare: Workers Expect Paychecks;
• Expanding the statewide requirement that schools participate in the federal school breakfast programs;
• Helping raise the public assistance shelter allowance in 1990;
• Working with New York State to expand the availability of outreach and information on transitional benefits programs for people moving from welfare to paid employment;
• Helping thousands of families obtain food stamps and other nutritional benefits;
• Starting community gardens and food buying clubs to provide fresh food for low-income individuals;
• Training thousands of community organizations and low-income people on how to advocate for their rights in the welfare system;
• Providing technical assistance to community organizations throughout New York on issues surrounding federal and state welfare policies and implementation.

Hunger Action Network 25 year timeline