Hungry in the Eighties
MARGOLIS, RICHARD J.
States of the Union HUNGRY IN THE EIGHTIES BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS Strolling up Sheridan Road in Chicago one April morning, I come upon a silent queue of elderly women and men leaning into the...
...Her things did not fill a small paper bag, but at least she found the letter and took it along...
...I missed getting the cheese this winter because it was too cold to stand in line...
...she regularly feeds her impoverished neighbors...
...Federally funded through a 1972 amendment to the Older Americans Act, the programs were meant to focus on " those with low incomes...
...The boxes bear a warning: "Not to be sold or exchanged —USDA...
...Randy," heshouts, "you better behave or you don't get no cheese...
...The cutbacks in food stamps have been especially hard on the elderly frail and infirm...
...I ask Humpty Dumpty...
...He needs nutritional meals...
...It was just a living but I worked hard...
...I been in line maybe an hour...
...I'm just a part-time person...
...It was a Christmas card—from a local bank...
...In fact, theneedfor cash sometimes leads the poor to sell the food that has been given to them...
...Anyway," she adds, gazing at my tie and jacket, "they wouldn't think you're eligible...
...A report written by a coalition called the Chicago Hunger Watch notes that "food is often the need that is flexible andcanbereduced...
...Last year a Harvard-based Physician Task Force on Hunger conducted a firsthand investigation in most regions of the country, and in February we all got the bad news...
...They're waiting for the police lady to open up...
...States of the Union HUNGRY IN THE EIGHTIES BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS Strolling up Sheridan Road in Chicago one April morning, I come upon a silent queue of elderly women and men leaning into the chill wind that blows off Lake Michi-ganablockto the east...
...Susanne Strassberger of the Chicago Council for Jewish Elderly has described a sample case: "Mrs...
...A black man with gray hair is feebly defending his turf...
...There's nowhere to sit...
...Second in line is a woman with a metal cane...
...The message seems clear enough: Queue up or waste away...
...Don't we impose these linesonthe destitute in order to punish them, to control them, to reduce their egos to those of children...
...It was once a substantial Jewish enclave, but after World War II people began moving out to the suburbs and the poor began moving in...
...I inquire...
...The Uptown Ministry was established 15 years ago by the Lutheran Missouri Synod as a vehicle for distributing food to street people...
...The cheese comes in five-pound bricks...
...In Chicago, only 18 per cent of the aged poor benefit from congregate or home-delivered meals...
...Now Miss Finley gets $25 amonth in food stamps and another $373 from Social Security...
...A young, soft-spoken Lutheran minister, Riemer sits me down in his tiny office and tells me about the neighborhood he serves...
...She is anxious to get back to her room, to slice up her cheese and give it away...
...Nearbyahump-ty dumpty of a man, no younger than the rest, stokes a trashcan fire with empty cardboard cartons...
...Riemer says a bagful "may get a family through three or four days...
...Then what did you do for food...
...I have to get my things," she explained...
...It's too much for one person, that's for sure, but I can use some of it...
...Another 83-year-old woman, who cares for a retarded son and a mentally ill daughter, pays $250 a month for substandard housing with no hot water...
...Didn't pick up my food stamps either—afraid I'd catch pneumonia...
...Hunger in America is a national health epidemic," the Task Force reported...
...Fifty cents on the dollar is the going exchange rate...
...In Chicago I have concentrated on the elderly end of the spectrum...
...And please don't ask me more questions...
...Members of this distinguished panel," pleaded a Chicago psychiatrist, Dr...
...My name is Marie Finley," she says, "and I turned 78 last month...
...We're still giving away food," Riemer says...
...Psychologically, people hurt when they wait in line...
...Before they had gone very far the woman demanded that they turn back...
...I walk north alongside a woman wearing a kerchief on her head who is clutching her five-pound box...
...While no one knows the precise number of hungry Americans, available evidence indicates that up to 20 million citizens may be hungry at least some period of time each month...
...The same holds true for rising rent and utility bills...
...There was an old woman, he says, who was sent to a nursing home in an ambulance...
...At the corner of Sheridan and Eastwood Marie Finley and I prepare to part company...
...There are people in my building who haven't eaten since Tuesday," she says...
...Within 30 minutes everyone has received some cheese and started home...
...But isn't that precisely the point...
...I have come to Chicago to learn more about the spread of hunger in America —especially among the aged—and one thing I have learned is that if you are hungry, you must get in line...
...You better behave or you don't get no cheese...
...Her food stamps stopped coming...
...I ask if the police lady is late...
...She turns out to be a brisk walker and talker...
...Today is Thursday...
...Quickly I walk the three remaining blocks to the Uptown Ministry, where I have an appointment with the director, Jerry Riemer...
...Miss Finley says all her life she has had difficulty making ends meet...
...What's everybody waiting for...
...I've always been single and I've always supported myself," she tells me, "till I got too sick...
...In most places, though, they have chiefly served the elderly middle class...
...There are 18 nursing homes inthearea," hebegins, "mostly for poor people...
...I' 11 give you three guesses,'' she replied...
...She used to get more stamps, before Ronald Reagan slashed antihunger expenditures by more than $12 billion...
...Since Reagan began supping at the White House the hunger lines have lengthened...
...his food stamps have been cut from $90 to $60...
...I ask Riemer to talk about the older residents...
...Helen S., age 83, with severe rheumatoid arthritis, gets $284 from SSI...
...The victims, moreover, fall "disproportionately at the ends of the age spectrum—the young and the old...
...Y receives only $284 a month in Supplemental Security Income [SSI], When the cost of her clinic visits increased and the cost of her medication went up to $30 a month, she began to spend less money on food...
...Ican'tseeit," says Miss Finley, who voted for Reagan both times...
...Each Monday and Wednesday groceries are donated to 40 families— canned vegetables, fruit, eggs, milk, tuna fish, peanut butter...
...I ask...
...There is some muttering and jostling at the rear of the line...
...The major public agency serving Chicago's older population is the Office for Senior Citizens and Handicapped...
...One way to get through hungry days is to sleep exceptionally late—right through mealtime...
...Humpty Dumpty makes a megaphone of his pudgy hands...
...These colas constitute her sole protection against the wear and tear of inflation, but Budget Director David A. Stockman has assured everyone that the proposed cutbacks would be "a very small sacrifice to make...
...She also has had her food stamps cut...
...Miss Finley understands that the President wants her to tighten her belt another notch now through annual reductions in her Social Security cost-of-living adjustment...
...Ask them...
...The police lady arrives soon after...
...When she comes, she comes...
...What do you dream about...
...Here are a few of my findings...
...She wears a shabby yellow coat that reaches down to her shoe tops...
...It was a very nice birthday...
...To cite again the Chicago Hunger Watch: "Mr...
...Selly R., suffering from a pituitary tumor, hypertension and diabetes, gets $300 from Social Security, of which $200 is now spent for rent...
...She's not late and she's not early," he tells me...
...I worked in restaurants and I did maid's work at that college in Evan-ston...
...A neighbor made me a small cake...
...That is how we and our government have arranged matters at soup kitchens, food stamp centers and surplus commodity depots...
...I went without...
...In Jackson, Mississippi, a 64-year-old black woman named Susan Green showed me her garden— beans, lettuce, okra, collards...
...Did you get a look at it...
...Riemer went along to help...
...In Hartford I met an undernourished woman who every day put aside half her lunch, provided by Meals-on-Wheels, in case her grandson should return from school hungry...
...There's a letter I want to keep...
...Among other things, this agency provides " congregate meals" at senior centers as well as home-delivered meals to those who can't get out...
...It is yellow, pasteurized and loaded with cholesterol...
...The wind of f Lake Michigan is picking up now in classic Chicago style...
...A moment later she slips out of line and hobbles away...
...He speaks movingly of elderly poverty, not only the low incomes but "the poverty of their days, their loneliness and isolation...
...It was brown and brittle at the edges...
...I'm going to give some of this cheese to my neighbors...
...A social worker in Miss Finley's neighborhood tells me the aged poor often use food stamps to pay their rent...
...I offer to stand in her place but she shakes her head...
...The city is getting ready to distribute Federal surplus cheese to some of its down-and-old citizens...
...Elderly devout Catholics who do not get enough to eat often say they are "fasting for spiritual strength...
...My legs hurt something awful from the arthritis.' Shecatchesmyeyeandgoeson:"Igota good spot here' cause I woke up early...
...I have been astonished at the generosity of the aged poor...
...Wish that police lady would come...
...I asked a late-sleeper on the South Side...
...J ohn Weliczko, in recent testimony to a group of Illinois state legislators...
...I can't hold out much longer," she says to no one in particular...
...when reinstated they had been cut...
...She's got the key...
...That's easy...
...someone needs to reinforce the idea that it is painful to stand in line for cheese...
...Yes...
...As health costs for the poor go up, food consumption goes down...
Vol. 68 • April 1985 • No. 5
