Some students walk into class wondering about their grades. Jahmarley Irving walks in wondering what he\u2019ll eat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI rely on the pantry 1000 percent,\u201d Irving said.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Half of all CUNY students rely on SNAP or Medicaid, which is more than 100,000 people
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A 2022 study found 40% of CUNY students say they have low or very low food security
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During the shutdown, food pantry lines stretched longer citywide, including at CUNY’s 25 pantries, many of which are supported by the Food Bank of New York City
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Medgar Evers College created the Transitional Academy after discovering some students weren\u2019t just hungry \u2014 they were homeless<\/p>\n
When SNAP stalled during the shutdown, the stress at home showed up fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shutdown took a lot from me and my family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Medgar Evers College created the Transitional Academy after discovering some students weren\u2019t just hungry \u2014 they were homeless.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a one-stop support center meant to help students without forcing them to repeat their trauma across multiple offices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Transitional Academy was created to try to minimize them having to tell their story,\u201d Director Waleek Boone said.<\/p>\n
From that came Cougar Country Pantry, one of 25 CUNY pantries. Students shop once a week for free. The Food Bank of New York City supports many of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cCollege hunger has soared in the last 10 or 15 years,\u201d Zac Hall, with the Food Bank for NYC, said.<\/p>\n
And the scale is staggering. Half of all CUNY students rely on SNAP or Medicaid, which is more than 100,000 people. During the shutdown, pantry lines stretched longer citywide, including at the school\u2019s pantries.<\/p>\n
\u201cCollege hunger was there before the shutdown and it\u2019s going to be there tomorrow,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n
To keep up, Medgar Evers expanded hours, opened on weekends and gave students with active SNAP an extra $250 to buy groceries.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times that we think about homelessness or food insecurity, that it looks a way. What we try to do is really destigmatize reaching out and needing help,\u201d Jesse Kane, senior vice president of Student Success, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d probably have to get a full-time job, on top of full-time school, if this was to really escalate,\u201d Irving said.<\/p>\n
A 2022 study found that 40% of CUNY students say they have low or very low food security \u2014 that\u2019s about 110,000 students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some students walk into class wondering about their grades. Jahmarley Irving walks in wondering what he\u2019ll eat. \u201cI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[109,25,98,100,99,388,9,24,12,108,63,87,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-42058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-brooklyn","11":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","12":"tag-brooklyn-news","13":"tag-louis-finley","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}