Katrina uncovers the forgotten queues at America's soup kitchens

[rodeodance]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1593904,00.html

Katrina uncovers the forgotten queues at America's soup kitchens

Community leaders fear Washington will soon forget the poor millions

David Teather in Detroit
Monday October 17, 2005
The Guardian

It is a little past noon on a sweltering day a short ride from downtown Detroit, one of the last gasps of summer before the brutal Michigan winter settles in. Already the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, run by friars from a nearby monastery, is winding down. People tend to get in line for food early. A couple of dozen people, largely but not exclusively African Americans, finish their lunches in a clean but spare dining hall. A large wooden cross is propped up in one corner and photographs on the wall show the facility during the depression.
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Many of the people at the tables have the worn appearance of the chronically poor and homeless, others are younger and wouldn't attract glares; many have low-paying jobs and simply struggle to make ends meet, part of a swelling class of the working poor. The soup kitchen serves around 800 people daily for lunch. The summer months are the busiest. In the winter, numbers thin. Some regulars find places at shelters and would rather go hungry than lose them. Others have no proper footwear and risk frostbitten feet if they do make the trip.

"I drove in here yesterday and I saw all these people streaming in to the soup kitchen, and I thought 'there is so much suffering in this city'," said Brother Jerry Smith, who runs the soup kitchen. "I see the abandoned buildings and factories on a massive scale. I have to keep looking for signs of hope. Sometimes it's pretty demoralising."

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......Mr Bernstein says: "With the Bush re-election, it's hard to make a case that there is a high political cost to ignoring or even exacerbating our poverty problem. Inequality promotes greater inequality because once you have disenfranchised a generation then their progeny is facing ever higher barriers and it's that much tougher to get out." The question for many is how long poverty will remain a topic in Washington. Katrina made New Orleans a magnet for charity. "It slammed the door shut on us," says Mr Fernandes at Gleaners. "Organisations like ours were feeding the impoverished in the south before the storm; we were feeding them through the storm; and we are feeding them after the storm."

[Sacajawea]

1. Thanks, Guardian, for doing what the American press doesn't.

:kick: