Reported on Aug. 14, 2009

Eric Dunn, 60, knows New York City soup kitchens well. He has been eating in them for more than 10 years.

Gladys Vasquez and Julio Serrano eat lunch at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen on a recent Monday. Photo: Jake Rosenwasser.

“The soup kitchens in Harlem and the Bronx have good food, but they run out of it,” said Dunn, sitting in the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen. “This place never runs out. It must be well funded.”

The Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Chelsea took in $3 million in 2008, but it too is feeling the effects of the economic downturn. Unprecedented numbers of people were lining up at the soup kitchen even before the financial crisis deepened last fall. Almost a year later, unemployment is up, the stock market is down, and with it, donations are, too. New York State government – a significant source of revenue for the soup kitchen – is looking to cut its budget. Still, every weekday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the soup kitchen serves a meal to everyone who wants one.

There is no limit to the amount of food that guests are allowed to eat at the soup kitchen, located in the Church of the Holy Apostles on the southeast corner of Ninth Avenue and 28th Street.

Dunn sat down on a recent Monday with his tray of macaroni and meatballs, green beans, and rye bread and ate slowly. He finished eating, but was still hungry, so he got back on line, picked up another tray, and sat down at a different table for a second helping, just minutes later.

Some guests of the soup kitchen come back for three or four meals. Other guests empty food into containers to save for later.

Dunn, dressed in construction boots, black jeans, a black T-shirt and a blue baseball cap, wishes the soup kitchen would serve more chicken and ham instead of pasta, but he is satisfied with the food.

“This is one of the better soup kitchens,” Dunn said. “It’s clean.”

Dunn said he comes to Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen on most weekdays. He said he goes to the Lower East Side to eat at another soup kitchen on Saturdays, and he goes to St. Francis Xavier Church’s soup kitchen on 15th Street on Sundays.

Dunn sleeps at a New York City shelter. He said he worked for a window installation company a few years ago, but he has been looking for work ever since.

“There aren’t any jobs,” Dunn said.

New York City’s unemployment rate increased to 9.6 percent in July, its highest level since July 1997, according to the state Department of Labor.

New York City emergency food programs served 28 percent more people in 2008 than in 2007, according to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. Nearly 69 percent of food pantries and soup kitchens said they did not have enough food to meet demand in 2008, up from 59 percent in 2007.

Leaders of the Church of the Holy Apostles started the soup kitchen in 1982 in response to homeless people knocking on the Episcopal church’s door asking for food. The soup kitchen served 35 meals on its first day, while the country endured another recession.

“The soup kitchen was not originally set up to be a long-term institution,” the Rev. Elizabeth Maxwell, soup kitchen program director, said. “It was an emergency program to deal with a hunger emergency.”

The hunger never abated, and the line at the soup kitchen has continued to swell in 2009. Maxwell said that about 70 percent of the soup kitchen’s guests, or visitors, were homeless, although some of the homeless guests are working.

“I think that the economy is worse now than it was in 1982,” Maxwell said. “I think that more people across the city are feeling it.”

The soup kitchen served an average of 1,260 meals per day in 2008, up 8.7 percent from 2007. It was the most meals the soup kitchen had ever served in its 27-year history.

Maxwell said the pace has kept up in 2009. A line of people forms in front of the church an hour before the doors open.

The soup kitchen took in $3 million through donations and government grants and spent $2.8 million in 2008, but with the sluggish economy, it may not be possible to raise that much money this year.

“This is a very challenging fundraising environment,” Maxwell said. “Our fundraising is down, but the most significant fundraising quarter of the year is the last quarter, so we won’t be able to really tell until the end of the year. But definitely there are some people who are not able to help us as much as they were able to before.”

Maxwell said that foundations – which donated more than $1 million in 2008 – were not able to give as much because the stock market is down.

Funding from government grants could be cut as well. Ten percent of the soup kitchen’s revenues – more than $300,000 – came from New York State in 2008, but a July state budget report revealed that the budget will face a $2.1 billion gap by the end of the fiscal year on March 31.

“Revenues have continued to fall, and this will force us to make further difficult choices,” Gov. David A. Paterson said, in July.

Paterson said that he wants to make spending cuts to bridge the budget gap.

“It’s something that we’re watching with concern,” Maxwell said.

Paterson is planning to unveil an amended budget to the Legislature in September.

“We have no special plan for shortfalls in state funding,” said Neville Hughes, director of development for the soup kitchen. “Rather we have a reserve to cover income shortfalls no matter what the revenue stream.”

Hughes said the reserve ensured that the soup kitchen did not run out of food, but that it was less than $1 million.

“Thus we cannot sustain substantial continuous shortfalls in annual revenue,” Hughes said.

Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, is also worried about state budget cuts. He emphasized the role that government plays in funding soup kitchens and food pantries.

“Charity is not going to solve this problem,” Berg said. “Charity is overwhelmed. It has been overwhelmed for years. The only way we can solve this problem is with serious government leadership.”

Maxwell – who has been at the church for 20 years – said the soup kitchen had faced numerous financial crises over the years.

“There was a time in the early ’90s when we actually laid a couple of people off and really had to do some budget cutting,” Maxwell said. “We’ve really tried to avoid that partly because the budget has remained lean and the staff has remained lean, but I don’t know of any time when the general economic outlook has been like it is now.”

The soup kitchen’s three chefs cook 48 pounds of pasta and 100 pounds of meat, for a typical pasta dish. Seven service assistants and porters clean the church and help with day-to-day tasks and the administrative staff keeps the soup kitchen running behind the scenes.

The soup kitchen used to operate out of a small room in the Mission House, which is adjacent to the church. Guests would eat quickly and file out to make room for others. But after a church fire in 1990, the soup kitchen moved its tables inside the church.

Guests line up, are handed a ticket, pick up a tray of food and a cold drink, and sit down at one of the 120 seats in the 5,550-square-foot nave. The guests sit at circular tables of eight amid the altar, the organ, the stained glass windows and the vestibule. Just beyond the holy water font, volunteers hand out rolls and bagels to guests. The church serves all guests, regardless of their faith, without proselytizing.

“Our religion is all about welcoming all God’s people,” Maxwell said. “We have as the central act of worship, a meal. For us, there’s really a very strong connection between the meal that we celebrate together around the altar on Sunday and the meal that’s served around those tables Monday through Friday.”

The soup kitchen averaged 53 volunteers per day in 2008. They greet guests, wrap napkins around spoons, place food on trays, pour iced tea and lemonade, fill pitchers with milk and water, and dump extra food into the trash.

Mahogany Price, 20, a Buffalo State College student from the Bronx, had nothing to do at the soup kitchen on a recent Monday because so many volunteers showed up.

In addition to serving meals, the soup kitchen offers a range of social services. Counselors give out referrals for haircuts and clothing. The Urban Justice Center offers legal advice every Wednesday, and volunteer chiropractors provide adjustments every Thursday.

“Demand has become so great,” volunteer Marian Kantrowitz said.

But the soup kitchen is holding on. It still serves a meal five days a week.

“Are we still functioning? Absolutely,” Maxwell said. “Are we worried? Yes, we are.”