In terms of the overall need seen at COM CAP, a private nonprofit that provides a range of services, "I believe it's much worse," Gregory says. Due to layoffs, a continued crisis in housing affordability, and increased utility costs, "our numbers are rising, and we're working with less. It's been very difficult, at best, but we're trying."
Joanne McGunagle, Com CAP's executive director, says the number of people from the agency's service area — Cranston, Coventry, Scituate, and Foster — who are coming to its food bank has increased, from 500 to 700 a month.
The increase is driven in part by families and others who have not previously needed assistance. "It's completely straining the resources that we have . . . It's like every basic need on Maslow's hierarchy is being zapped, and our resources, at the same time — we're being cut."
The community action programs around the state, the lead agencies in distributing federal heating assistance, get most of their funding through state grants. Yet with the state facing its own considerable problems, nonprofit contractors are facing delays in getting paid. "The cash-flow in the state is pretty close to non-existent," McGunagle says.
In response to the growing need, Gregory has been doing outreach, speaking to businesses and school groups, "trying to get the word out that there is poverty right in your own backyard," and she expects donations to pour in this week as Thanksgiving draws closer.
She keeps in mind clients like a 88-year-old man, "as sweet as can be, living on a very fixed income," who has in the past periodically turned off his hot water heater to save money, and who keeps himself going with the thought of planting his tomato garden next spring. Or the single mom with stage-three cancer, "getting pummeled every which way," who nonetheless manages to keep it together.
A legacy of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society initiative, COM CAP, with its variety of programs, has a core mission of fostering self-sufficiency.
Going forward, though, the current bad situation can be expected to get worse due to the dire condition of the state and national economy. "It's the perfect storm," McGunagle says, citing the combination of different factors influencing the situation. Looking ahead, she says, "I'm not quite sure what to expect, in all honesty."
HARD TIMES The need is so great that food leaves the Rhode Island Community Food Bank
almost as quickly as it arrives. |
A BRIGHT NOTE AMID THE GLOOM
On the upside, the state says it is getting ready to release $38 million in federal heating assistance, the most Rhode Island has ever received, and up from $20 million last year.Thirty-thousand Rhode Island households got heating assistance last winter, enough, typically, to cover costs just for a few weeks or a month. Matteo Guglielmetti, director of low-income programs for the state Energy office, anticipates that as many as 35,000 households will seek help this winter. He's hopeful that the increased aid could double the usual allotment from last year.
Over the summer, when the cost of heating oil was edging toward $5, the price posed a potential crisis across the Northeast. As with the cost of gas, though, the price has declined, to about $2.60 a gallon.
