Toys of Hope featured in the NY Post: Poverty on rise in NYC

Toys of Hope featured in the NY Post: Poverty on rise in NYC

The harsh recession drove more New Yorkers to apply for food stamps and other financial assistance in numbers not seen in decades, local charities and government agencies say.

By year’s end, the city’s Human Resources Administration will have doled out $3.5 billion worth of food stamps to the needy, up from $1.5 billion in 2009, according to a report in Crain’s New York Business.

“We have come through a pretty severe national recession, and coming out of it has not been as strong as we’d like,” said HRA Commissioner Robert Doar.

The New York City Coalition Against Hunger estimated that one in six New Yorkers, or 1.47 million people, have trouble buying food.

At the same time, the number of children living in families that are struggling with hunger rose to nearly 500,000 between 2008 and 2010— a 37 percent increase.

The Children’s Aid Society reported that housing assistance requests spiked 40 percent this year.

An Toys of Hope, a nonprofit that provides clothes and household items, as well as toys, said it gets 400 calls a day for help now — up 35 percent from last year.

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