In the most prosperous city in the Western Hemisphere, the wealth disparities are jarring. Food insecurity remains an intransigent and heart-breaking issue in our city.
1,796,300 New Yorkers were receiving SNAP benefits as of June 2025, and, according to 2023 data, nearly seventeen percent of New York City residents were considered food insecure: a higher rate than 2019-22.
According to the recently published NYC True Cost of Living Measure Inaugural Report (2026), which measures the ability of working-age households to meet basic needs, such as affording food, housing, healthcare, and taxes, “sixty-two percent of New York City residents, approximately 5.04 million people, do not have the resources to meet the cost of living in New York City.” Even households with multiple people employed struggle to make ends meet: nearly one third of households composed of two or more workers lack the income to cover basic needs.
Council District 3 has a long history of responding to rampant food insecurity through our Fresh Food for Seniors program. This program was started by then-Speaker Corey Johnson and Borough President Gale Brewer, and it has continued as an anticipated initiative for constituents alongside the West side of Manhattan.
Staff and volunteers from the Council office pack and deliver bags of fresh, locally harvested bags of produce to senior centers around the District. The program, beloved by constituents of all ages, acts as a bi-weekly grocery supplement during the warm weather months. For only ten dollars, participants receive a variety of fresh produce worth anywhere from fifteen to twenty dollars, depending on the selection.
My staff and I work with two pioneering NYC-based organizations, Rethink Food and GrowNYC, to facilitate the “Farm to Senior” fresh produce program. This summer, following the July holiday weekend, my staff and I got to work preparing and disseminating food bags to constituents throughout District 3. In the Fiscal Year 2027 budget, I allocated $5,000 to Rethink Food to support on-site packing operations and $10,000 to Grow NYC to subsidize the produce orders. These organizations understand that addressing food insecurity requires a multi-pronged approach – a fork, not a spoon, if you will – varying based on each community’s needs.
Rethink Food works with over 200 local restaurants to source and prepare meals for New Yorkers across the city. They take several approaches catered to different types of service users and access issues, but all rely on the same formula of meeting people where they are and providing high-quality, nutritious meals. Their Neighborhood Meals program provides restaurant-sourced food to community organizations; the Rapid Response Program supports government and private agencies in fulfilling emergency and ongoing meal-making contracts; and the Medically Tailored Meals program delivers bespoke food for service users on Medicaid. Overall, Rethink provides 30,000 meals per week. It is an honor for my staff and I to play a small role in their well-oiled machine.
Grow NYC similarly gives communities and individuals the resources to make the nutritional choices that work for them. Their Greenmarkets, Farmstands, and Food Hub bring farmer-fresh food directly to communities in all five boroughs. They also provide spaces and education to empower users to grow their own produce. Again, meeting each community where they are and acknowledging that each one is best placed to articulate its own nutritional needs is key to approaching food insecurity in our city.
Across District 3, our office has already distributed nearly 1000 bags of fresh produce to constituents this year alone. Despite its “Farm to Seniors” name, the beauty of the program has been seen in its breadth: from folks bringing bags to their neighbors who can’t access the senior centers, to constituents using the bags as a pathway to a nutritious meal, to an eager pack of multi-generational volunteers who are keen to help their community.
I’d be remiss not to also mention the invaluable senior centers that act as the liaison between this program and the community. Their central locations and unique access to vulnerable populations help the program expand its reach, tenfold. We typically receive anywhere from 180-250 bag orders in a given week that the senior centers are responsible for disseminating. This is one of the many programs our Department for the Aging supported senior centers offer to aging adults across District 3.
Mayor Mamdani and the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s plan to open five new municipal grocery stores, where quotidian staples will be thirty percent cheaper than average, is a laudable example of creative thinking when it comes to addressing food insecurity. Also promising is the “OPEN for Small Business” initiative, which will save neighborhood corner stores money on excessive license fees and other costs: savings that will hopefully be passed on to shoppers who rely on their local bodega for groceries. I am supportive of these initiatives that will contribute to our shared goal of making New York City affordable to all.
Trying to solve the same problem with the same solutions will never lead to innovation. Increasing access to healthy and affordable food requires creative approaches that meet our communities where they already are, and offer them something even better.
Dining and Cooking