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[ Music ] >> From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Briana Vannozzi Good evening and happy Thanksgiving.

Welcome to this special edition of NJ Spotlight News, I'm Briana Vannozzi.

As part of our ongoing series, Hunger in New Jersey, which looks at the hundreds of thousands of people here in our state who are struggling with food insecurity, we want to bring you the stories we've covered this year, of those who are making a difference and helping to get food on the table for those in need.

The most recent figures show nearly one million people in New Jersey are food insecure.

A 22 percent increase over last year, according to Feeding America's annual report.

This includes more than 260,000 children.

Rising food prices, the expiration of pandemic-era safety nets and the failure of wages to keep up with the cost of living have all contributed to this increase.

In New Jersey alone, one of the nation's most expensive places to live, the average cost of a meal is $4.19.

Compare that, though, to the $3.99 it costs nationally and it's up from $3.77 in the state last year.

Food insecurity exists in all 21 counties and doesn't discriminate.

Add to that, more than 50 percent of the state's population don't qualify for SNAP benefits.

That's New Jersey's subsidized program that provides nutritional food to low-income families.

Just over 20 percent of those impacted are Black or Hispanic.

This has been an issue we hear at NJ Spotlight News have committed time and resources to covering while also looking toward ways to write an end to the story of hunger.

Tonight, a look at some of those efforts.

Our neighbors who are without food and many times shelter.

We start with Raven Santana and a story we aired in March about two lawmakers who want to make use of food that typically goes to waste to feed the hungry.

- Each year, millions of pounds of food go to waste.

Rather than surplus food reaching the more than 800,000 people in New Jersey who are facing hunger, it's often tossed in the trash.

Sad reality is that around the United States, 40 percent of food goes un-eaten.

- That's why Assemblyman Bill Moen is introducing a bill to require certain supermarkets, grocery stores, and food suppliers to donate consumable food that would have otherwise been discarded.

The legislation cleared the Assembly Health Committee.

I think when we boil this down to, I think, a very micro level, every meal that we can rescue from disposal is a step towards New Jersey figuring out how we are building that sustainable future.

- Moen says the goal is to ensure entities make a reasonable effort to donate excess food to various food banks, nonprofit organizations, and New Jersey residents.

To me, again, it's a no-brainer that we have supermarkets in New Jersey that are doing this now and are helping to fix this.

The goal here is to just make sure that the rest of them, again, in a reasonable effort are doing the same thing.

- Currently, it is not a requirement for food suppliers to donate, while Moen has referred to the bill as a no-brainer, not everyone is on board.

The President and CEO of the New Jersey Food Council Linda Doherty, released a statement opposing the bill saying, "We have concerns about this legislation because there are circumstances that create barriers to donation.

Some food retailers do not generate a large volume of surplus food that is suitable for donation, and the food pantry generally do not consider partnering with these retailers to be the best use of their resources.

Some grocers and convenience stores have surplus-prepared food, which is generally not able to be donated due to food safety issues."

Retail food donations are already a large and really significant part of the food supply that Fulfill, and our sister food banks across the state and country rely on.

- Triada Stampas is the President and CEO of FulFill Food Bank, and serves about 300 food pantries, soup kitchen, shelters, and other community distribution programs within Ocean and Monmouth Counties.

Despite some concerns, Stampas is in full support of the legislation.

Last year, we received about 5 million pounds of food donations from all sources, but 70% of our donated food was from local retailers.

From all of the grocery chains in the supermarkets that are in our communities, that serve our shoppers.

- She says the food donation partnership between local food retailers and Fulfill Food Bank have been a win-win.

- We are seeing almost 100,000 pantry visitors a month across our two counties.

We have never seen numbers like that before.

- Stampas says while she's concerned about food safety from these surplus donations, she is confident that current food safety guidelines will help prevent that.

- Supermarkets have policies.

They clear the shelves when things get close to that best-by date or sell-by date.

Much of that food is still able to be eaten perfectly good, just not able to be sold by that supermarket, not marketable for them.

- Moen says he's welcoming stakeholders to the table to make the bill better, especially those who are concerned it creates potential barriers.

The bill has been referred to the Food Security Committee.

He now hopes it will be posted for consideration in the near future and passed by the summer.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Raven Santana.

- In our state's capital, the Trenton area soup kitchen, better known as TASK, is seeing a sharp increase in the need for food.

Normally serving about 1100 hot meals a week at each of its 36 sites in Trenton and throughout Central Jersey.

Almost double its pre-pandemic volume, but they can only serve those who physically come in.

So a new mobile effort is underway to reach people where they're at.

TASK hit the road last April to widen its net and reach as many people in need as they can.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis has their story.

- We have been driving out hunger for a while, but now we're literally going to drive it out.

- The Trenton Area Soup Kitchen cut the ribbon on their newest vehicle to stop hunger and food insecurity in their community, a food truck that will deliver free meals to those who need it.

Trenton for a small as it is, it's difficult to get here.

Transportation is an issue.

We're working on it.

This is a way for us to really reach out to the people that can't necessarily get here.

Families with kids, elderly, chronically homeless, you know, the most in need.

- TASK, as it's called for short, serves 1100 hot meals a week at each of its 36 sites in Trenton and the region.

They also provide weekly groceries to residents in need and deliver meals around the holidays.

But that 1100 number is double their pre-pandemic volume, says TASK CEO Joyce Campbell.

While one would hope that having 36 community meals fights spread through Trenton in the county would meet the need, sadly it does not.

The numbers of those who are hungry have risen, and we've seen a sharp increase of those who are seeking help with food.

People like Angela Pursell, who comes here when she's not able to afford groceries, but says a food truck would have helped a lot when she couldn't make it here to their main location on Escher Street recently.

When I had my foot surgery, there was plenty of time to say, "Oh, I can't take my medicine right now because I don't have nothing to eat, can't make it there to eat."

It was a little difficult.

"So this food have had a big impact?"

Yeah, if they had the food truck then it would have been a great help to me.

The food truck is going to create so many more opportunities for TASK to reach the hungry and Mercer County.

It's going to also increase TASK's visibility in our community.

Some people know about our site here, but they don't know about all the other things that TASK does.

And just having this truck rolling down the street will create so many more visible opportunities for TASK.

- Trenton Mayor, Reed Gusciora, came to celebrate the ribbon cutting and said the impact that TASK has, not just with the food kitchen, but all the other services it offers is a critical lifeline for so many in his city.

- It's wonderful.

TASK, if they were not here, they would create a catastrophe out in the streets.

And they helped so many people lift them up, and they do more than food.

They help give computer classes, job training, literacy skills, mental health.

So they do a holistic approach to the community that's underserved.

- The trucks have been going out for a week now, and already the impact is tremendous as Chief Operating Officer Paul Jensen.

We started out with two sites this week.

Next week we're going to be at three different locations, and the following week we should be at four.

So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we will be out in the community providing more meals in areas that we haven't been able to touch previously.

- They're not delivering on the weekends yet, but it could be a possibility in the future, especially for families whose kids rely on meal programs in schools and often go hungry on the weekends.

There is no barriers to when we can go out and what we can do, we're just trying to make sure we can staff it and do it consistently as we can.

The goal is to get several more of these trucks out on the road every day.

Each one could average another thousand meals a week, having a huge impact here in Trenton and in the greater community.

In Trenton, I'm Joanna Gagis, NJ Spotlight News.

The community food bank of New Jersey is the largest anti-hunger organization in the state, serving over 800 pantries and everyone from infants and students to families and seniors.

The food bank partners with local farms offering not just food benefits, but social services and job training to tackle the root of hunger and build a food secure future for New Jersey.

As Thanksgiving and the holiday season approaches, Raven Santana looked at their efforts to serve the most vulnerable.

People are surprised to hear that the need today is much greater than it was during even the heights of COVID.

- President and CEO of the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, Elizabeth McCarthy, says the pandemic may be over, but food insecurity remains.

McCarthy says throughout the course of the year the food bank serves over 90 million meals to the people in the state of New Jersey and she anticipates that number to increase.

There are a number of reasons for that.

I think there were more financial supports in place during COVID.

Right now with things, prices have gone up somewhat, rents gotten up dramatically.

We're seeing longer lines than we've ever seen at our pantries.

- Which is why the food bank is starting to prepare for the holiday season, providing thousands of items like turkeys and fixings to the most vulnerable.

- A big part of what we do is trying to match the need to the community, to different families.

Not everyone can have an oven big enough for a turkey even or have somewhere to store that if that's too much food for them for their family.

So we are very responsive.

We're always surveying people to see what kind of foods they want.

So different dietary needs, different nutritional needs, really trying to make sure that we have choices available for people.

In addition to those 85,000 turkeys, roasters, and ham, 25,000 of these holiday boxes will be distributed throughout the month of November.

And each one includes a variety of non-perishable items.

With vegetables, cranberry sauce, and stuffing, and everything that people might want for their holiday meal.

Again, that's also culturally different in different areas.

So we work with our partners to figure out what their community really is looking for for the holidays.

- McCarthy says, on average, they get around 17,000 volunteers at this location.

John Tomaine is one of them.

Tomaine has been volunteering at the food bank for 11 years.

- Right now, before I came here, I was in what they call the pasta room.

Basically, all they do in there is package and box pasta items.

- Throughout the warehouse, signs like this keep Tomaine and other volunteers motivated and mindful about why food banks are critical to so many before, during, and after the holiday season.

Hunger has been with us forever, and the need is ongoing.

And we have to address what's within us to help people in need.

- I think the thing we most want people to know is that we're here year round, food insecurity is here year round.

The holidays is a great reminder.

And I'm not trying to discourage anyone from donating at the holidays.

Come back in January, come back in February.

There's always a need and we always really need help from all of our neighbors.

- McCarthy says while donating food is helpful, she says monetary donations are even more impactful as a single dollar can provide approximately three meals for a family in need.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Raven Santana.

- Well, once a year, the NJ Counts Point in Time survey fans out across the state and nationwide trying to determine just how many people are homeless or housing insecure.

If you don't have shelter, it's extra tough to put food on the table.

Volunteers go out into the streets and shelters to get a better sense of how many people are without a place to call home.

Advocates say there's a lot of work to be done to get the unhoused connected with the help they need.

But if they can reach one or two, it's worth the effort.

In January, senior correspondent Joanna Gagis went along to see and meet residents who are going without a basic need: a roof over their head.

- And I just let them know that what resources are back here and then through that conversation, I say, "And if you're experiencing homelessness, we are doing a survey today.

We'd like to get you counted in that survey."

- It's a survey that happens once a year called the Point in Time survey that happens throughout the state and nation trying to determine how many people are homeless or housing insecure.

And it just asks everything from where they've been saying, how many times have they been homeless in the past year, what other needs they might have, whether it's mental health, substance use, anything.

So those surveys, you know, kind of ask all those questions and then all that information is collected by the state.

And that's where we get our Point in Time count numbers.

- Here in Ocean County, they capture those numbers in a variety of ways.

Some are counted here at the Beats Center, the organization that includes the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen, the statewide food pantry Fulfill, and the People's Pantry.

Many services are offered here, so when people come in today, Joanne Gwin will ask if they're struggling with homelessness and ask them to complete the survey.

Because that survey, it's completely confidential, it's anonymous, but we need that information in order to get the resources to the area.

- Those funds will come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD, as well as from the state and county.

And it's needed now more than ever, because the rate of homelessness rose in Ocean County by 4% in 2023 to more than 400 people, and statewide rates increased 17% for a total of more than 10,000 homeless.

Rental prices have gone through the roof since COVID has kind of wound down, which has kind of led people who used to have housing to no longer be able to afford it.

As an example, say three years ago, in average one bedroom was $1100 a month.

Now we're seeing them for $15 or $1600 a month, and that increase fixed income hasn't kept up, so cost of living allowances don't help that much if they don't keep up with the cost of living.

- Soldier On, an organization that works with homeless veterans during the yeaar, dedicates all their staff to the count, sending them out throughout nine counties to the places where the homeless are likely to gather.

- We know there's encampments in the woods in both places in Ocean and Monmouth County, so groups go out to speak with the people staying in those encampments to offer them resources and assistance if they want it.

But also just to let them know there are people out there who want to help if you're interested in getting that help.

We can help identify if they're homeless, and then I can also try and get them connected to the Code Blue sites.

- But identifying the homeless is the hardest part.

Kevin McKenna works at Just Believe, a Code Blue shelter in Tom's River.

That designation means they can house the homeless when temperatures fall to 35 degrees.

All Code Blue shelters in the county open the night before the count to capture as many people as possible.

But it's only a portion of the homeless.

- The sad fact is people out there in the woods right now that are almost freezing down.

There's people out there in the summertime that are dying from heatstroke.

It's a sad thing.

- They're asking for more support.

We need a full-time shelter.

- So at least if we could get a shelter here, especially in Ocean County, we could get a shelter which would have wraparound services, we could begin working with them and get them into permanent housing.

The count will continue through the rest of the week at a number of different county outreach locations where the homeless tend to gather.

It'll take a couple months to sort through all the data so that the federal, state, and county dollars can be allocated to help this growing population of housing insecure.

In Tom's River, I'm Joanna Gagis, NJ Spotlight News.

Fast forward to October of this year, the 2024 annual Point in Time count, taken on the night of January 23rd by Monarch Housing Associates, saw a 24% spike over the previous year.

Volunteers counted 12,680 men, women and children who were experiencing homelessness.

But that count paints an even more troubling trend across New Jersey.

Essex County once again leads the state in the number of unsheltered residents, with nearly one in five or 19% of all homeless individuals in the state counted in Essex.

Housing experts like Richard Uniacke say those numbers are only a fraction of the crisis, barely scratching the surface.

Richard is the president of Bridges Outreach, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness in Essex and Union Counties.

He sat down with me last month to give us a clearer picture of those in need.

- Richard, I'm so glad to get a chance to talk to you.

As you and I were talking just before we came on, it's important to note this is a snapshot.

And in fact, as you say, the numbers are actually quite worse.

What can you tell us there?

Yes.

Well, so we, we as service providers put everything into the HMIS system, the Homeless Management Information System.

And there's a public dashboard that the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency provides.

And if you look at that, there are much, much larger numbers.

Essex County is certainly in the lead.

But the total statewide number through September is in excess of 230,000 people who have interacted with the homeless services and prevention ecosystem, with prevention being a really important part of what we're seeing.

- Yeah.

So we talked a little bit about the driving factors, at least, from a state perspective.

Is it the same on the local level?

I mean, you're doing the street outreach.

Your organization is interacting with these folks on a daily basis.

Are those the main factors contributing to what I would say is a pretty stunning rise, whether it's 24% statewide or perhaps even double that?

Yeah.

Those really are important factors.

You know, we're still seeing people being asked to leave a shared residence.

We're still seeing evictions and evictions are on the rise.

Those are the top two causes of homelessness that we see across the state.

And it's important to note that because there's this pervasive view that it's mental illness and drug addiction.

And while that's prevalent, those are not causal.

Right?

So what we see, both in an outreach perspective and in a case management setting, are an awful lot of people who are looking to deal with their housing stability.

And that is really so much more heavily weighted on people who are worried about their imminent homelessness.

So we do do a lot of street outreach here in Newark and we also do a ton of homelessness prevention case management.

Yeah, I mean, we should note as well because there are resources in Newark, in Essex County, that tends to draw folks, right?

I mean, you're going to go someplace where you know you might be able to get help.

What are some of the strategies, at least so far, that have shown some success?

Sure.

So some of the biggest things that we can do is early awareness.

So, you know, in Newark, and one of the things that you've seen as the mayor aims to end chronic homelessness and establish an office of homeless services and, you know, Luis Ulerio leading that effort.

They're bringing everybody together and trying to merge all the radar screens.

So if you understand where is someone going to appear, if that family is facing imminent homelessness, where is that person going to appear, if they're experiencing unsheltered homelessness?

How do we bring that together, basically alert the entire community so that together we can react much more quickly and efficiently.

But when you're talking about preventative services, I mean, are you sort of meeting people like to use that term, right?

Meeting people where they're at, bringing those services to them to sort of get a step ahead.

I mean, what does that look like on a ground level?

Yeah, so we think about, you know, somebody was saying to me earlier today, "rent eats first," right?

So we talk with partners who are food providers.

So if you're going to a food pantry, you're probably housed based on the nature of that food, but you might be unstably housed.

So we partner with that charitable food network, partners who are, you know, part of the community food bank of New Jersey, for example, their member agencies to be able to say, "Hey, you're here for food.

Are you also worried about your housing?

We can connect you to case management."

Same thing with school districts.

You know, when it's folks who are homeless, it's pretty obvious to partner with first responders who are going to engage with those folks on the street.

But it's that prevention.

It's housing authorities and schools and places where people know.

- Let me get you on one more very quickly.

How much does the SCOTUS decision on Grants Pass, that was in Oregon, which criminalized homelessness?

We've seen several towns in New Jersey that have taken up their own ordinances.

How much does that affect your ability to do your job and folks being able to get on their feet again?

It makes it much, much harder.

I mean, you're talking about blood from a stone often.

If you're going to fine somebody $500 for falling asleep on a bench, I mean, it's biological imperative, right?

And I think as Justice Sotomayor said, it's a condition of homelessness and this biological imperative to sleep.

So what are we to do?

You fine somebody for that.

They can't pay it.

Now they have a bench warrant.

It's just harder and harder to get out of homelessness.

What we do is both try to fight that and try to make it easy to get the help you need.

- Rich, thanks so much for coming in.

Bridges Outreach, great work, thank you so much.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

So not everyone is sitting down to a warm turkey dinner tonight with a roof over their heads.

It could be a neighbor or even a family member that's too proud to admit they're in need.

All it takes is a phone call or a couple of hours of your time to assist.

You can find a location in your town to drop off perishable and non-perishable items.

You'd be surprised how little it takes to help provide meals to those who need it.

You can find the Community Food Bank of New Jersey at CFBNJ.org.

They can help you find those local pantries and to reach Bridges Outreach, go to BridgesOutreach.org to help those who may be unsheltered tonight.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

For all of us at NJ Spotlight News, we wish you a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

Thanks for being with us tonight.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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