Help Us Help Our Neighbors

One of every four New Brunswick residents lives in poverty.

According to the U.S. Census, 25.6 percent of New Brunswick residents live in poverty–three times the state average. And every day, dozens go to bed hungry.

Patch wants to help. We are teaming up Thursday with Elijah’s Promise, the New Brunswick soup kitchen that serves more than 100,000 meals a year to those who cannot afford food, to help stock its pantry and raise money to pay for its many and varied programs.

We’ll be setting up in the TD Bank parking lot and challenging the community to fill the Elijah’s Promise van with food. We’ll be there from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

New Brunswick is a city of contradictions. Its city unemployment rate is below the state rate and better than some of the state’s other cities. It is home to two important hospitals, the state university and one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

And yet, its median family income is just $45,000–about $20,000 below the state average – and its per capita income of $17,391 is half the state average. About three quarters of its students qualify for free or subsidized meals and there is that poverty number–one in four—that is difficult to ignore.

And as bad as that is, it only tells a part of the story.

The federal poverty figure severely underestimates the number of people living in need in New Jersey, because it does not take into account the high cost of living here. Cost of living in the Middlesex-Monmouth urban statistical area, using the federal Cost of Living Index, based on the Consumer Price Index, is about 25 percent above the national average.

The CPI, however, underestimates costs. Housing costs in New Jersey are fourth in the nation and make up far more than the 29 percent of total family spending than the federal statistics assume.

Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen, using numbers of the N.J. Anti-Poverty Alliance, writes that “a family of four needs twice the income of the federal poverty level of $20,000 to be self-sufficient.”

Obviously, these families need help. Until there is a change in our economy of a change of heart by the federal or state government, it is up to us to provide that help.

Join us Thursday and make it possible for Elijah’s Promise to help as many people as it can.