Soup Kitchens: Higher income visitors coming

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By EVAN WHITE

Story Created: Oct 26, 2009 at 12:33 PM EDT

Story Updated: Oct 26, 2009 at 6:47 PM EDT

UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - The economy may be getting better, but many throughout the Mohawk Valley continue to struggle to put food on the table.

For that reason, area soup kitchens are swamped with visitors and not the same old faces, some say middle to lower middle-class visitors are coming to eat. Hope House in Utica served 59,000 meals by the end of September, this after serving 80,000 all during all of 2008.

Many of those meals are going toward people who have lost full-time positions and even homes.

"We've heard many instances where people were working just one day when they had been working almost full time for a fast food place, we've heard of instances where people have just been summarily laid off, the boss saying people aren't coming in, I can't pay as many people," said Barbara Glueck Resource Development officer for Utica's Hope House.

The City of Utica recently awarded $1.1 million dollars in federal stimulus money to eight agencies to deal with poverty issues locally.

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