Posted on: Thursday, October 4, 2001

The September 11th attack
Charities expect requests to surge

By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau

In the days following widespread layoffs resulting from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, some major social service organizations are already seeing an increase in people seeking assistance.

The food pantry at Catholic Charities is nearly depleted. In the last two weeks, the Salvation Army Family Services program has given out food to twice the number of families than usual. Agencies are also getting more calls from people inquiring about rental and mortgage assistance.

And although officials of other agencies have not yet seen a rise in a demand for services, they believe it's just a matter of time.

"This social services net that has existed in Hawai'i will be hit very hard in the next several months," said Vicki Suyat, development director for Catholic Charities.

"Evictions are going to come in the next six to 12 weeks as people who are laid off are really finding difficulty on making ends meet."

Suyat said last week Catholic Charities, which serves people of all faiths, has received about 25 to 30 more requests for food in addition to the usual 100. The agency has also received more requests for rental assistance.

"We've had an increase (in) 'I'm having a hard time, what can I do, where can I go' kind of calls," she said.

The Salvation Army Family Services' food pantry has also seen an "enormous" increase in requests, said coordinator Chad Buchanan. The food pantry usually distributes 80 to 135 emergency food boxes a month to families. It gave out 200 in the past two weeks, he said.

Buchanan said many requesting help from the Salvation Army work in the service industry.

"A lot of these people are first-timers, and they indicated that they're just struggling with the layoffs," he said.

Dick Grimm, president of the Hawaii Foodbank, which distributes food to agencies including the Salvation Army, said the Foodbank distributed 615,000 pounds of food last month, about 15 percent more than it did in September last year. Much of the increase was in the last two weeks of September, he said.

Grimm said the Foodbank also saw an increase in donations for September, but noted that was largely from farmers who could not ship their produce to the Mainland and had extra food because hotels had cut back on their purchasing.

"The problem is this is a snowballing effect," Grimm said. "A lot of the people getting laid off have never been laid off before. They're out and learning what is available to them, where they can get help. This will be something that will snowball in the coming months."

Social service advocates are also worried for the more than 800 families scheduled to come off welfare rolls beginning Nov. 30. The 1996 federal welfare reform law sets a five-year limit on welfare benefits.

Buchanan encouraged Hawai'i residents to "look at what they've got and try and give to the nation but also to give locally because Hawai'i is being drastically affected.

"I do believe we are at a near-crisis stage," he said.