Every day at around 7 p.m. several white vans pull into the parking lot at 100 Center St. in Chinatown, where they distribute free food for the homeless as part of the Coalition for the Homeless’ Emergency Feeding Program. The Coalition has provided this service for the past 10 years, and about 80 percent of the aid seekers at this location are Chinese. But with the recent economic slump, the organization’s funding has decreased, and there is not enough food to go around. The Coalition has recently sought support from several of Chinatown’s centers for the elderly, hoping to understand the situations of Chinese who come to take food and find a way to keep non-homeless people from treating themselves to a free dinner.

Juan Delacruz, manager of the Emergency Feeding Program, says that this food is provided specifically for homeless people, or for individuals who are unable to get food through their communities or other channels. The vans bring fruit, milk, bread, soup and other foods to 30 different locations throughout New York City, of which the Center St. parking lot is one. Every day, roughly 70 to 100 people come to the Chinatown location to pick up free food, and most of the relief seekers are Chinese. The program’s staffers have found that many of the people who come to get food are not actually homeless, but merely eager for free groceries.

Delacruz explained that when the economy was better, the Coalition for the Homeless was able to give food to all relief seekers who came, but with the onset of the recession they have seen their funding decrease, and they can only afford to give food to people who really need it.

When this reporter visited the Center St. parking lot, there were more than 60 aid seekers present despite the biting cold, assembled in separate lines for men and women. There were men as old as 60 and children as young as four or five years old. One forty-year-old man said that he lives near the parking lot, and comes by almost every day to pick up free food, often bringing friends. He knew priority was given to the homeless, but he said no one could blame him for this little transgression – after all, the workers wouldn’t inquire about his identity. An elderly man said that he has taken free food from the site for years, and didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. He knows people with plenty of money who come here anyway, he said.

A Coalition volunteer responsible for distributing food said that they give food to all hungry people – as long as they lined up, they would not be rejected. Because so many of the relief seekers are Chinese, the program tries to send as many Chinese volunteers as possible to this location.