New influx making Brooklyn food pantries' cupboards more bare
BY JOYCE SHELBY

Food pantries and soup kitchens all over Brooklyn are feeding more seniors than ever, service providers say.
From spiraling food and drug costs to fixed incomes, the elderly are having a hard time making ends meet, advocates said.
"People in their 70s and 80s come to us looking for jobs," said Haber House Senior Citizen Center Director Etty Friedman. "They say they'll babysit, clean - do anything to make a buck to supplement their incomes."
At St. John's Bread and Life in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Executive Director Anthony Butler said the increase in seniors has been so large the food pantry set up a day just for them.
"We've had a huge increase in seniors because of cost of food," said Butler. "We see a lot seniors maintaining larger households on a fixed income. They may be supporting grandchildren. We hear the cost of medicines [has] gone up."
The borough's pantries and soup kitchens are also seeing more families, recently unemployed adults, and more people working more than one job.
"I'd say we're seeing a 10-to-15% increase in demand," said Eeva-Lisa von Ancken, executive director of the Bay Ridge Center for Community Services.
But resources haven't increased.
At the Neighbors Together Soup Kitchen in Ocean Hill, Executive Director Edward Fowler said, "Our kitchen is in the same position as the people coming to us. Because we are one of the largest programs in the city, we have a little more cushion ... but for the first time in a long time, I'm starting to get nervous."