March 2024 by Justice P
Last week on February 13th 2024, I spoke to a woman over the phone by the name of Cristofo. I explained to her that I am disabled & I want to know if I can come to HCBOC's food pantry & pick up so food? Ms. Cristofo said yes. I asked her for the food pantry hours & she stated 10 am - 2 pm, from Monday thru Friday. I specifcally asked Ms. Cristofo for the cross streets because I will come by Access A Ride. Ms. Cristofo told me the address is 6022 4th Avenue, corner of 60th street. Fast forward February 14, 2024, I arrived at HCBOC at 10:03 am & the place was closed. I waited for 10 minutes & I decided to call Ms. Cristofo. I explained to her that HCBOC is not open. Ms. Cristofo said " I said 11am not 10am. I told Ms. Cristofo that I'm sure you said 10 am or I would not have scheduled my Access A Ride to drop me off at 10 am.
Ms. Cristofo told me hold on please. And the phone clicked, & I heard a dial tone. Ms. Cristofo hung up on me. I did not call her back because if the hang up was accidental, then Ms. Cristofo should have called me back. She never called me back, so I decided to wait outside in the fridgit weather untill 11 am. 11 am came & went & HCBOC never opened. MY Access A Ride was scheduled to pick me up at 12 noon, so I had no choice but to wait outside in the freezing cold for my access A Ride.
In Conclusion, I waited in the freezing cold for 2 hours for nothing. I have physical disabilities, & In addition, I am blind in my right eye & suffer low vision from cataracts & Gluacoma in both eyes.
This is my 3rd & final time trying to get food from food pantries in NYC. All of these non for profit organizations need to be investigated, because the people that truly need the food from the food pantries are not getting any food. When I go to other food pantries, I have to wait online outside in the cold & people are jumping the line when they see someone whom is family, friend, & from their culture, they put them & many others in front of them on the line. As a result, myself & other's are now at the back of the line because these pantry programs are not being runned properly or respectfully by the person/person's that are in charge of running these food pantries.
It really is disgusting that American citizen's can't access the program's that they need & payed taxes for.
