Poverty and Violence Go Hand in Hand —by Charles D'Adamo

On a warm August evening in 1989, Donald Bentley and two friends left from a party at the Wall Street Lounge near Maryland and North avenues and became the victims of a robbery attempt. The 19-year old Bentley ran and was fatally shot in the back.

Donald Bentley was a graduate of the Gilman School where he was active in the Black Awareness Club and concerned about social issues. When he was murdered he was about to return to Morehouse College, an educational institution which produced black leaders including Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., where he was studying political science.

A young man with talent and social concern struck down at a young age like so many African American men in Charm City. With such a loss, what would a family and friends do?

A.J. Julius, his brother Josh and other Gilman students responded by organizing an entirely student-run food pantry. Donald Bentley was Julius’s senior advisor and an important influence. The Gilman students opened the Donald Bentley Student Food Pantry in January 1990 to honor the memory of their friend. A.J. Julius wrote to Ellen Bentley, Donald’s mother, “The pantry’s purpose fits a part of that memory of Donald we hold onto—a hatred of hunger and a love for humankind. Your son’s name seems to belong above the door through which food will pass to hungry people.”

For six years the pantry was run by students distributing to hungry residents of East Baltimore out of the building provided by Project Place, a homeless advocacy group, at 2405 Loch Raven Boulevard. The Bentley Pantry is responsible for the areas defined by the 21202 and 21218 postal codes. Until 2003 it was citywide but the number of clients became too great.

In 1995, tragedy struck again when James Flanagan, a former client who became the Pantry’s president and full-time volunteer, was murdered. The second floor apartment above the pantry where Flanagan lived was also burned. It was at this point that the Bentley family became more directly involved.

Ellen Bentley, a former librarian and media instructor for the Anne Arundel County school system, says the pantry was serving more than 200 families weekly until US Department of Agriculture (USDA) cutbacks in October. “We’re down to serving 120-150 families twice a month,” she says.

80 percent of the pantry’s food comes from USDA, 12 percent from the Maryland Food Bank at 12-14 cents per pound, and 8 percent from the schools. The pantry has regular student volunteers from Garrison Forest Middle School as well as Gilman. Donations of food and support money also come from the First Baptist Church on Liberty Heights Avenue of which the Bentley family are members. Monetary contributions are used to buy food from the Maryland Food Bank. “We’re expecting 11 new student volunteers from Johns Hopkins University to help us in our hunger project,” Bentley reports.

What is the situation of hunger in Maryland?

Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) has released 227 page report Hunger in America 2006: State Report Prepared for Maryland. MPR defines “food insecurity” as “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.” In Maryland, 357,400 seek emergency food annually; 72,100 in any given week. Nationally, hunger has increased from 21.4 million in 1997 to 25.35 million in 2006. In the Baltimore metropolitan area, there are more than 175 emergency food providers (food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters), according to the Maryland Food Bank. The Bentley Pantry is fairly unique with its independence as 77% of pantries are church-affiliated.

According to the study, which is based on surveys of food banks, 77% of the households served by Maryland’s charitable food providers (pantries, soup kitchens, shelters) are food insecure. Among households with children under the age of 18, 81 percent are food insecure, or at risk of hunger. 48 percent of these households include at least one employed adult. 67 percent have incomes which fall below the federal poverty level for a family of four--$19,356 annually. While the study does not have Baltimore-specific statistics, we can expect that the numbers for Charm City are proportionately worse. This is suggested by Baltimore’s poverty rate of 18.5 percent contrasted with Maryland’s overall rate of 8 percent.

Robert Bentley, Donald’s father and a retired union steelworker from Bethlehem Steel who participated in the famous 1959 strike, says “the government could do more about hunger issues. We’re just a two-family project here, the Julius family and ours.”

In the 1990s the Bentley Pantry was open six days a week, five days as a Social Security food distribution center where clients brought in vouchers. Then the pantry had enough volunteers to meet the requirement that it be open five days a week. As times have changed at the pantry, Baltimore’s urban landscape has changed as well..

In February 2007, the assets management corporation Legg Mason announced it will build a new building in Baltimore’s East Harbor. Building around the Inner Harbor is ongoing. But take a ride north on Greenmount Avenue, an area served by the Bentley Pantry, and look at the devastation in the neighborhoods to the east, even those neighborhoods around the area of the world-class Johns Hopkins University Medical Campus. From the 1940s to the 1970s, Baltimore was a thriving industrial city with a large number of workers, like Robert Bentley, carrying a union card and a decent wage. In 1957, Bethlehem Steel employed 30,920 workers; in 1975, General Motors 7,000. Today, the giant steelworks at Sparrows Point, presently owned by Mittal Steel Company NV, employs only about 2,400; GM is closed. Since 1960, more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs have left Baltimore.

In addition to the loss of jobs, a recent national report by The Mobility Agenda shows that 33 percent of the US employment, over 40 million jobs, pay wages at $11.11 per hour or less, often without benefits. Rose, a Bentley Pantry client, works as a nursing assistant. We asked what her wage is. “It used to be $14-15 per hour.” She hesitated, then responded, “It’s less than $10” at the nursing home where she now works. Rose, whose daughter is incarcerated (“God bless her,” she says), has been coming to the pantry for two years and much appreciates the pantry’s work.

Volunteer projects like the Bentley Pantry have responded to the effects of Baltimore’s deindustrialization. As noted above, national statistics indicate an increase in hunger. Has Bentley Pantry seen an increase in clients, we asked Josh Julius, the director and a founder. “I hesitate to base a conclusion for Baltimore simply on the pantry’s numbers, but we’ve seen a steady increase.”

Active for 17 years, the Bentley Pantry might go on for another 17. However, “It really needs to have a more formal connection to another entity for it to survive. We’ve had preliminary discussions with the Baltimore Free Store. A student club with faculty sponsorship is another option. This would return it to its student roots,” said Julius.

Josh and A.J. Julius with students from Gilman School, City College, Park School, and Friends School organized the Bentley Pantry. Additional student interest came from Bryn Mawr, Mervo, Northern, Northwestern, Poly, Roland Park Country, and Towson High. The Maryland Food Committee assisted. The students looked at several areas of Baltimore in which there was need before settling on the Greenmount-Loch Raven location. Their initial plans included community organizing--a Neighborhood Unity Council was formed with project ideas for tenant rights and voter registration--but food distribution remained the focus.

According to Julius no one is looking at the big picture. “The solution to poverty and hunger is not giving out cans of chicken.” The Center for Poverty Solutions, successor to the Maryland Food Committee, tried to promote a more comprehensive approach, but this project recently ended.

“The federal government is sending tractor-trailer loads of food to non-profits that then serve to distribute the food to pantries and soup kitchens. But the government has no over-reaching, rational perspective to hunger problems. America has a combination of do-gooders and failed past policies,” said Julius.

What about instituting a living wage or a guaranteed income as discussed in Europe, we asked. “We barely got a minimum wage increase after 15 years. I don’t see it happening politically.” Julius noted that a theory exists that the work of pantries and soup kitchens are part of the problem. “If we think the government’s role is to address hunger in America, but as private citizens through nonprofits we address it, then we lessen the pressure on government to do the right thing!”

Historians do find a relationship between food riots and revolutionary situations. Maybe the poor and hungry need to take to the streets in mass.

February 17th, the day we visited the Donald Bentley Student Pantry, another African American man was found shot dead – in the 3700 block of Oakmont Avenue. George Baskerville was 28, the 35th murder in 2007. According to the City Paper’s Anna Ditkoff, as of February 18th, there were 36 victims of homicides in Charm City this year. Age ranged from 16 to 61, 20 under the age of 30. 31 were men. 32 African American. At this rate, we can expect 239 African American victims of homicide for the year.

The founders and volunteers of the Bentley Pantry believed there was a link between the violent death of their friend and poverty in Baltimore. Like many other private citizens they make a difference. But more must be done to address poverty and its near-relative, crime. And it must be done collectively and politically. It must be done soon.