Want Some Turkey? Just Fill Out These Forms First
How New York cooks up its own scarcity
We’re having our last happy hour of 2025 on Wednesday 12/3 from 6-8pm in Lower Manhattan—hope to see you there!
The holiday of Thanksgiving conjures images of abundance, but far too many New Yorkers sitting around their dinner tables this week are struggling with scarcity.
Though SNAP benefits have been reinstated, millions of New Yorkers received delayed benefits this month and struggled to put food on the table—and some will lose benefits as work requirements kick in next month. Families signing up for health insurance this season are seeing double-digit increases in their monthly premiums. Day-to-day costs, from groceries to electricity, are spiking as a result of the president’s misguided policies on tariffs, energy, and immigration. Nearly one in seven city public school students will experience homelessness this school year, and over 100,000 people will spend this Thanksgiving in a shelter.
Our incoming mayor speaks with clarity and conviction about the affordability crisis. And his actions provide reason for hope: Mamdani has seemingly neutralized Trump’s campaign against the city, and early administration appointments and transition committees signal a seriousness about bringing experienced hands in to manage the machinery of government.
These hands will be necessary, particularly given our national politics of scarcity. With looming federal budget cuts, the city will soon be making difficult trade-offs just to maintain basic services (let alone deliver on Mamdani’s sweeping agenda). This reality underscores a deeper problem: as Vital City’s Josh Greenman puts it, “New York’s problem isn’t neglect—it’s performance. The city is generous; it just doesn’t always deliver efficiently or well.”
Nowhere is this problem clearer than in the programs designed to help New York’s most vulnerable. In prioritizing avoidance of any potential misuse of public support, we end up with sclerotic systems that manufacture needless scarcity.
Take New York’s housing lottery, where affordable apartments sit empty for months or even years while the city painstakingly verifies documents, income, and household composition for hundreds of applicants. The system suffers from a number of easily fixable process issues—for example, one in three lotteries takes place months after a building was ready for occupancy—but also from a prioritization of compliance and risk reduction over the fundamental goal of housing people in need. A system designed to ensure that a unit never ends up in the “wrong” hands has instead produced a process where units don’t end up in anyone’s hands for unconscionably long periods.
Or look at the city’s nonprofit ecosystem, which provides the bulk of services for seniors, children, immigrants, and the unhoused population. As Comptroller Lander recently documented, many organizations wait six months or more to receive payment on contracts they have already carried out. Some take out lines of credit just to make payroll, effectively subsidizing city government because the contract registration process is so labyrinthine. Again, the instinct to control risk has overtaken the mandate to deliver services: every contract must pass through a chain of approvals designed to prevent mistakes, but the chain is so long that the most glaring mistake is the delay itself.
The same pattern shows up in benefits delivery. While this month’s SNAP disruptions stemmed from a federal failure, the system’s underlying complexity routinely leaves eligible families without benefits. In 2024, 83% of SNAP beneficiaries and 53% of cash assistance beneficiaries had their applications processed in a timely manner. These numbers actually represent major improvements over previous (admittedly pandemic-burdened) years, as the Department of Social Services has tackled an enormous backlog of applications. Still, too many applicants face delays and even denials of assistance, not because they don’t qualify for assistance but instead because they are unable to navigate the city’s overly burdensome process.
Imagine a Thanksgiving meal that required a stack of forms or a line around the block before being able to sit. Perhaps only the hungriest would want to navigate those hoops, but before long the turkey would be dry and the potatoes would harden—inedible for everyone.
We can build a city that doesn’t manufacture scarcity. A great place to start is to get directly involved in the systems that many navigate to receive benefits. Volunteer to pack and distribute food, support unhoused New Yorkers, or help seniors access public benefits. Take note of how user-friendly or onerous our public systems are, and what improvements could be made. Simultaneously, join our work to advocate for more effective government service delivery: sign up to receive advocacy actions, come to our next event to get more involved in our community, or donate to support our work.
Let’s keep building a city where more New Yorkers understand these systems and are empowered to change them. Pull up a chair.