The Israeli char­ity Latet has released it’s annual Alter­na­tive Poverty Report for 2009. The report sur­veys over 100 food char­i­ties in Israel and ques­tions fam­i­lies about their liv­ing conditions.

This year’s report finds that there has been a 15 per­cent increase in fam­i­lies seek­ing assis­tance for food. 6 per­cent of poor Israeli chil­dren have stolen food in the past year, and a quar­ter of those chil­dren have been put into the work force to help the family.

From the Jerusalem Post, writer Ruth Eglash attended a press con­fer­ence that unveiled the report.

“For many peo­ple the eco­nomic cri­sis is just start­ing,” com­mented Latet Direc­tor Eran Wein­traub on Tues­day fol­low­ing a press con­fer­ence about the report, which for the past seven years has acted as a more per­sonal approach to poverty than the sta­tis­ti­cal per­spec­tive pro­vided by National Insur­ance Institute’s annual poverty report released last month.

“We are expect­ing that many more peo­ple in 2010 will join the already tens of thou­sands of indi­vid­u­als trapped in the cycle of poverty,” said Wein­traub, adding that non-profits such as Latet are grow­ing increas­ing con­cerned that they will not be able to cope with the rise.

Among the find­ings of the report, the orga­ni­za­tion noted a growth of 10% in the num­ber of peo­ple that lost their jobs over the past year due to the eco­nomic cri­sis, with 25% say­ing they were not opti­mistic about find­ing work in the near future.

While the sit­u­a­tion grew more dif­fi­cult for adults, the report high­lighted the wors­en­ing con­di­tions for the country’s chil­dren. Aside from the 6% of chil­dren admit­ting to steal­ing food, 20% of needy fam­i­lies reported that their chil­dren had become involved in vio­lent activ­i­ties due to the tough finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. In addi­tion, 34% said they were fear­ful their chil­dren would even­tu­ally become involved in crime or start tak­ing drugs because of the eco­nomic hard­ships their fam­i­lies faced.

Fur­ther, an over­whelm­ing 62% of fam­i­lies said they could not pro­vide their chil­dren with suit­able food sta­ples, while 45% claimed their young were not receiv­ing even one hot meal a day, includ­ing at school or in after-school programs.

The report also found that the sit­u­a­tion for 44% of those cur­rently receiv­ing food aid had sig­nif­i­cantly wors­ened over the past year, with 63% report­ing they were unable to pur­chase med­ical treat­ment or sup­plies due to the their finan­cial situation.

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