Puerto Rico is in the midst of a water crisis. The island is facing its worst drought in a decade and the local government is rationing water. Families are experiencing frequent shutoffs. The Carraízo Reservoir, which is the primary water source for the San Juan metro, is just centimeters above its out-of-service level.
More than two million, or more than three in four, Puerto Ricans on the island live in the metro area. The island is particularly vulnerable to climate disasters and every new challenge impacts residents’ food security.
Instituto del Desarrollo de la Juventud (IDJ), one of MAZON’s grantee partners on the island, launched Criar sin Agua (Raising Kids Without Water), an interactive platform designed to give greater visibility to how this crisis is affecting families across Puerto Rico. They are monitoring the impact of the crisis on families in real time, elevating community voices and collecting testimonials, and advocating for the prioritization of water access for schools, child care facilities, and low-income communities. You can learn more about IDJ’s campaign and document your family’s experiences during the crisis at www.criarsinagua.com.
According to IDJ’s executive director, Sarah Vázquez-Pérez, “the crisis is occurring just as students return to school, raising concerns about attendance, educational continuity, and the ability of schools, Head Start centers, and childcare providers to maintain safe learning environments. The crisis also threatens one of Puerto Rico’s most important anti-hunger tools: school meals.”
The government has indicated that schools may need to reduce instructional hours or transition to remote learning if water conditions worsen. This decision threatens to keep kids from the school cafeteria for school breakfast, lunch, and afterschool nutrition programs.
School meals represent a lifeline for pupils and families as more than half of Puerto Rican kids live in poverty, according to IDJ’s own reporting. School closures would compound families’ challenges to arrange child care and maintain work hours in addition to the struggles they are facing to source water for drinking, cooking, and other basic household needs.
Puerto Rico is no stranger to natural disasters worsened by Climate Change, and a lack of adequate response from the federal government to support affected families and rebuilding efforts. The current water crisis adds to the stress of ongoing troubles to Puerto Rico’s electrical grid following El Apagón, the longest black out in U.S. history of 11 months in 2017 after two hurricanes devastated power infrastructure.
This pattern of underinvestment extends beyond disaster response and into the everyday safety net. Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens, living on the island are treated unequally by federal safety net programs which are vital in times of economic crisis and climate disasters. For example, federal child nutrition programs, which include school meals, provide a combined monthly benefit of $418 per child in poverty in Puerto Rico compared to the national average of $1,562.
The Nutrition Assistance Program (NAP), Puerto Rico’s alternative food assistance program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), nets residents more than $2 billion less in annual benefits combined than if they were enrolled in SNAP. According to a 2022 report from USDA, similar disparities exist across other federal programs like Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid.
It is more clear than ever that water security is food security as our climate becomes increasingly unstable primarily due to the emission of greenhouse gasses by burning fossil fuels.
As Puerto Rico continues to face climate disasters, lawmakers must address these disparities in federal safety net programs to support the resiliency of the island and the wellbeing of its residents. MAZON is proud to support IDJ through our Quick Reaction Fund (QRF) which rapidly deploys funds to anti-hunger advocates mounting similar campaigns in their communities across the United States and Israel every month. Vázquez-Pérez notes, “MAZON’s Quick Reaction Fund is helping us meet the moment and to protect access to school meals for Puerto Rico’s youth.”
Find out more about the QRF here.