“It made no sense to make New Yorkers go hungry as punishment for being underemployed — working less than 20 hours a week — or being unable to find employment in a continuing difficult economy,” said Steven Banks, commissioner of the agency. He added that the cost of having more people on food stamps would be covered entirely by federal aid and that the local economy would only benefit from more dollars being spent at groceries and bodegas.

In the Bronx, Jonathan Callender, a former sanitation worker, said he lost $189 a month in food stamps in March because he could not work. Since then, Mr. Callender, 50, who said he had asthma and chronic back pain, has been going every day to a soup kitchen run by Part of the Solution, a nonprofit group, so that he could eat. “There isn’t nothing I can do right now because I have to take care of my health first,” he said.

The Coalition for the Homeless feeds up to 1,200 people a night during the summer, its busiest time. Meals to go are handed out at St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue and carried by three vans to more than two dozen preset locations. The feeding program, which costs about $750,000 a year, is financed with government funds, foundation grants and private donations.

Dane Hudson, 24, an unemployed diesel mechanic who has been staying with friends in the Bronx and Brooklyn, said that most nights he went to the church because his food stamps were not enough to cover his meals for the month. “It’s hard in this city,” he said. “You really see the line between the haves and the have-nots.”

An army of volunteers serves the meals night after night. At precisely 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Fernell High slid behind the wheel of a van loaded with 380 meals. Mr. High, 43, a building engineer, said he saw homeless people camped out at Grand Central Terminal nearly two decades ago, and rather than just step over them, decided he wanted to help.

As he drove up to the first stop, on 35th Street under the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, two dozen people stood waiting. “I can save my money instead of buying food,” said Timm Tyler, 50, who was laid off from his job as a clerk at a health center this spring and lives in a nearby shelter. “The bottom line is they need more programs like this.”