Pop Star: Joni Rabinowitz of Just Harvest

“Times are hard,” Just Harvest Executive Director Joni Rabinowitz says, “and they’re going to get harder. We’re doing a lot more direct services now than we ever thought we would.”

Sitting in a crowded office in the South Side’s Terminal Buildings – wildlife photos on the walls and C&O freights rumbling out her window are welcome splashes of color – she’s feisty, canny, a seasoned veteran planning her next campaign. Or perhaps it’s the same campaign she’s been running for two decades now with Just Harvest, and two decades before that – helping those who need to be helped the most, with food, shelter, and jobs. “We try to influence policy,” she says. “We try to make sure that government is protecting people.”

A tall order these days, and getting taller, with tax bases shrinking and demand growing. So Just Harvest, which Rabinowitz co-founded, works on crisis energy grants. Foreclosures. Heat shut-offs. “We look at programs people should be getting and are not,” she says. “We do advocacy so more help will come to people at the bottom of the scale.”

Still, their main focus is on what Rabinowitz calls “food insecurity. One out of every seven children in Allegheny County is hungry or at risk, and one out of every 10 Americans receives food stamps” – a number that Rabinowitz thinks is only 50 percent of the total. “What with homelessness,” she says, “it’s hard to track real numbers. People think that everyone has an address. It’s just not true,” she shakes her head. “Homelessness is huge.”

It adds up to food banks expecting a 30 percent increase in demand in 2009. “It’s very bad,” she says. “Since hunger is a symptom of poverty, our first solution is decent jobs with decent benefits. People want to support their families.” She pauses. “We’re always fighting on the edges of this.”

It’s a battle she’s been fighting her entire life. Daughter of a leftist lawyer, Rabinowitz grew up in suburban New Rochelle, New York, mythical home of the Petries on classic-TV’s The Dick Van Dyke Show. Going to Antioch for music, she instead took a degree in political science. Coming to Pittsburgh some 40 years ago when husband John Haer took a job here, they share their Park Place home with their cats and a robust garden.

As a Pittsburgher, Rabinowitz has done a little bit of everything – drove a school bus, ran a bar (Wobbly Joe’s, on the South Side), even picked up a Pitt MSW in community organizing, studying under maestros Moe Coleman and Jim Cunningham. By 1987 she was working for the Hunger Action Coalition. “With the mills going down,” she recalls, “we were helping people with food.” The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank grew out of the HAC, then split – with public policy and advocacy going to Just Harvest.

“I love it here,” she says of her adopted city. “It’s manageable. It’s comfortable. I feel that I have an influence. I feel that I can communicate with elected officials. And I love my work. I really feel I’m helping people. But,” she laughs, gesturing at the truly galactic mess in her office, “I can’t organize my desk.”

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Abby Mendelson’s latest book, End of the Road, a collection of short stories, is available at amazon and bn.com.

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Photographs copyright Brian Cohen