Scott James/The Bay Citizen

The food pantry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church on Oct. 1, 2010

Eduardo Giaconi, a volunteer, stood outside St. Gregory’s of Nyssa Episcopal Church on Potrero Hill, as he does every Friday noontime, greeting people by name as they arrived for the weekly food pantry.

“They are good people,” Giaconi said of the 1,200 households served each month, “and they need it.”

But receiving free food could soon become more difficult in San Francisco. A controversial decision involving the United Way of the Bay Area would require those who patronize pantries to prove that they are poor.

The move has caused dismay in the community that serves the indigent, and has raised concerns about the local United Way’s stewardship of a program financed by federal tax dollars. The plan could also be in conflict — either in practice or in spirit — with San Francisco’s sanctuary law, which requires no-questions-asked services for illegal immigrants.

At issue is the Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program, which is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In many ways it is the aid of last resort, helping finance soup kitchens, shelters and food banks.

FEMA contracts with the United Way to administer the money, under the direction of local chapters and boards. In San Francisco, board members are from church groups and nonprofit organizations, including Catholic Charities and the Red Cross.

Last year, about $150,000 from the program went to dozens of San Francisco food pantries that are part of the Neighborhood Grocery Network. It is a modest sum compared to San Francisco’s endemic homeless and poverty problems, but the money pays for a crucial piece of nutrition: proteins and breads, which are rare to find as donations.

The San Francisco Food Bank, which gathers food donations and distributes them to nonprofit groups, has matched pantries with FEMA financing for 11 years. But recently the United Way’s local board decided to take direct control in order to ensure food only gets to the needy.

Local United Way leaders have said that they believe people are cheating the pantries.

“There’s been a growing, frankly, misuse of the system” with people receiving food from more than one pantry, Eric McDonnell, chief operating officer of the United Way of the Bay Area, said in a KPIX-TV news story.

Laura Escobar, the United Way’s director for the program, said she had heard that commercial groceries had gone to pantries to “get food and resell it at their stores.”

Neither McDonnell nor Escobar cited specific cases. A check with dozens of food bank operators found a consensus that fraud was not a problem. They say if families are going to multiple pantries, which is not against the rules, the explanation is simple: they are hungry.

Pantry operators said requests for food had doubled since the recession began, and requiring income verification would drain limited resources and raise practical concerns.

There is also the issue of illegal immigrants. In 1989, San Francisco became a sanctuary city, which means institutions cannot ask about immigration status as a condition for receiving city services or benefits. Some food banks receive city support — raising concern that they would be breaking local law by following the United Way’s directive.

“It’s the trickle down from Arizona,” said Beth Abrams, director of Grupo de la Comida, referring to the recent controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The United Way’s Escobar said, “That is not the intent.”

FEMA said it had not requested the move toward income verification in San Francisco. Escobar said the local board issued the new guidelines, but she declined to give the names of board members, saying she needed to warn them first that a reporter might ask questions. Board members tracked down independently said they were instructed by Escobar not to speak about the matter.

Some people familiar with the situation say a type of turf battle has developed, pitting old ways of feeding the poor, like soup kitchens held at shelters with paid staff, against pantries, which tend to be run by volunteers and allow people to cook their own meals at home. FEMA spending on food banks has doubled since 2003, while money for soup kitchens has been cut 60 percent.

Sara Miles, executive director of The Food Pantry held at St. Gregory’s, said the shift in financing “challenges the social service monopoly that I suspect some would like to see restored in the city.”

Miles opposes income verification, and could lose $14,000 in FEMA financing under the new rules. However, the pantry’s doors will remain open, because most of the mountains of fresh produce in the church sanctuary have been donated by others — not via the United Way — with no strings attached.

This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.