Nikki Johnson-Huston, a Philadelphia attorney, talks about her experiences growing up as a food stamp recipient during a panel discussion called “Hunger in Our Backyard” last Monday at the James Beard Foundation Food Conference in New York City. From left are Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., Johnson-Huston, Mariana Chilton, director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities, and moderator Jonathan Halperin, founder of Designing Sustainability. (Kent Miller/Kent Miller Studios)

NEW YORK CITY — Anti-hunger activists need to talk to the tea party members of Congress and other conservatives if they are going to make the case to save food stamps and other nutrition programs, a Philadelphia lawyer who grew up on food stamps told the James Beard Foundation Food Conference here last week.

“They are not heartless,” said Nikki Johnson-Huston, a Philadelphia tax lawyer who spoke on a panel last Monday entitled “Hunger in Our Backyard.”

Part of the advocacy on behalf of nutrition programs “is for us to be willing to have the hard conversation,” said Johnson-Huston, adding that she has married into a conservative family that believes President Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

Johnson-Huston made the statements in response to a Japanese-American conference attendee who said that her father was hungry as a child, but votes Republican and favors cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the official name for food stamps, because he believes if he became a success others can also succeed without government help.

Social conservatives must be told that hunger “is not an individual story,” but a matter of investing in the American people, she said.

Noting that she was raised by a single mother and a single grandmother, she said at age 9 she was homeless on the streets for a while and had to choose between Christmas presents and food. She managed to get student loans to go to law school, Johnson-Huston said, adding that she views government spending on her on various programs as an investment that has paid off.

“People think their tax dollars are being wasted,” Johnson-Huston acknowledged. “It is about fear of creating a permanent underclass, but since I hit 18 I have not been on public assistance. The taxpayer invested in me. It is not about charity, it is about human resources, it’s about are we doing the best for our own people. I am a capitalist. I have my own tax firm,” she said.

But she added that she is worried because “The ladder that was there for me — I don’t see it in this generation.”

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who will be a conferee on the farm bill, noted that “What is going on in Washington right now is going in the opposite direction” of reducing hunger because the House-passed farm bill that would cut $39 billion from nutrition “would throw 3.8 million people off food stamps.”

“People who voted for the food stamp cut absolutely believe they will get re-elected,” McGovern added, but urged the attendees to write and call their representatives to oppose food stamp cuts.

McGovern said that many members of Congress believe incorrectly that there is a lot of fraud and abuse in food stamps and that the program is inefficient.

Throwing out numbers and statistics don’t work with food stamp critics, he said.

“It is important that you connect members of Congress with people who have graduated from the program,” he said.

McGovern also repeated his frequent calls for a White House conference on hunger to “get beyond defending specific programs and talk about ending hunger.”

Johnson-Huston agreed.

“You have to be holistic,” she said. “Hunger is a symptom of the larger issues. There is a tea party. There should be a food party.”

• James Beard Foundation Food Conference