Within the next year or so, three big-box grocery stores are expected to open within just a couple of miles of downtown. HEB, Kroger and Wal-Mart stores will soon serve the Montrose area and the Washington Avenue Corridor. But those stores will do nothing to fix what has become a serious problem here — food deserts.
Focus Points Family Resource Center has started a shuttle for residents in a north Denver food desert to improve their access to a local grocery store. The shuttle is designed to pick up residents at several places in the Globeville and Elyria Swansea neighborhoods and take them to a Sunnyside grocery store.
A webinar focused on how communities are incorporating urban agriculture into their community development efforts and into policy infrastructures supporting this work. The speakers provide an explanation of the eligibility requirements necessary to benefit from the executive order the President announced on June 15, 2012.
Neighborhoods scattered around Minnesota are faced with the challenge of having access to healthy food. Thousands of people live in communities without a grocery store — leaving them to pay more, in time and money. The lack of nearby grocery stores poses a real problem for 10 to 15 percent of residents. With little money, and without cars, they do almost all their shopping at convenience stores.
A Denver task force is trying to make sure everyone has access to healthy food. The task force says that low-income communities in Denver often lack access to supermarkets with affordable, healthy food. So they are trying to provide incentives for grocers to open new stores in under served neighborhoods, eliminating food deserts.
The Denver Food Access Task Force made recommendations to the Health, Safety and Education committee of the City Council. It includes prioritizing supermarket development at city hall, and streamlining the permit process for supermarket developers. They also push for a Fresh Food Financing Fund to encourage chains and independent grocers to build in the underserved neighborhoods that have been neglected for many years.
Councilmen Stephen Costello wants Houston's city government to lure supermarkets to neighborhoods with few places to buy produce. He is talking about tax breaks, sales tax rebates, utility subsidies, even using public dollars to buy the land for a private business.
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's District Community Affairs Officers report on local and regional opportunities for banks to become involved with community efforts, including opportunities to help finance healthy-food initiatives.
An article describing the Fresh Food Financing Initiative. It describes how the initiative came about and efforts to expand the program nationwide. Case studies and tools are also included.
NCB Capital Impact (Capital Impact) finances healthy-food retail establishments, lending to dozens of independent grocers and natural food cooperatives throughout the country. This article highlights the work of the organization including their success and challenges.