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.

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.

The city of Newark, N.J., is supporting the Healthy Food Financing Initiative and creating local jobs by participating in a partnership financing arrangement that will store and distribute food, including fresh produce.

Circle Food Store received a $1 million loan from the city's Fresh Food Retailer Initiative to open stores selling fresh produce in low-income neighborhoods. Officials hope the store's redevelopment will serve as a catalyst for rebuilding a robust community, generating taxes, discouraging blight and creating jobs.

More than a third of Baltimore neighborhoods don't have ready access to healthy foods, leaving one in five residents to rely on high-fat, high-calorie meals from corner stores and carryout restaurants, a new assessment shows. City officials and other groups already are launching programs to provide healthier eating options for Baltimoreans.

The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative is an inter-governmental collaboration with the Department of Planning, Baltimore Office of Sustainability, Baltimore Development Corporation and the Baltimore City Health Department. The goal of BFPI is to increase access to healthy and affordable foods in Baltimore City food deserts. BFPI is doing this through a holistic and comprehensive food systems approach.

An evaluation of corner store-based interventions to increase availability and sales of healthy food in low-income communities' local stores.