Jamillah Jordan

1
Grocery Gap Project
Race, Hunger and Food Access

• Jamillah Jordan
• March 2007
• Emerson Hunger Fellow

2
Acknowledgements

• An initiative of Solid Grounds
• Anti-Racism Initiative
• and the
• Congressional Hunger Center

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Introduction and Background

• Seattle is an area known for its progressive
  environmental policies and for exemplifying the
  concept of the sustainable city.
• Impossible to be a sustainable city without
  incorporating food justice and food planning.
• Not just Seattle, but across the country,
  community food assessments on various scales are
  being conducted.

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Food Access How is it Measured?

• Economic access The concept that the poor pay
  more when it comes to food shopping is widely
  researched
• Spatial/Physical access
• The phenomenon of supermarket redlining the
  absence or paucity of grocery stores in
  low-income communities that offer nutritious and
  affordable food
• -new termfood desert
• -the lack of private/ public transportation
• -consolidation of grocery stores
• The absence of a healthy diet...is fundamentally
  a problem of access, not just choice
• Thus, low wealth residents may be at a severe
  disadvantage when attempting to achieve a healthy
  diet

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USDAs Thrifty Food Plan (TFP)

• The TFP serves as a national standard for a
  nutritious diet at a minimal cost and is used as
  the basis for food stamp allotments.
• Calculated by USDAs Center for Nutrition Policy
  and Promotion
• Demonstrates how to buy a specific set of
  relatively nutritious foods on a limited budget
  or food stamps (for a family of four including
  two adults with two school aged children)

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Purpose of the Grocery Gap Project

• 1. Assess food availability (presence or absence)
  and affordability (cost) within two communities
  of distinctly different ethnic/ racial and
  socio-economic levels, using USDA's Thrifty Food
  Plan.
• 2. Determine whether the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP)
  market basket can be purchased from neighborhood
  food retailers at or below the TFP cost threshold
  set by USDA.

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Design and Methodology

• Developed a food store survey-87 food items,
  divided into 8 categories
• Selecting the stores
• Independent supermarkets, Independent Groceries,
  Convenience stores
• Conducted 2 Community discussions/ Focus groups
  in each neighborhood

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Data Collection Protocol

• We recruited over 25 volunteers to assist with
  data collection in December 2006

• Many volunteers included youth and residents from
  both neighborhoods

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Neighborhood Profile Rainier Valley

• Multi-ethnic community, 40 percent are foreign
  born.
• 18.3 percent of Rainier Valley residents lived in
  poverty in 1999. Rainier Valleys poverty rate is
  55 above the citywide poverty rate.
• Undergoing a long-awaited revitalization.

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Neighborhood Profile Queen Anne

• An affluent neighborhood in which the median
  household income is 60,047.

Racial Breakdown White 87 Other 13
After all, grocery stores don't just feed a
neighborhood. They also feed a neighborhood's
self-esteem.
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• Can low-income residents afford to buy the TFP
  market basket in Seattle?

121.30
Is it available?
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Rainier Valley vs. Queen Anne

• I spend more on food every month than everything
  else

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Project Findings-

• 1.A family of four who does not receive maximum
  food assistance benefits cannot afford the TFP in
  Seattle. Most people do not receive maximum
  benefits.
• 2. The TFP allowances are based on unrealistic
  criteria. Food allowances are 24 lower than the
  average low-income familys food expenditures,
  and assume a 30 contribution of the household
  budget towards food.
• That cant feed a family of fournot in my
  house, that wouldnt last a few days

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Nutrition and Costs

• We talk about nutrition but never about costs.
• What are people supposed to do when they want to
  eat healthy but just cant afford it?
• In the nutrition field , there exists a debate as
  to the best way to improve the dietary intake of
  the poor through increased income or through
  nutrition education.

Fresh vs. Processed
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Paradox of Under Nutrition and Obesity

• Purchase a limited variety of cheap, fatty, high
  sugar foods while reducing the purchase of fresh
  produce, and high fiber foods.
• Buying and eating grade D foods to feed your
  family.
• Food insecurity represents not just the lack of
  enough food, but the lack of nutritiously
  adequate food.

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Key Recommendations

• 1. Conduct targeted research efforts among food
  stamp recipients to determine the sufficiency, or
  lack thereof, of current benefit levels. This
  research should realistically reflect the cost of
  nutritious food and other basic needs in various
  regions across the country. 
• 2. Develop neighborhood food policy councils
  comprised of residents, key stakeholders, and
  community based organizations, to develop
  community-based, innovative solutions to barriers
  to food access

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Key Recommendations

• 3. Expand the Grocery Gap Project study in the
  following ways
• -Replicate the study in other Seattle
  neighborhoods to create a more comprehensive
  understanding of the cost of the TFP in Seattle.
• -Collect data on national costs of the TFP in an
  effort to determine the varying regional costs
  then update the TFP food stamp allotment to
  accommodate cost of living increases in various
  regions.

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Place Matters Initiative

• Goal To reduce and/or eliminate racial and
  ethnic health disparities in our country by
  identifying the complex underlying causes of
  health disparities - - or social determinants of
  health - - and developing strategies to address
  these root causes at the local level.
• Examples of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)
  quality and affordability of housing, level of
  employment and job security, standard of living,
  availability of mass transportation, quality of
  education, forms of economic development,
  racism/discrimination, poverty, distribution of
  goods and services, chronic stress, and workplace
  conditions.
• Food access is greatly affected/influenced
• by these SDOH.

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Project Goals

• Developing hunger/food access profiles of 3-5
  select counties
• Mississippi, New Orleans, Alameda, San Joaquin
  Valley
• Creating a training toolkit designed to provide
  Place Matters teams with the resources needed to
  understand and combat food access issues in their
  communities

• Publishing a Focus magazine article on food
  access issues in Place
• Matters counties
• Strengthening relationships with food justice
  advocacy community

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Contact
For more information on the Place Matters
Initiative or the Grocery Gap Project, please
contact us at CONTACT Jamillah Jordan PHONE
831.332.3055 E-MAIL jjordan_at_hungercenter.org WEB
www.hungercenter.org