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The impacts of gentrification on food insecurity
04/22/2016 7:22 AM by John M
Our program coordinator, Sequoia Ross, Church Hill Activities and Tutoring (CHAT), and residents of Church Hill on the Impacts of Gentrification on Food Insecurity.
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Sequoia Ross alludes to grocery stores having left the Church Hill area. Where/When was that? Like a real grocer – not a Blue Wheeler corner store…
#3…Yes. Have been in this area about 20 years and don’t recall any grocery store that was here that’s left. In fact when I was a cop in the ’70s there wasn’t a “real grocer” here. The grocery store on Main at the foot of the hill may indeed be a walk but it came into being as a result of the “gentrification.” And there’s Chimbo Mart? That store’s not where I go first, but it’s changed a lot in recent years and has much of what can be got at the store on Main.
@3 Paul S, the building that houses DaVita Dialysis used to be a grocery store: /2012/02/25/sunny-market-will-be-an-outpatient-dialysis-clinic_21568/
@Ann – yes, I live right by the Chimbo Mart. And I think it should count as a grocer. At least partially. Definitely moreso than a convenience store. My long time neighbors have suggested to me that Chimbo market has got cleaner and safer in recent years.
@amie – thanks for sharing. I was not aware of that. Although I would not call a downscale grocer being replaced by a dialysis center an example of gentrification. Change. Sure. But still serving critical needs of the low income population.
This video suggests gentrification forces created the food desert. That doesn’t seem to be the case. It would seem to the period of disinvestment than preceeded gentrification created the food desert.
Instead I’d lean towards gentrification having supported improvements to the Chimbo Market and being helpful in potentially attracting a grocer to 25th and Fairmount that CHPN has posted numerous times about.
We should support what Tricycle Gardens is doing, continue to push the city to bring a grocer to 25th and Fairmount (even if it involves tax incentives) and perhaps find a way to raise funds to supply low income carless households with their own foldable/portable shopping carts.
In the early 1970s there was a grocery at 23rd and Jefferson, I think. (Zoom in on the bottom photo here /2014/02/17/church-hill-from-above-1972_32061/)
Sunny Market was a Community Pride before that, as was the grocery store up at Cool Lane. CP was decent community grocery for the day, I used to shop at the one at Main and Meadow in the Fan back in college.
And as subpar as they are, corner stores are much better than nothing, and the area has lost a fair number of them over the past 10-15 years (/2016/03/31/foodland_49792/)
Wait, no love for Chimbo market? That’s a “real” grocery store!
Mea Culpa, John. I had forgotten the non-corner store grocer at the dialysis location. I shopped there a few times. It was so conveniently close but lack of sanitation put a stop to that after a few months.
the Chimbo mart is as big and well stocked as many of the neighborhood grocery stores we shopped at in Chicago. Between Farm Fresh and Chimbo we have two grocers in the area.Neither is a “Whole lotta money Foods” or “Handler Joe’s” where you can get Asparagus water but our 2 local stores do sell food.
Grievance mongering has become a high art form. Learning to grow tomatoes & other vegetables would be a lot easier. Learning to can those vegetables is not difficult – easier, in than learning a new smart phone. We have lost self-reliance in this nation. We have replaced it with self-victimization. We demand respect, but we have no self respect. I weep for the pitiful multitudes who can never solve their own problems, but who can only blame others for their victimhood. “I’m a victim. It’s somebody else’s fault. We need a program to fix this.”