Could the Big Easy Help Big D Solve Its Food Desert Problem?

When it comes to the issue of food insecurity New Orleans and Dallas have a lot in common. Now the two cities could find themselves on the same path to providing access to fresh food for people living in low income communities.

Several Dallas city council members recently traveled to New Orleans with officials from the American Heart Association to see how the Fresh Food Retailer's Initiative is increasing access to healthy foods in parts of Orleans Parish designated as food insecure by the USDA.

Nearly two years after the city of Dallas offered $3 million to anyone willing to build a grocery store in a food desert city leaders are exploring the potential of creating a similar program.

The American Heart Association believes the $3 million could be a significant investment.

"People are just looking for quality, fresh, locally sourced, food," said Marc Robert, general manager of Robert's Fresh Market.

Robert's opened in January and was established through the FFRI.

"People were travelling up to 20 miles to go get fresh produce or fresh meat at that time. It was amazing to me," said Robert,  as he stood in front a vividly colorful wall of fresh produce.

The FFRI is a $14 public-private partnership evenly split between the city of New Orleans and Hope Credit Union. It encourages supermarket and grocery store development in low‐income, underserved communities of New Orleans by providing financing to open, renovate, or expand stores that sell fresh fruit and vegetables.

In New Orleans 20-percent of people are considered food insecure, meaning they live at least a mile from the nearest grocery store or supermarket and lack access to foods needed for a healthy lifestyle.

Robert's provides new access to food in the St. Roch and Bywater area, which was deemed a food desert after Hurricane Katrina.

In the last three years the program has established or redeveloped four stores, totaling roughly 200,000 square feet of grocery space, and impacted the lives of nearly 83,000 people.

During lunch you can usually find customers like Kwency Wells at the salad bar creating an assorted arrangement of fresh vegetables in a to-go container to take back to her nearby office.

"A typical lunch day was nothing but fast food, grease, po' boys, stuff like that. Finding a salad was almost impossible," she said. "Now you can come in here anytime of the day and get your salad. "You can still get your fried stuff if you want too, but it was great. It opened up a whole different market."

The initiative was created in 2011. The city used $7 in redevelopment funds allocated after Hurricane Katrina. Hope Credit Union provided another $7 million and financing.

"We are taking a little bit more of a risk, but we're looking beyond that. We're looking at the impact that it's going to have on the community," said Kathy Saloy, vice president of community and economic development at Hope Enterprise Corporation. "We have provided over 400 jobs. We have leveraged over $44 million dollars and we have seen in other areas where we have grocery stores other businesses are popping up,"

After the hurricane and a lengthy battle with his insurance company, Robert decided to take advantage of the program's benefits and open his store.

But profit margins are tight in the grocery store and Robert said coming up with a financially feasible and stable plan was difficult.

"In order to build a store to have all those amenities and employ over 90 part-time and full-time associates it required investing over $7 million dollars into a location. We weren't able to raise that capital on our own without the help of Hope," Robert said. 

Nearly half-a-million people in Dallas are considered to be food insecure.

For several years the city of Dallas has tried to combat growing food insecurity in its southern sector. After announcing $3 million in funding for a store the city's offer was rebuffed by a host of major retailers.

"The factors that made it successful here aren't unique, it just takes the investment from the city and the right partnerships to make this happen," said Christopher Walker, senior campaign director for advocacy at the American Heart Association.

Walker has been travelling across Texas, having similar conversations with officials in other cities.

"This is a problem that is solvable and so we've been trying to take that model to get other states and cities to replicate it," he said. "That $3 million would be an excellent investment from the city of Dallas did the hard part, they have the money on the table. We can take that money and really do something, multiple projects, in areas of the city that really need them."

The city's office of economic development is currently crafting a policy related to the $3 million. Walker said he plans to continue to push city leaders to consider modeling their own program after the FFRI.

"If New Orleans can do it Dallas can do it," he said.

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