1 in 5 Austinites face food insecurity. Here’s how nonprofits, city leaders are addressing it

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AUSTIN (KXAN) – Angela Shelf Medearis, who has lived in Austin for more than 40 years, has seen many changes in the city. Some of the most pronounced are in east Austin, she said, where gentrification has displaced generations of mostly black and Hispanic families in favor of commercial development.

A lifelong education advocate and children’s book author, her mission expanded to include health education when half of her family were diagnosed with diabetes. Drawing on her family’s health complications, she developed The Kitchen Diva Health Outreach, a program that provides health resources, workshops, and cooking demonstrations to underserved communities.

“I saw a real need to have a culturally based approach to diabetes education,” she said. “And I also saw the need to have a function or a way of bringing people together so they could taste our cultural dishes, but transformed in a healthier way.”

Differences in access to food

The Kitchen Diva Health Outreach is one of 20 Austin-based programs and nonprofits named as recipients of the city’s Food Justice Mini Grant Program. The fund aims to address inequalities in access to food within the city, with up to $ 3,000 being distributed to programs that work on food deserts and inequality.

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The US Department of Agriculture describes food insecurity as “the limited or unsafe availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food or the limited or unsafe ability to obtain acceptable food in a socially acceptable manner”. Within Travis County, city officials said there were significant races and ethnic differences.

City data showed that more than 18% of Austin’s population is classified as food insecure, or nearly one in five residents lack consistent, stable access to healthy food. Of the Austin-Travis County’s residents, 11% of black residents and 9% of Hispanic and Latin American residents experience food insecurity, compared with 5% of Asian residents and 5% of the region’s whites.

WorkingGroup512, one of the aforementioned fellows, said the funds will help the organization buy fresh produce, non-perishable and essential groceries, and meet the food needs of teenagers and single parent households who are homeless due to the pandemic.

“We will continue to accurately assess harm, loss and needs – to serve those most in need and denied food, shelter and health justice,” Founder Chivas Watson said in an email to KXAN. “Eating enables us to build trusting relationships in the hearts of Austin households and communities, realizing prayers, and building capacity as we fellowship.”

“I think the food justice mini-grant program was really geared towards solving the core of one major challenge that all governments face: how do we understand where the challenges lie in a community, and how do we understand those challenges in one perspective? approach appropriately? of people with lived experience? “

Edwin Marty, Food Policy Manager, City of Austin

Edwin Marty works as Food Policy Manager for the Office of Sustainability in Austin. He said the importance of this program is to work with nonprofits that are experienced in addressing food insecurities in their communities and provide them with the resources to expand these initiatives.

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“If I don’t live in a particular community, if I didn’t grow up in that community, if I don’t speak the language – literally and figuratively – of that community, it becomes really difficult for me, especially a white man, to be fine Understand differences between a program that provides a specific type of service and a program that provides a tailored service that is provided by and for that community, ”he said.

Rethinking accessibility

Austin’s Office of Sustainability outlined four key components that help define food security:

• Availability of healthy foods
• Affordability of fresh produce
• Awareness of food aid programs
• Mobility options

The latter is a core theme of Drive A Senior ATX, a nonprofit focused on providing free transportation services for the home-going elderly population of Austin. Executive Director Stephanie Lane said the nonprofit has 450+ customers, 80 of whom have received grocery delivery at home through partnerships with Hope Food Pantry Austin and Micah 6 of Austin.

“We want older adults who literally built this city to be able to finish the last stretch of their journey with dignity and feel that they have a choice of what to eat because they lose almost all of the decisions in their own care. ” She said.

• The Multicultural Refugee Coalition was one of 20 Austin-based nonprofits, programs, and initiatives funded by the city’s new Mini-Grant Program for Food Justice. (Courtesy: Multicultural Refugee Coalition)
• The Multicultural Refugee Coalition was one of 20 Austin-based nonprofits, programs, and initiatives funded by the city’s new Mini-Grant Program for Food Justice. (Courtesy: Multicultural Refugee Coalition)
• The Multicultural Refugee Coalition was one of 20 Austin-based nonprofits, programs, and initiatives funded by the city’s new Mini-Grant Program for Food Justice. (Courtesy: Multicultural Refugee Coalition)

Gabe Breternitz is a born and raised Austinite. When he launched Good Apple in October 2019, its premise was to create a business model that would promote access to healthy food across geographic and racial barriers that traditionally led to food deserts.

When the pandemic erupted in March and unemployment skyrocketed, he said food insecurity was an issue that kept Austin’s most vulnerable people from having access to food.

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“Ultimately, the idea back then was to create the ‘Stay Home, Stay Healthy’ program, a nutritional aid program aimed at people who are now food insecure due to the pandemic and who are also at high risk of hospitalization due to exposure the virus, “he said.” So we focused specifically on immunocompromised or high-risk people, many of whom were elderly from an early age.

As of March 2020, Good Apple has made more than 30,000 grocery deliveries as part of its Stay Home, Stay Healthy initiative to help improve the city’s nutritional resources.

Breternitz said the focus of the business has shifted back to its original, prescriptive approach. In this way, he said, they have worked with regional health clinics for nutritional advice and access to resources to prevent vulnerable populations from developing diseases or health complications due to poor diet.

Amid Austin’s growth, Breternitz said his perspective of the city had changed because of its time for deliveries and the discrepancies between different neighborhoods. His hope is that through the increased funding from Good Apple and other beneficiaries, they can help serve all communities with one nutritious meal at a time.

“We are all neighbors. I want to eat the same food that you eat and I want you to have the same access that I have, ”he said. “So that’s the whole goal of Good Apple, so to speak: to make it the same for everyone.”

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