Community Food Security - read the Hunger Commission's food access study and download free food access study materials including curriculum for nutrition education workshops.

Executive Summary

Food is necessary for every human being to survive and prosper. With the strong economy and record low unemployment rates, hunger should have decreased. Yet, for many families just coming off welfare, minimum wage earnings have not been able to make up for the loss of government help and, consequently, have not lifted many families out of poverty.

Following a statewide trend, many low-income families in Sacramento are faced with spending more than half their paycheck just on rent, leaving precious little money for other expenses that naturally come with keeping a job, such as transportation and childcare. The food budget quickly becomes an easy target for modification. As more and more money is taken away from the food budget to pay for other necessities, the family is at greater risk of food insecurity.

Sustained economic and social adversities in low-income neighborhoods have produced similar hardships in food access. Most notably, this includes a decrease in the number of large retail supermarkets in low-income urban communities, with remaining food resources consisting of smaller stores, often more expensive, with a limited supply of food and an increase in emergency food assistance programs. As a result, in neighborhoods with the fewest resources, low-income consumers lack access to a broad range of food choices and competitive pricing and are having to depend upon emergency food assistance programs, which are set-up to address emergency crisis situations, as a regular source for food.

Recognizing these challenges, the Sacramento City/County Hunger Commission implemented a pilot Expanded Food Access Project in Del Paso Heights and North Sacramento. The purpose of the project is to examine hunger by looking systematically at food access and the supply of nutritious affordable food in communities impacted by hunger. With the support of community activists, we have reviewed the current state of food access in the two communities, mapped all food resources currently available, conducted community input meetings and surveys, and interviewed key residents and community leaders, all in order to collect as much information on the barriers to food access as possible. Our goal is to increase the awareness of possible barriers to food security and help facilitate improved access to nutritious food in Del Paso Heights and North Sacramento.

This report includes detailed information on the barriers to food access in Del Paso Heights and North Sacramento as reported by residents, as well as their recommendations to improve access to nutritious food in their community. Increasing local access to food will not only improve the diets and well being of residents, but it will also promote local business. The residents of Del Paso Heights and North Sacramento are buying food. If they could buy most of their food within the community, the local economy would be stimulated, and more of a person's budget would be spent on food rather than transportation. This project focuses on those community changes that can decrease the number of existing barriers and simplify the process for a person to get food locally.

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