Leaders, neighbors want grocery stores built to help solve ‘food insecurity’ dilemma

CHARLOTTE — Mecklenburg County commissioners will meet on Tuesday to discuss a topic Channel 9 has covered extensively: Food insecurity.

Neighborhood leaders and members of the health department want the county to help build two grocery stores in west Charlotte to help solve the problem. Their proposal asks for one store at West Boulevard and Clanton Road, and another on Beatties Ford Road near Reeder Memorial Baptist Church.

They want both stores up and running within the next two years and operating as full-service co-op grocery stores, meaning it would be owned and operated by the people who shop there.

“I’ve been out here ever since ‘68,” said Willie Dae. She walks the streets of her west Charlotte neighborhood every morning, but there’s one thing she can’t get to -- a full-service grocery store.

“We haven’t had a grocery store,” she told Channel 9. “It’s hard.”

The area where the new grocery stores are being proposed is considered a food desert, which means there’s no official grocery store within a one-mile radius. That’s a problem for countless residents, like Rod Robinson, who can’t drive and relies on other transit.

“Getting around to the different places is very hard because now I’m handicapped and put on public transportation,” he said.

Members from the West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition, Historic West End Partners, and the health department are requesting $1.7 million from the county to cover initial costs.

In areas where people don’t have access to cars or mass transit, residents often walk several miles to buy basic items. The goal of the proposal is to bring resources closer to those people.

Dae said easier access to basic grocery items would help tremendously.

“I have to wait on somebody to come pick me up,” she told Channel 9. “And there, I can just go skipping down there because I go walking every day. I would appreciate it very much if we could get a grocery store.”

Food insecurity is a huge problem in the Carolinas. In Mecklenburg County, officials estimate 15% of households are “food insecure.”

There’s such a high demand for food assistance that some food pantries can’t keep up. One organization in South Carolina said 2020 was tough, but that 2021 is proving to be even more difficult.

Food pantry leaders said there are two reasons -- supply chain challenges and the assumption that everything is back to normal.

“Usually, you cannot see our walls,” said Neighbors Together Food Pantry Manager Joslyn Smalls. “And if you pan around you see it’s totally empty over here. Totally empty in the corner and totally empty behind you.”

Food pantries say they need 15,000 pounds of food a week to serve some of their most vulnerable neighbors.

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