Komala Hayes grew up without the luxury of having easy access to grocery stores. Her life in Gary, Indiana consisted of long travel days just for her family to put meals on the table, which she believed was normal.

 

Hayes’s interest in food began with TV shows like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and continued to grow while watching cooking shows.

 

“It was just so exotic and wonderful and I saw that the ideas about food were different on these shows than they were at home and with family and relatives,” Hayes said.

 

Years later she moved to the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago and found herself in a reality she had never known before. Walking down the street she saw a Target, Aldi, Devon Market, and more.

 

Hayes told her family about her discovery of tofu and farmer’s markets. Concepts her family members are unfamiliar with and tease her for. Laughing and claiming she’s a Black woman turning into a white woman because of her consumption of “white people food”.

 

She began to question what is the difference between “white people food” and “Black people food”. Why is there a difference?

 

It also raised another glaring question of why she had all of this access in the palms of her hands. Why was this neighborhood provided more for than others? 

 

These questions would open up a world of research on food apartheids and started a career of teaching about them and became an adjunct professor of sociology at Olive-Harvey College, located in Chicago’s southeast neighborhood of Pullman.

 

Hayes studies food “apartheids” — also known as “food deserts” — which are often urban areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. Many Chicago neighborhoods rely on corner stores for groceries which often lack produce. 

 

She found food deserts are exacerbated by a lack of access to public transportation, grocery retailers, and low-income neighborhoods.

 

Generally, food deserts appear in black and brown neighborhoods on Chicago's West and South Sides, like Englewood and Auburn Gresham.

 

A study done by McKinsey in 2021, found that counties in the U.S. with above-average Black populations have fewer grocery stores, restaurants, and farmers markets. 

 

The 2022 Chicago Greater Food Depository hunger status report confirms this.

 

According to the Chicago Data Portal, Englewood, a South Side neighborhood whose population is predominantly Black, is home to nearly 24,000 residents yet only eight grocery stores.

 

However, half of these are liquor stores. Of the remaining four, three of them are locally-owned corner markets. Finally, there is one Aldi located near the Green Line Halsted stop.

 

Similarly, in Auburn Gresham, also on Chicago's South Side, the population is 97% Black, and according to UChicago Medicine, 52% live with food insecurity. 

There are 11 stores in the area, but 10 are corner markets or liquor stores like in Englewood. There is a Walmart at the very northern part of the neighborhood border, but it is a far distance for some to travel to. 

 

To make a difference in the Gresham community, Barbara Stein, local philanthropist, opened the Stein Learning Gardens at St. Sabina Catholic Church in 2018 to fight food and nutrition insecurity. 

 

Its mission is to teach the community about healthy lifestyle choices through farming education and providing access to fresh and affordable produce to Auburn Gresham and St. Sabina members.

 

The food desert the community lives in doesn't only mean hunger, but a lack of nutrition. Individuals living in this area are at greater risk of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease because they are missing the nourishment needed to stay healthy. 

 

Stein opened her Learning Gardens to combat the city’s solution to open an abundance of convenience stores and fast food restaurants as a ‘Band-Aid fix.’ However these “meals” don’t provide proper nutrients, which can lead to these health disparities. 

 

According to the National Library of Medicine, 61% of Chicagoans are obese, which has risen by 30% over the past two decades. And with each convenience store added, the obesity rate rises by 0.42%. 

 

Black and Hispanic children in Chicago are four times more likely to be obese than white kids. 

 

These diet-related health conditions can impact one’s life expectancy. 

 

According to Cook County’s Public Health report, heart disease is the number one leading cause of death with over 5.5k fatalities in 2020. Diabetes and kidney disease ranked ninth and tenth.

 

In Gresham specifically, heart disease is the top cause of death, while diabetes and strokes are third and fourth. In their community profile, it states that 31% have high blood pressure, 42% are obese, and 14% are diabetic.

 

Marlon English is the production manager for the Stein Learning Gardens. The 31-year-old Black man with long hair tucked into his cap greets everyone he sees on the street. He has spent his life in neighborhoods with limited access to grocery stores and has seen and experienced the struggles of having access to healthy food.

 

“There’s a couple [grocery stores] but not a lot. We don’t have a lot of grocery stores if you’re not driving. If you’re driving it’s convenient but personally, I don’t drive so it’s not too convenient for me to be healthy. It’s going to be harder for me to eat healthier, live healthier. I have to do it myself,” English said.

 

English credits the garden’s success to the Gresham community. They rely on support from each other especially considering the lack of help from any government figures due to what he says is a broken trust.

 

“I don't really have too many expectations of the government because when you get things given to you, it comes with a lot of strings,” English said. “And so I would rather be autonomous and have food sovereignty. And I feel as though a part of having food sovereignty is not relying on the government or any type of system.”

 

In 2021, St. Sabina opened up a weekly produce stand, “Barbara’s Market,” to share their produce with the community. In the corner of Auburn Gresham Healthy Lifestyle Hub lives the stand with limited shelves. Sparsely lined with green lettuce leaves, red tomatoes, bright yellow lemons quickly disappearing into the hands of the crowd filling the corner where the stand resides. 

 

Educational Programming & Farm Stand Manager Aziz Fard stands behind the table watching and directing residents to where to go and help them find the produce they’re looking for. 

 

The executive director, Moses Williams said they could supply 4,000 pounds of produce over the last eight months, making this their most successful year since opening. They were able to serve roughly 1,600 people at this time.

 

English has never met Hayes — the woman who moved from Gary to Rogers Park.

 

Yet they share a vision of hope for ending what they deem to be the unfair treatment of specific Chicago neighborhoods, where too much of the population is hungry and isolated from nutritious food. 

 

Although there hasn’t been great success, the city has been trying to make a difference in these communities. 

 

On April 9, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a new Grocery Grant Initiative for Illinois.

 

He shared, “More than three million Illinoisans live in a food desert…there are parents that travel dozens of miles just to find reasonably priced, nutritious foods for their families.”

 

The project aims to support local business owners by providing them with awards ranging between $160,000 and $2.4 million. 

 

To qualify for a grant, applicants must be located in a food desert, earn less than 30% of revenue from alcohol and tobacco sales, accept SNAP and WIC, which are food-stamp programs, and contribute to the diversity of fresh foods in the community. 

 

Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton stated plainly, “We cannot hand our neighbors a bag of chips and declare victory…true access is won when every person can obtain fresh, nutrient-dense produce and culturally relevant ingredients without traveling great distances.”