Chicago Leads the Fight for Food Justice by Building Innovative Local Food Ecosystems

by Alexandria Jacobson

When StreetWise vendor Lee A. Holmes moved out of a friend’s home and onto the street, he quickly downloaded a list of regular meal programs from the Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) website. As a StreetWise participant, he was welcome to have breakfast at Inspiration Corporation, which offers career services – including a 12-week culinary training program – as well as employer outreach and retention at its headquarters downstairs from the StreetWise offices in Uptown.

The GCFD list helped Holmes find meal programs across the city – although most were not within walking distance. As a magazine vendor, however, he could at least afford transportation.

“I like it when they don’t just feed you food but feed you other resources to help you be sustainable,” said Holmes, whose Street- Wise connections again allowed him to register ahead of time for the annual Homeless Outreach Luncheon at Marillac St. Vincent Family Services, 2145 N. Halsted St. The event provided him with not only a meal, but a sleeping bag, underwear, socks, gloves and a coat. There was also a doctor, podiatrist, HIV testing and 12 lawyers to provide legal aid, according to Mike “Santa Mike” Sturch. A volunteer and Marillac St. Vincent board member, Sturch has coordinated the event, which serves 440 people, for the last 50 years.

For dinner, Holmes went to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, which hosts 130 guests in its dining room and 70 more with takeaway bags on weeknights at its 721 N. LaSalle St. headquarters. While Catholic Charities itself provides the meal on Tuesdays, it relies on multiple partners (churches and others) to provide food and volunteer servers on the other days.

Holmes’ Wednesday night dinner was served by The Chicago Help Initiative (CHI), a consortium of business, residential, religious, social service, institutional and volunteer leaders. Because CHI founder Jacqueline Hayes wants to serve all 130 guests the same entree, CHI has looked to partner businesses, restaurants and hotels such as the Hyatt Centric, Gene and Georgetti, Texas de Brazil, Greek Kitchen, Ocean Prime, Eli’s the Place for Steak and more.

Again, Holmes said the ability to plan ahead for the dinner and the resources there, such as learning how to sign up for the Chicago Housing Authority, was important. Before every meal, CHI provides yoga and literacy help. Afterwards, there are speakers on topics ranging from record expungement to job training. Always, there was a medical health professional – a doctor, nurse or student – to check blood pressure, blood sugar and feet, provide wound care or HIV/Hep C testing.

“All of our programs help guests build up their own selfesteem and treat them with dignity, which motivates them to get off the street,” said CHI founder Jacqueline Hayes. “Sometimes when people have hard times, they make one effort and just don’t try anymore."

Scope of Food Insecurity

Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hungerrelief organization with a network of more than 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries, cites United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2018 statistics that more than 37 million Americans (11.1 percent) are food insecure, which refers to limited or uncertain access to food for an active, healthy life. In Cook County, Feeding America estimates there are 630,000 hungry people.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) is Feeding America’s Chicago food bank, and Greg Trotter, GCFD’s manager of public relations and content, says food insecurity affects not only people who are homeless, but folks with mental illness and chronic health conditions, people who were recently laid off or released from prison, or working families who are struggling to make ends meet.

“It’s not just low-income neighborhoods. If you go to different food pantries and talk to people, you’ll see people from every race and cultural background, different ages,” Trotter said. “It’s college students. It’s their families. They need access to food. They need food assistance, so we’re in those schools helping them out.” The food depository operates market-style food distributions called Healthy Student Markets in Chicago Public Schools and all of the City Colleges of Chicago.

The GCFD also facilitates food rescue partnerships with some businesses, such as Starbucks, Pret a Manger and Farmer’s Fridge, along with nearly every major grocery store in the city, to pick up food that might otherwise be tossed out. It's quickly distributed to homeless shelters.

“We address the immediate need of hunger when people come in, and we pair it with social services and mental health counseling to address whatever might be going on beneath the hunger — what’s bringing them in,”

- Kellie O’Connell, CEO, Lakeview Pantry

Beyond the Pantry

Lakeview Pantry, one of Chicago’s largest and longest-operating food pantries, serves about 9,000 unique individuals annually through its client-choice pantry model that offers a grocery store-like experience where clients can pick up two weeks’ worth of their choices of wide-ranging nutritious foods, with the opportunity to come back weekly for fresh fruits, vegetables and bread.

“Oftentimes our clients have to make really tough trade-off choices,” says Kellie O’Connell, CEO of Lakeview Pantry, “Do I pay for rent and utilities this month, or do I buy food? Do I purchase the medication I need, or do I put food on the table for my family?”

In order to reach more community members, Lakeview Pantry launched in September an online market, the first of its kind in Chicago, where clients can order food available at the physical pantry and pick up at their convenience.

“It really cuts down on the time spent coming in, and it amps up the dignity factor for folks that might feel embarrassed or nervous about coming into a food pantry,” O’Connell says.

Those experiencing food insecurity usually are dealing with other life issues that make access to food all the more challenging, such as unemployment, unstable housing and health struggles.

At Lakeview Pantry, the nonprofit offers counseling for clients dealing with anxiety, depression and generalized grief, serving 2,500 people annually.

“We address the immediate need of hunger when people come in, and we pair it with social services and mental health counseling to address whatever might be going on beneath the hunger — what’s bringing them in,” O’Connell says.

At Heartland Alliance Health, the leading healthcare provider for the lowest income people in Chicago, Elizabeth Murphy, a community dietitian, provides dietary evaluations to clients at federally qualified health centers, many of whom are experiencing homelessness. She frequently consults with lowincome patients experiencing diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

“It makes it a little more challenging when you are unstably housed to be able to prepare foods or know where your next meal is coming from – what you’re going to be able to get at the soup kitchen or what you’re going to be able to get at the food pantry,” Murphy said.

V.W., a 49-year-old StreetWise vendor living in an Uptown SRO, or single room occupancy housing, worked with Murphy for eight months through a weekly program focused on behaviors for healthy lifestyles for people dealing with dietary and mental illnesses. From exercise classes to tours of local grocery stores, V.W. learned about portion control and nutritious eating tips, in addition to developing fitness habits.

“I was getting food from the food pantry, or I would shop on my own,” V.W. says. “[Now] when I go to the food pantry, I pick out healthy things like fruit … I focus on healthy eggs and a healthier milk like skim or 2 percent, which really helped me cut down on the fat.”

One of the challenges food-insecure people might face is lack of employment after incarceration for a crime. For 20 years, the GCFD has hosted Chicago’s Community Kitchens, a 14-week culinary job training program for people who need a boost into the workforce.

“They’re people with pretty significant obstacles. About a third of our students are formerly incarcerated. Many of them are unstably housed or low-income,” Trotter says. “It teaches them the basics of being in a kitchen, everything from food sanitation to knife skills, to fractions you need for scaling recipes up and down, to kitchen culture.”

Feeding Communities Through Urban Farming

Growing Home, an organic urban farm, also offers transitional job programming, including farm-based training for people with employment barriers in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. Growing Home’s 14- week job training program utilizes a social-emotional learning curriculum called TIP (Transforming Impossible to Possible). Trainees participate in intensive selfreflection before diving into skill building while working on the farm and professional development training like interviewing and resume creation.

“Our goal is to help folks eliminate their barriers while they’re in the program,” says Danielle Perry, executive director of Growing Home. “We’re a firm believer that we’ll help you get a job, but how you stay in that job is if we help you to eliminate some barriers, so that can be housing insecurity - which is a huge barrier for our folks - healthcare challenges, and childcare assistance.”

The only USDA-certified organic high production farm in Chicago, Growing Home produces 30,000 pounds of produce annually. Through a $100,000 award from Impact Grants Chicago, the urban farm will expand to another location on its property with the capacity to produce another 8,000 pounds of food each year, all of which will feed residents in the Englewood community.

Perry notes the lack of healthy food options in Englewood, where grocery stores are sparse and corner stores, which often do not offer abundant fresh and healthy foods, are the pervasive source of food for the community. She is working to find new ways to reach the food-insecure residents of Englewood and inform them of the locations across the city where the farm sells its produce, which is sold at a 50 percent discounted rate to Englewood community members at its weekly farmstand. Using benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, a bunch of fresh kale or collard greens would only cost 75 cents for Englewood residents.

Another large urban farm in Chicago is the Farm on Ogden, serving the North Lawndale neighborhood. The Farm on Ogden hosts Windy City Harvest, the urban agriculture and community engagement arm of the Chicago Botanic Garden, which was on track to grow over 120,000 pounds of produce in 2019.

Thirty years ago, Windy City Harvest started supporting school and neighborhood community gardens throughout the city. However, in order to better engage with youth, the Chicago Botanic Garden launched the Windy City Youth Farm, teaching 80-90 students annually at three farms in Chicago and one in Lake County how to grow food responsibly, to work as a team, to advocate for food justice and to eat in healthy ways.

Windy City Harvest also offers training programs for adults, including the Windy City Harvest Corps, which employs 30 to 40 justice-involved individuals and veterans in paid transitional jobs and supports them in finding full-time, long-term employment each year.

“Through food access, job creation and helping place people in full time employment, we’re helping recreate the local food system,” says Angie Mason, associate vice president of community engagement for Windy City Harvest. “It’s a really blended group of people working together toward this mission of building a local food system and a community of practice.”

In order to support socially disadvantaged farmers, Windy City Harvest hosts the Farm Incubator Program, developed with assistance from the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program directed by the US- DA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The program works to reduce the risks related to starting one’s own farming-related enterprise with support through an apprenticeship program and completion of a business course.

To help food-insecure community members obtain nutritious foods, the Farm on Ogden also hosts a program called Veggie Rx, aimed at increasing vegetable consumption for individuals with diet-related illnesses who are enrolled in SNAP.

Patients can visit a partner clinic to obtain a prescription for 10 visits to the Farm on Ogden and receive free produce grown there. For a refill, they can check back in with a clinic doctor for a health assessment and a new prescription.

“We have seen an increase in Veggie Rx participation — it’s doubled from last year to this year, so the need for fresh produce and the desire to find something healthier than what you can find at a corner store or a fast food restaurant is high,” Mason says. “People are realizing that they need to eat better.”

A Vision for a Closed Food Network

The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVE- JO) on the Southwest Side envisions a potential closed food system where local farmers can supply produce to neighborhood restaurants and local youth can transport the produce while picking up restaurant scraps for composting to reduce carbon emissions from food deliveries.

Kim Wasserman, LVEJO executive director, notes that 60 percent of the city’s street vendors come from Little Village, often selling food like corn, mangoes and raspas. She also says many residents have backgrounds in agriculture, but are unable to put their skills to use in the community.

“We very much use food as an organizing tool and because of how culturally representative it is in a community like ours,” Wasserman says. “Many folks in our community are just trying to come out of poverty by selling food, and the system is really not set up to help empower them.”

“This should become a space with massive indoor growing,” says Wasserman. “This should become a space with a massive commercial kitchen. This should become a space with an indoor market where folks can buy culturally relevant food and maintain the culture of the community.”

The main problem LVEJO organizers face is the inability to secure land in Little Village for the project.

In November 2019, the Greater Chicago Food Depository made an announcement that could further the city’s creative solutions to feed food-insecure residents by creating a comprehensive food preparation and distribution system that also supports job creation for people with barriers to employment. Amid US Census Bureau projections that the number of adults over 65 on fixed incomes in Cook County may increase 48 percent by 2030, the GCFD announced it will break ground next summer on a 40,000-square-foot, $50 million building in which to prepare nutritious, highquality meals for older adults and people with disabilities. The meal preparation kitchen is projected to serve four million meals a year when fully operational.

The food depository will partner with other organizations for home delivery and with an urban gardening nonprofit for the food itself. Some anticipated jobs at the new facility would support transitional employment for participants in the Chicago’s Community Kitchens program. A nutrition education center housed in a connecting building linking the GCFD’s existing headquarters to the new meal kitchen would feature a demonstration kitchen for classes on preparing healthy food for students, healthcare professionals and other community members.

Lee A. Holmes contributed reporting and writing to this story.

Alexandria Jacobson is a Chicago-based freelance reporter, whose multimedia work has been published by outlets such as ABC News, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reporter, Social Justice News Nexus, and The Lens. She earned her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

All photos by Alexandria Jacobson.