Anonymous wrote:Igrocery buying power of W7/8 is huge and anectdotally it seems most of us shop in MD or Cap Hill/Noma.
I make healthy food choices and could walk to that Safeway, but never shop there because it's an awful Safeway.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't Safeway and Giant at one point have stores in those wards? I think the reason they left was because of theft. Hard to justify a store if more money walks out the doors than goes in the cash register.

Now a seasonal produce stand, I have no clue why there are none. Seems like some local farmer could set up a stand to sell their fruit and veggies. I guess the DC government would want their share, that's probably why there are none.

Yes, loss prevention. Stores cannot be forced to operate as charities..I always thought DC could do FAR more, like offering to open police substations in their entry ways, and other safety minded "partnerships" to encourage these stores to open. Instead, DC got very demandy with WalMart about employment and other perks the city wanted when they were thinking of locating in Washington. If it's simply market driven, no one will open in a demandy city in areas with rampant and tolerated theft. It's also very difficult to apprehend and prosecute for shoplifting, especially in our current world.

It’s fascinating to see a city grandfather in subsidized housing, like what’s happening at Res 13, to counter gentrification and ensure poverty can persist in a desirable neighborhood, so as not to “displace” local residents. As if the area should be preserved in amber for only certain protected classes of people. Most people have to move, but not some.

Anyway, it’s also fascinating to see people struggle to grasp that poor people straight up make bad decisions because they’re poor. They don’t want a damn Whole Foods. They can’t afford that sht. Generally, nor do they possess the wherewithal to understand how to eat mostly vegetables and less unhealthy processed sht. Stores have tried to make a go of it and sell healthy food around Anacostia and Benming and Langton carver and the only way that food takes off is if the area is sufficiently gentrified. Except it’s evil to gentrify, so it’s easier to look for a billion nonsense reasons why there are “food deserts”. It’s because of theft and bad choices. We need to just let areas change. We need to let the market work as it should even if people are priced out. No one has a right to be anywhere forever and it’s annoying to hear people complain about the sadness of poverty and being pushed out and blah blah. Let people move where they can afford to live and maybe that will encourage them to work harder and so forth. Instead of trying to grandfather in the same families to live in projects with subsidized rent for 50 years. I know this place is populated heavily by well intentioned housewives, but I live and grew up in the inner city in DC. It’s way better with gentrification.

Ahh the typical poor people are stupid and lazy. Got it.

Not the immigrant poor – just the cycle of poverty poor. But then again, most immigrant poor live in the cheaper suburbs and are busting their butt at three jobs and their kids go on to college in ome kind of stem or immediate job producing field.

— neighbor of these immigrants and listener to their stories

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't Safeway and Giant at one point have stores in those wards? I think the reason they left was because of theft. Hard to justify a store if more money walks out the doors than goes in the cash register.

Now a seasonal produce stand, I have no clue why there are none. Seems like some local farmer could set up a stand to sell their fruit and veggies. I guess the DC government would want their share, that's probably why there are none.

If chains left due to theft, how would the local farmer survive?

People don't steal fresh fruit and veggies.

No, but they don't buy them either.

I live in Ward 7, within walking distance to the only grocery store in the Ward. I still drive to the Safeway on 14th st most of the time because the produce at the Ward 7 Safeway is godawful, and the produce is godawful because it sits and sits while nobody buys it.

I'm not making a judgement call on people who choose not to buy fresh produce, there are tons of factors why they might not. Preprepared and prepackaged food is often cheaper and faster than cooking from scratch, and less well off people may not have the time between working multiple jobs with odd schedules to cook full meals with fresh veggies as opposed to picking up a box of Kraft mac and cheese for 99 cents.

That doesn't change my observations at the store though, which is cart after cart of frozen meals, ramen, soda, canned and boxed food and rarely a fresh veggie in sight. Again, no judgement, people can buy what they want, but often times it really isn't about lack of access to fresh food, it's lack of interest.

EBT let’s you buy whatever you want as far as food goes.

And yet the produce still rots on the shelf in Ward 7.

Pretty clear proof that it's not about availability.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't Safeway and Giant at one point have stores in those wards? I think the reason they left was because of theft. Hard to justify a store if more money walks out the doors than goes in the cash register.

Now a seasonal produce stand, I have no clue why there are none. Seems like some local farmer could set up a stand to sell their fruit and veggies. I guess the DC government would want their share, that's probably why there are none.

Yes, loss prevention. Stores cannot be forced to operate as charities..I always thought DC could do FAR more, like offering to open police substations in their entry ways, and other safety minded "partnerships" to encourage these stores to open. Instead, DC got very demandy with WalMart about employment and other perks the city wanted when they were thinking of locating in Washington. If it's simply market driven, no one will open in a demandy city in areas with rampant and tolerated theft. It's also very difficult to apprehend and prosecute for shoplifting, especially in our current world.

It’s fascinating to see a city grandfather in subsidized housing, like what’s happening at Res 13, to counter gentrification and ensure poverty can persist in a desirable neighborhood, so as not to “displace” local residents. As if the area should be preserved in amber for only certain protected classes of people. Most people have to move, but not some.

Anyway, it’s also fascinating to see people struggle to grasp that poor people straight up make bad decisions because they’re poor. They don’t want a damn Whole Foods. They can’t afford that sht. Generally, nor do they possess the wherewithal to understand how to eat mostly vegetables and less unhealthy processed sht. Stores have tried to make a go of it and sell healthy food around Anacostia and Benming and Langton carver and the only way that food takes off is if the area is sufficiently gentrified. Except it’s evil to gentrify, so it’s easier to look for a billion nonsense reasons why there are “food deserts”. It’s because of theft and bad choices. We need to just let areas change. We need to let the market work as it should even if people are priced out. No one has a right to be anywhere forever and it’s annoying to hear people complain about the sadness of poverty and being pushed out and blah blah. Let people move where they can afford to live and maybe that will encourage them to work harder and so forth. Instead of trying to grandfather in the same families to live in projects with subsidized rent for 50 years. I know this place is populated heavily by well intentioned housewives, but I live and grew up in the inner city in DC. It’s way better with gentrification.

Ahh the typical poor people are stupid and lazy. Got it.

Not the immigrant poor – just the cycle of poverty poor. But then again, most immigrant poor live in the cheaper suburbs and are busting their butt at three jobs and their kids go on to college in ome kind of stem or immediate job producing field.

— neighbor of these immigrants and listener to their stories

Those immigrants were educated and rich in their home countries.

No they weren’t. At least, not in NYC where destitute Chinese immigrants make up a large number of the kids attending magnet schools. They live multiple families to an apartment so the kids can focus on school. They are middle class in one generation. It might be different here in DC.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/food-access-dc-deeply-connected-poverty-transportation/

Food deserts. I lived in one when I taught in public school in Baltimore. It was a real challenge as I didn’t have a car and getting to the grocery store involved two bus changes and nearly an hour on the bus, so I couldn’t go frequently. I could only carry so much food, and adding ice packs or such so it wouldn’t spoil further limited what I could buy because it was so heavy. I ate mostly stuff I could buy at the CVS, the Subway, the McDonalds, and the chicken box restaurant. It was not a healthy balanced diet. My students got free school lunch and they routinely would not eat the fruit, which would end up on the “share” table and then be trashed. I recall looking at it longingly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't Safeway and Giant at one point have stores in those wards? I think the reason they left was because of theft. Hard to justify a store if more money walks out the doors than goes in the cash register.

Now a seasonal produce stand, I have no clue why there are none. Seems like some local farmer could set up a stand to sell their fruit and veggies. I guess the DC government would want their share, that's probably why there are none.

If chains left due to theft, how would the local farmer survive?

People don't steal fresh fruit and veggies.

No, but they don't buy them either.

I live in Ward 7, within walking distance to the only grocery store in the Ward. I still drive to the Safeway on 14th st most of the time because the produce at the Ward 7 Safeway is godawful, and the produce is godawful because it sits and sits while nobody buys it.

I'm not making a judgement call on people who choose not to buy fresh produce, there are tons of factors why they might not. Preprepared and prepackaged food is often cheaper and faster than cooking from scratch, and less well off people may not have the time between working multiple jobs with odd schedules to cook full meals with fresh veggies as opposed to picking up a box of Kraft mac and cheese for 99 cents.

That doesn't change my observations at the store though, which is cart after cart of frozen meals, ramen, soda, canned and boxed food and rarely a fresh veggie in sight. Again, no judgement, people can buy what they want, but often times it really isn't about lack of access to fresh food, it's lack of interest.

EBT let’s you buy whatever you want as far as food goes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't Safeway and Giant at one point have stores in those wards? I think the reason they left was because of theft. Hard to justify a store if more money walks out the doors than goes in the cash register.

Now a seasonal produce stand, I have no clue why there are none. Seems like some local farmer could set up a stand to sell their fruit and veggies. I guess the DC government would want their share, that's probably why there are none.

Yes, loss prevention. Stores cannot be forced to operate as charities..I always thought DC could do FAR more, like offering to open police substations in their entry ways, and other safety minded "partnerships" to encourage these stores to open. Instead, DC got very demandy with WalMart about employment and other perks the city wanted when they were thinking of locating in Washington. If it's simply market driven, no one will open in a demandy city in areas with rampant and tolerated theft. It's also very difficult to apprehend and prosecute for shoplifting, especially in our current world.

It’s fascinating to see a city grandfather in subsidized housing, like what’s happening at Res 13, to counter gentrification and ensure poverty can persist in a desirable neighborhood, so as not to “displace” local residents. As if the area should be preserved in amber for only certain protected classes of people. Most people have to move, but not some.

Anyway, it’s also fascinating to see people struggle to grasp that poor people straight up make bad decisions because they’re poor. They don’t want a damn Whole Foods. They can’t afford that sht. Generally, nor do they possess the wherewithal to understand how to eat mostly vegetables and less unhealthy processed sht. Stores have tried to make a go of it and sell healthy food around Anacostia and Benming and Langton carver and the only way that food takes off is if the area is sufficiently gentrified. Except it’s evil to gentrify, so it’s easier to look for a billion nonsense reasons why there are “food deserts”. It’s because of theft and bad choices. We need to just let areas change. We need to let the market work as it should even if people are priced out. No one has a right to be anywhere forever and it’s annoying to hear people complain about the sadness of poverty and being pushed out and blah blah. Let people move where they can afford to live and maybe that will encourage them to work harder and so forth. Instead of trying to grandfather in the same families to live in projects with subsidized rent for 50 years. I know this place is populated heavily by well intentioned housewives, but I live and grew up in the inner city in DC. It’s way better with gentrification.

Ahh the typical poor people are stupid and lazy. Got it.

Not the immigrant poor – just the cycle of poverty poor. But then again, most immigrant poor live in the cheaper suburbs and are busting their butt at three jobs and their kids go on to college in ome kind of stem or immediate job producing field.

— neighbor of these immigrants and listener to their stories

Those immigrants were educated and rich in their home countries.

Anonymous wrote:Food boxes have evolved. There is a lot more emphasis on produce and recipe cards. This trend should continue to retrain palates. Processed food is unhealthy and could explain a lot of health disparities that develop over a lifetime of poor diet.

Anonymous wrote:I live in ward 6 and see the same thing - carts filled with cheap processed food and little produce. I always wonder if the urban poor don't know how to cook from scratch. Should we bring back home ec?

I also watched the Wal-Mart on H Street go from brand new to having mist items under lock due to theft. I will not go there anymore and an waiting for them to just pull out of the city all together.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: thinking and commitment.

I was a big fan of Michelle Obama's health food and Let's Move campaigns but anyone who tried to do that today would be called racist.