Daily equity news

“A Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics,” -  The New York Times

“Thousands still in FEMA trailers,” -  USA TODAY

“The Metro Crash: A Nation’s Aging Transit System,” - Times Magazine

Like many people working in the trenches to combat the scourge of “food deserts” in America, I was excited to hear the USDA was releasing a new study about the problem. With the overwhelming scientific evidence showing a lack of access to healthy food is a detriment to our health, the spotlight from the USDA was quite welcome.

While the USDA should be commended for looking at the food desert issue, it seemed to miss the boat on the depth, breadth, and consequences of the problem.

By the report’s own admission, 23.5 million Americans live in low-income communities without a grocery store within walking distance. That’s about one in every 13 people. That doesn’t seem to jive with the study’s first finding that “access to a supermarket or large grocery store is a problem for a small percentage of households.”

But more odd is the study’s relative dismissal of the benefits of healthy eating and the real fallout from living in a community with little or no access to fresh food. There has been significant scientific research showing the vital role fresh food consumption and access play in our health:

• A 2002 study in the American Journal of Public Health found fruit and vegetable consumption among African Americans rose 32 percent with each additional local food store.
• A 2006 study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found lowest rates of obesity (21 percent) among people living in neighborhoods with supermarkets or grocery stores and the highest rates of obesity (32-40 percent) among people living in places with no supermarkets and access to only smaller grocery stores and convenience stores.
• A 2007 national study of more than 70,000 teens found that increased availability of chain supermarkets was associated with lower rates of being overweight
• A March 2009 study in Indianapolis showed adding a new grocery store to a neighborhood translated into a 3 pound weight decrease for residents.

This a public health issue, plain and simple. As we demonstrated in the 2008 report, Designed for Disease: The Link Between Local Food Environments and Obesity and Diabetes, people living in neighborhoods crowded with fast-food and convenience stores but relatively few grocery or produce outlets have a significantly higher prevalence of obesity and diabetes.

In Ezra Klein’s blog post for the Washington Post today, he says that food deserts aren’t the problem. “The problem, it seems, is the opposite: food swamps. Areas dense with fast food and convenience stores,” he writes.

But this is not an either-or proposition. Designed for Disease showed clearly that a dramatically unbalanced food environment is a direct health risk. Having no food choices at all is just as problematic as having a glut of bad food choices.

Photo used under a Creative Common License from Flickr user Spine (aka Rick)

Daily equity news

“A First Lady Who Demands Substance,” - Washington Post
Michelle Obama Wants to Be Part of Events That Have Purpose And a Message — and That Parallel the President’s Agenda.

For weeks, Michelle Obama had been telling her staff and closest confidantes that she wasn’t having the impact she wanted. She is a woman of substance, with a background in law, public policy and management, who found herself relegated to role model in chief. The West Wing of the White House — the fulcrum of power and policy — had not fully integrated her into its agenda. She wanted more.

So, earlier this month, she changed her chief of staff, and now she’s changing her role.

“When jobs go, so do a city’s people,” - MSNBC.COM (Newsvine.com)

REDMOND, Wash. - For a cautionary tale, communities hard-hit by the current recession don’t have to look much further than Youngstown, Ohio.

Like many other manufacturing-dependent cities struggling in this recession, Youngstown’s economy was once booming mainly because of the success of one dominant industry. And also like those cities, Youngstown saw its fortunes fall fast and hard when that industry suddenly bottomed out, leaving many of its residents jobless and unsure what to do next.

“Unemployed Hit the Road to Find Jobs,”  - The Wall Street Journal

LINCOLN, N.H. — After seven months without a paycheck, Tim Ryan turned into a werewolf.

Laid off from a construction job, Mr. Ryan finally found work last month playing the wolfman at Clark’s Trading Post, a tourist attraction in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. For $12 an hour, about half what he made before, he dons furry rags, a coonskin cap and an eye patch and jumps out of the woods when the Trading Post’s steam train chugs by, snarling and growling at passengers.

Daily equity news.

“Despite everything, more Americans see sunny skies ahead,” -   USA TODAY

 ”Not Paying the Mortgage, Yet Stuck With the Keys,” - Washington Post
Foreclosure Backlog Imperils Recovery

“How not to help the poor,” - The Boston Globe

The USDA released a much-anticipated study of food deserts today. The full study can be found here. Below are statements from PolicyLink and The Food Trust about the study.

Statement from PolicyLink President Judith Bell

“The new USDA food desert report provides yet another confirmation that access to healthy food is a significant problem for millions of Americans. The report shows that about one in every 13 Americans – 23.5 million people — live in low-income communities that are more than a mile from the nearest large grocery store.

As more than 70 studies have shown during the past decade, the lack of access to healthy food is a real challenge in many low-income urban communities, rural communities, and communities of color. This is a public health issue, plain and simple. As we demonstrated in the 2008 report, Designed for Disease: The Link Between Local Food Environments and Obesity and Diabetes, people living in neighborhoods crowded with fast-food and convenience stores but relatively few grocery or produce outlets have a significantly higher prevalence of obesity and diabetes. (The report was prepared by PolicyLink in partnership with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy).  Other studies demonstrate that in addition to providing access to healthy foods, supermarkets and large grocery stores are important neighborhood economic engines, bringing jobs and revitalization.

This USDA report adds to the growing body of research on the ways that where you live affects your health. Now is the time to implement proven, impactful policies to address America’s food desert crisis.”

Statement from John Weidman, Deputy Executive Director, The Food Trust

“Improving access to grocery stores in both urban and rural communities must be part of our national strategy to improve children’s health and prevent obesity and diabetes.  The Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative has demonstrated that supermarkets can thrive in food deserts and offers a strong model for solving this problem nationally.   Expanding this program is one of the Top Ten recommendations of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission To Build a Healthier America.”

The 775-page transportation authorization bill introduced in the House this week, offers a broad, reform-minded framework for fixing our nation’s transportation system. However, more must be done to ensure an equitable, smart, and green transportation system that provides real, affordable options for all Americans.
To help you stay abreast of the transportation authorization, we are hosting a conference call on Friday June 26th from 2:30 to 3:30 pm EST (11:30 am to 12:30 pm PDT), where PolicyLink, Transportation for America, and the Transportation Equity Network will break down the equity opportunities in the new transportation authorization bill.

To RSVP for the call, visit http://www.PolicyLink.org/AnEquitableFuture

“This bill provides a promising foundation for real transportation reform in America, but we must do more to ensure this bill promotes true access to opportunity for lower-income people and communities of color,” said Radhika Fox, PolicyLink Federal Policy Director. “While the House bill includes some positive provisions, more work needs to be done to ensure that this $450 billion dollar investment creates communities of opportunity for all Americans.”

We need far more detail, for instance, on whether low-income people and people of color will have meaningful access to good jobs and job training programs in the transportation sector. Most of the sections of the bill that cover these issues are blank with details “to be supplied.” In addition, we need stronger provisions to make sure cities and regions can use federal transportation resources to help cash-strapped transit agencies with support for the costs of current operations, not just capital construction.

The foundation for much-needed reform is in place, but the hard work of hammering out the details to ensure our nation’s under-served communities benefit still remains. PolicyLink stands ready to support members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and House leadership to craft a transformative bill that will foster equity and inclusion in America.

We also encourage you to visit the Transportation for America and Transportation Equity Network for more information.

With the release this week of the 775-page transportation re-authorization bill, the starting gun has officially sounded on the effort to create real transportation reform in America.

During a conference call Friday, June 26, from 2:30-3:30 pm EDT (11:30 am to 12:30 pm PDT), we will break down the equity opportunities in the new transportation authorization bill introduced in Congress this week – which could include billions in funding for low-income communities and communities of color.

RSVP for the call here

Panelists will include:

• Radhika Fox, Federal Policy Director, PolicyLink
• James Corless, Director, Transportation for America
• Laura Barrett, National Policy Director, Transportation Equity Network

Daily equity news.

“SCLC renews poverty campaign before small crowd,” - Associated Press

“Can’t Stop Eating?” - The Washington Post
For Some People, Obesity Is Not a Simple Failure of Self-Control

“Foundations Trim Staffs After Assets Slide Lower,” -  The New York Times

During a webinar Friday, June 26, from 1 to 2:30 pm EDT (10 to 11:30 PDT), PolicyLink and Living Cities will release the Reclaiming Foreclosed Properties for Community Benefit tool, which will highlight promising strategies already underway in communities to acquire, care for, and return-to-market foreclosed properties.

The call will also feature tips and ideas for meeting the July 17th application deadline for $2 billion in additional Neighborhood Stabilization Program dollars from the federal stimulus package.

RSVP for the call here

The Discussion will be moderated by Kalima Rose, Senior Director, PolicyLink Center for Infrastructure Equity

Welcome and Opening Comments

• Tamir Novotny, Program Associate, Living Cities

Review of Tool

• Sarah Treuhaft, Senior Associate, PolicyLink

Strategies in the Twin Cities

• Tom Fulton, President, Family Housing Fund

• Rebecca Rom, Attorney, Faegre & Benson, LLP

Strategies in Los Angeles

• Danny Draper, Director, Real Estate Department, LA Neighborhood Housing Services

Discussion/Q & A

• John Laswick, Community Development Specialist, US Department of Housing and Urban Development

On the same day PolicyLink president Judith Bell had her letter on healthy-food access run in the New York Times, her piece on the Kansas City Green Impact Zone ran in the Nieman Watchdog, a great site targeting elite journalists (and run by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard):

Many states and cities have moved quickly to spend their part of the $787 billion federal stimulus package. Plenty of conventional spending is under way – highway interchanges, bridges, etc. But is there anybody out there being innovative, smart, and forward-thinking?

One promising project is the Kansas City Green Impact Zone, a targeted green revitalization effort that supporters hope will bring as much as $200 million to a 150-block, mostly poor, economically depressed section of the city. Backed by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (shown above), Mayor Mark Funkhouser, a unanimous city council, and dozens of community groups, the project could be one of the stimulus package’s signature economic development projects.