Tens of thousands in Tri-Cities have limited access to healthy food choices

PETERSBURG — For the tens of thousands of Tri-Cities residents who have limited access to healthy food, help may be on the way.

Virginia's senior U.S. Senator, Mark Warner, is one of four senators who are sponsoring legislation that aims to help shrink the nation's "food deserts" – a term the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) uses to designate areas of the nation where residents must travel long distances to find healthy nutritional choices like fresh fruits and vegetables, meats and dairy products.

The bill, called the Healthy Food Access for All Americans Act, takes particular aim at areas with high concentrations of low-income residents who may be unable to afford the cost of transportation to distant food sources.

“More than 1 million Virginians find themselves in low-income areas with no reliable source of healthy food, placing themselves at higher risk of diabetes, obesity and heart disease,” Warner explained in a press release announcing the filing of the bill.

The proposed legislation, co-sponsored by Senators Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), would create a system of tax credits and grants for businesses and nonprofits that serve low-income areas that have limited food access.

The USDA estimates that 37 million Americans live in food deserts, regions where a full-service grocery store is not available within a mile of home in urban areas or 10 miles in rural areas.

The bill combines food access with income data by including census tracts where 20 percent or more of the residents live below the federal poverty level or have median family income amounting to less than 80 percent of the median for their metropolitan area or state.

The legislation also defines grocery stores as retailers where at least 35 percent of the stock consists of fresh produce, poultry, dairy and deli items.

Based on those standards, about 59,000 Tri-Cities residents live in low-income/low-access areas, or about 13 percent of the total population. Excluding Chesterfield County, which has a population nearly two-and-a-half times the other five localities combined, about 45,000 residents live in low-income food deserts, or about 33 percent of the total.

Local governments have tried to take their own steps to address the issue.

Colonial Heights City Council members voted in 2005 to buy the former Colonial Heights Baptist Church site with hopes of selling the five-acre property for commercial development, including a grocery store, but ultimately decided to use it instead for the city's new courthouse. A deal with supermarket chain Kroger Co. to build a store on the old courthouse property was signed in 2013, but Kroger dropped the plan earlier this year.

Petersburg's Department of Economic Development has for several years been trying to get a grocery store to locate downtown. It might seem strange that a large part of the the city is a food desert when there are three qualifying grocery stores within its territory. However, the existing stores are all at the southern end of town, leaving the whole northern half of the city unserved.

Similarly, Colonial Heights' four grocery stores – including the former Martin's store undergoing renovations to reopen later this year as a Publix location – are concentrated at the northern end of the city and in the Southpark area, leaving the southern and western sides of town unserved.

“Every person should have access to affordable and nutritious food regardless of where they live," Warner said. "By incentivizing food producers and sellers to go into communities where food access is a problem, we can help guarantee that fresh fruits and vegetables are available in the places where they are needed most.”

Under the proposed legislation, businesses and nonprofits can be certified as Special Access Food Providers by the U.S. Treasury Department and USDA in order to obtain federal tax credits by serving low-income food deserts. Companies that build new grocery stores in qualified locations would receive a one-time credit of 15 percent of the cost of planning and construction. Companies that upgrade existing stores could obtain a one-time credit of 10 percent of the cost of the revamp. Food banks that build new permanent facilities could receive a 15 percent credit. And what the bill calls Temporary Access Markets — mobile markets, farmers markets and some food banks —would receive grants for 10 percent of their service costs for the year.

Data and a map of areas in the U.S. that would qualify as food deserts under the proposed bill are available online at www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/

• Michael Buettner may be reached at mbuettner@progress-index.com or 722-5155.