Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was in East Buffalo on Friday visiting the Delavan Grider Community Center, where she announced a new piece of legislation, "Healthy Food Financing Initiative Reauthorization Act", geared toward helping end food deserts.
Food deserts are areas where a significant portion of residents don’t have easy access to a grocery store and affordable, nutritious food. Instead, they are forced to rely on corner and convenience stores, which often sell little to no fresh produce, meat or dairy, and whose prices are higher than those of a typical supermarket.
"We have far too many food deserts in New York, we have a food desert right here," said Gillibrand on Friday. "Food is important. It's what nourishes our families, it keeps us healthy, it keeps a community together. When communities don't have access to fresh, healthy, nutritious food, it really harms them. Without it, you lose out on the enrichment and the strengthening that comes with having a healthy food network. When we look at communities across the country, there's a lot that just aren't receiving the nutrition they need to strive and thrive. And food deserts are far too common. They disproportionately are located in communities of color and low income communities."
Gillibrand’s legislation would provide $50 million annually in mandatory federal funding for the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI).
HFFI is a USDA program that offers loans and grants to incentivize grocery stores to establish locations in areas like East Buffalo, where nearly two years after the racially motivated Tops mass shooting, the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue is still one of the only supermarkets serving Masten Park and the surrounding areas.
"In Buffalo, we have among the highest food insecurity rates of other cities," Gillibrand said. "According to the USDA, thousands of Erie County residents live in food deserts, which are areas that have few or no options to shop for affordable, high quality healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and nearly 1-in-10 Erie County residents are food insecure. In fact, it was in an effort to address this lack of food access that primarily Black residents of East Buffalo pushed for years to get the Tops market on Jefferson Avenue, only to see it become one of the sites of the most horrific shootings in our nation's history. And that left families without any place to go for months, as that community recovered. And many community members don't want to go back there, so there's even less options for many families now."
Gillibrand is also calling for $25 million for HFFI to be included in the upcoming government funding bill.
"It's a deeply effective program and it's deeply popular, but it's often underfunded and runs out. So I'm sending a letter to the Senate appropriators to make sure this program gets the funding it needs," Gillibrand added. "I'm asking for them to double the funding from $25 million to $50 million. And I'm also asking that this program become mandatory, meaning we don't have to get it in the bill every year, and we don't have to fight for it in every appropriations bill. This would make a big difference here in Buffalo, and it would make a big difference across our state."
Gillibrand was joined on Friday by NAACP Buffalo President, Rev. Mark Blue, President and CEO of FeedMore WNY, Tara A. Ellis, Buffalo Common Councilwoman Zeneta Everhart and Erie County Legislator Howard Johnson.