City Council - City Service & Innovation Technology Committee Hearing on Docket #1791

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For the record, My name is Enrique Pepén, District 5, Boston City Councilor, and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on City Services and Innovation Technology. Today is November 20th. The exact time is 2.04 p.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Files Channel 964. Writing comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.csit at boston.gov. It will be made a part of the record and available to all councilors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order. In which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify.

If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you are looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison, Megan at MEAGAN.CORUGEDO at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 1791. Order for a hearing to discuss the role of publicly owned grocery stores in addressing food insecurity. This matter was sponsored by Councilors Liz Breadon, Ruthie Louijeune, and Gabriela Coletta Zapata. and was referred to the committee on October 6th, 2025. Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Liz Breadon, Councilor President Ruzzi Lijian, Councilor Ed Flynn, Councilor Brian Worrell,

myself, and then we also have a letter of absence from Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata. At this time, I'm going to allow my colleagues for some brief opening statements, and then we'll continue with opening testimony from the panelists. So, Councilor Breadon, the floor is yours.

Thank you and good afternoon to everyone who's here for this very important hearing. We filed this hearing a few weeks ago in response to The ongoing food access crisis in the city. It hasn't been made any better by the fact that the federal government and so many thousands and thousands of our residents and neighbors in the city of Boston are really feeling extremely food insecure at this moment. This is not a new thing. We've had a lot of food insecurity in the city over Thank you very much. This hearing was filed as a conversation about publicly owned grocery stores, but this is not the exclusive Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to keep my opening remarks really short because I think it's a bigger conversation. I'd like to get into the conversation with you folks and also our advocates panel as well. and I look forward to bringing our best thinking to this important issue and see if we can move the ball down the field and make things better for our residents in the City of Boston.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to everyone for being here. Thank you to the lead sponsor, Councilor Breadon. This is a really important discussion. It's so important that Councilor Breadon and I filed similar hearings. So she filed a hearing order that was looking at the issue of creating municipally-owned grocery stores. And I filed a hearing order about how we support our nonprofit grocers and explore alternative models like municipally-owned grocery stores. because of the way that the city council rules function, hers took precedent. But she's allowed us to have this, and the chair's allowed us to have this larger conversation, not just about city-owned grocers, but how we're supporting Some of our nonprofit coaches as well as we explore alternative models. I think this is a very important conversation that we filed this hearing before the SNAP cuts were

but it was timely because a number of us had just been on a food access council meeting where we were reminded of the deep, deep food insecurity issues that our residents around the city are facing. And as an at-large city councilor, every neighborhood um suffers and has to deal and live with food insecurity so it matters um it matters a lot to me um we're having this hearing at a time of where we're feeling the weight of multiple pressures food prices are climbing SNAP benefits while restored have been reduced for thousands due to recent federal policy changes and local emergency food providers are stretched thin. and we know that even before the SNAP cut, SNAP was insufficient for those who receive it. In the face of this instability still, our neighborhoods continue to show resilience through community-driven grocery models, nonprofit markets, food hubs, and mobile food distribution. Today's hearing focuses on how we as a city can better support these local solutions, especially on nonprofit and community-owned grocery stores, cooperatives, and other alternative models.

When the Daily Table closed and my office was really involved with trying to Increase the foot traffic at Daily Table. How do we make sure people, especially the one in Mattapan, It closed earlier this year after a decade of service. And we saw how vulnerable even most mission-driven food outlets can be to financial and structural challenges. Meanwhile, projects like the Deutsches Food Co-op, Fresh Truck, and the Greater Boston Food Access Hub demonstrate the promise of collaboration and innovation in filling the gaps. This hearing isn't about a single idea. It's about recognizing the web of efforts already underway across Boston and asking what we can do more to stabilize those who are food insecure. That means looking at how we fund, zone, permit, and partner with grassroots organizations It means learning from our peers nationally. And this is the first of the hearings. And I know that we'll have more hearings where we can hear from experts and hear from people who are already doing this in other cities, like Atlanta, like Madison, Wisconsin, like Venice, Illinois, others

who have for decades or more recently, like in Atlanta, had this model of studio and grocery stores. I look forward to hearing from the Office of Food Justice, our labor partners, and Aliza, similar to how we say Abiza. Aliza, I want to thank you for all of your work in making sure that our residents have what they need. Food is medicine. Food is health. And I think that's what this hearing will be about.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Flynn.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the administration team that is here and for the community. that will also testify as well. I have long been a strong supporter of the Office of Food Access program here at the City of Boston, especially during budget time advocating for I think we also as a society and city as well need to support our nonprofits that do a tremendous job Supporting residents in need, families in need. One organization that I'm involved in, among others, is the Women's Lunch Place on Newbury Street near Boylston Street.

But I also know that this woman's lunch place, I was there visiting with a friend of mine, my wife also, but I was with a friend of mine, Vivian Lee, and a lot of constituents of mine go there. especially residents in Chinatown, but they have appropriate food for various ethnic groups, I should say. and that's also important in supporting organizations that do tremendous work in our city, nonprofits, food access. I don't necessarily think having a city-owned grocery store

is the answer, but I do believe what we can do is ensure that the Office of Food Access receives the necessary money during the budget process, certainly an increase, certainly and encouraging residents also to support many of these exceptional nonprofits. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. I'd also like to acknowledge that we've been joined by Councillor Santana. Councillor Worrell, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair. I just want to thank my colleagues for bringing this hearing order forward. Thank you for the panelists that are fighting food insecurity here in the city of Boston, all the nonprofits that are also doing their part. This is a big issue to tackle, so I'm here to listen, learn how we can continue fighting food insecurity here. So just want to just dive into the conversation. But again, just thank you to everyone out there doing amazing work. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Worrell. Councilor Santana.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, you know, thank you to the lead sponsors, Councilor Breadon, Council President Nguyen, and Councilor Coletta Zapata for putting this forward. I think a lot has been said. I definitely just want to be able to learn. I think food insecurity has always been an issue for many of our residents, especially our low-income public housing residents. We should definitely be exploring any type of ways that we can help towards that. I definitely want to explore the idea of a city-owned grocery store, but I think more importantly is we definitely want to be able to support the organizations and the nonprofits The community leaders who are doing this work every single day. And there's just so many to name. I know we're going to hear from some of them in the second panel. And I think we need to support Our families here in the city of Boston, we need to support all of our residents.

And I think this is a great idea. I just really want to give kudos to the lead sponsors. And then also I just want to acknowledge You know, the Office of Food Justice is for the amazing work that you all do. This is just, it's ongoing work. It's very needed work, but really appreciate the partnership that you all have with our office and the work that you all do every single day. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilor. I'd also like to thank Councilor Breadon, Louijeune, and Councilor Coletta Zapata for bringing this docket before the Council. and thank the panelists for all the work that you all do. This is a very important topic to my district as well where Mattapan was the location where we lost the Daily Table and it was a huge... There's a blow to the community to lose that grocery store. So that's obviously one of the more affordable ones with great produce. And now, With what has happened with SNAP and a lot of food insecurity, a lot of our amazing food pantries are under a lot of stress. They do a lot of great work organizing, but they're reaching their capacity. So I think that looking into different solutions to how we can approach and address the food insecurity crisis that we have across the city, this is a great time to have this hearing. It's funny because actually this morning I had a hearing on composting, which may not seem relevant to this conversation, but it's

We talked about how we can look at how businesses that may get rid of some unused foods or needed foods can help to this crisis. So I think that both conversations are correlated to each other in that regard. So we'll love to. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair Pepén and

to the counselors for offering this hearing on such a pressing topic that is getting Moore Dyer each week. My name is Aliza Wasserman. I've been the director of the Office of Food Justice for the City of Boston since 2022. As has been mentioned, residents in many parts of our city are struggling with food affordability due to a number of factors. While food insecurity rose during the pandemic, it has continued to rise here in Boston and across the country due to the affordability crisis. We've all experienced that grocery prices are now 25% higher nationally than they were in 2021 and more than 35% higher now than they were in 2019. It's pretty hard to say that without pausing afterwards.

because of this 47 percent of Boston residents experienced challenges reported experiencing challenges accessing nutritious food at some point in 2024 according to Data from the Greater Boston Food Bank and their research partners at Mass General Brigham. As has been mentioned, this has been further exacerbated in the past couple months. by federal resources being slashed, including in particular changes to eligibility for SNAP and delays in SNAP benefits. So I want to be really clear that our emergency food system is at capacity and cannot absorb the additional levels of need we are seeing in our communities as a result of All of these federal actions. I hope we will be able to do everything we can to support our residents experiencing food insecurity and ensure access to critical benefit programs, including making sure that

residents who are eligible for SNAP benefits do not lose them due to requirements for increased paperwork related to work requirements. In reviewing data recently to understand the impacts of these SNAP changes, we see that 50% of SNAP recipients in Boston live in six zip codes in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park. And the flip side of that is 50% of Snap, Sales in Boston are also in the same six, I think one of them is different, I can check, but six, also six zip codes in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park. So if you think about the impact of these changes on Stores that have high SNAP sales.

Those are concerns that we are concerned about and working to address. So what are we doing? I want to highlight a few areas of work and happy to take questions after that. As has been mentioned, and thanks to Council's support over the last few years, we were able to invest federal resources through the city in the Greater Boston Collaborative Food Access Hub with additional matching funding from Mass General Brigham and this hub has been operating in Roxbury over the past year. The massive cold storage warehouse is allowing the YMCA of Greater Boston and and a dozen community partners to collaborate in new ways which has allowed them to recover, store and distribute more fresh and healthy food across Boston, both to help residents facing food insecurity as well as

to identify opportunities where perfectly good food might not be sold and could instead of it turning into food waste it is actually recovered and distributed to residents. So in this first year, the partners using the hub have distributed the equivalent of 1.5 million meals. serving around 20,000 people each month and redistributing 164,000 pounds of recovered food, which might not have gone to its best use of human consumption otherwise. in addition through that same set of federal resources we were able to support grants to 12 food access and food recovery organizations in East Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, Roslindale, and West Roxbury, and organizations serving the entire city through food recovery work.

to expand cold storage access through refrigeration or freezer storage and cold chain transportation. So those projects are currently underway. And by the end of 2026, we should see the impact of this expanded infrastructure helping residents across Boston that are and organizations serving dozens of neighborhoods by providing access to fresh food we also have been Continuing our Double Up Food Bucks program that is also supported by federal resources and city resources. In that program, SNAP recipients can receive 50% off fresh fruits and vegetables

that are purchased with SNAP benefits at the six participating stores in East Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester, one of which is the Dorchester Food Club, which was mentioned earlier. as well as five other locally owned stores. Since the program began, we have provided nearly a million dollars in benefits to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, which in turn leveraged an additional million in SNAP purchases on fruits and vegetables to help really allow residents to stretch their federal nutrition benefits further. For the foods that they already want to purchase and I do want to highlight that most of actually all of these six stores specifically have a lot of different Produce items that you might not find in a larger supermarket, a national supermarket chain.

So we are continuing this program and actually looking to expand to additional stores in Mattapan, Roxbury or Dorchester. We currently have federal funding for this program through the end of June, which is currently matched by city funds. And so we've been particularly working with locally owned bodegas, corner stores, and small grocery stores for this initiative. and it's it's really important for these small businesses I'll let my colleague touch more on the businesses but I just want to note like for instance one of the stores El Valle de las Butchering that, El Valle de la Sultana, one of the double up stores in East Boston just opened their fourth store in Everett. So it's a small chain, but they

This is critical to the infrastructure of small businesses in our communities that help folks who are purchasing food with SNAP, but also community members who are purchasing food in the same communities with Cash, or other resources. Over the past several years, a number of other initiatives have focused city and federal resources on expanding access to affordable fresh food, where we also try to weave in opportunities to shift the food system by supporting local farmers and small businesses and supply chains across the regional food system. From 2022 to 2025, our office used ARPA funds and city resources to provide fresh food to residents at the over 20 farmers markets in Boston.

serving thousands of residents over four years which allowed over 1.5 million dollars in residents to use to purchase over 1.5 million dollars in fresh food with our farmers market coupons, primarily fruits and vegetables, but also meat, eggs, seafood, dairy, and bread. and I will point out we have a lot more data on kind of where those coupons were spent and where relative to where they were distributed by the 35 different community organizations across the city If folks are interested in that data, I have some folks from my team here. So I just want to give a shout out to folks who have helped really do some of the data collection analysis of that data.

In order to build on the farmer's market coupon program, which was developed as an emergency COVID relief program by the then Office of Food Access, and to continue supporting both access and farmers markets. We have been partnering over the past 18 months with BPHC's Chronic Disease Control and Prevention Division to lead a planning committee of 10 farmers markets and community organizations to conduct an assessment to determine how to best address affordability of fresh food at farmers markets moving forward and how to make farmers markets more accessible while simultaneously helping us understand how the city can address barriers for more farmers to continue selling at farmers markets in Boston. And we are currently working to use the results of this assessment to determine how to move forward

with existing resources to continue supporting affordability of farmers markets in the coming year and years and to determine what additional resources might be needed to do so. Most recently, in order to address the delay in SNAP benefits this month, we partnered with the Mayor's Office, Office of Neighborhood Services, Small Business Office, Human Services, BPHC, BPS, and a number of other departments to Stand up a website and other resources in the community to help residents get accurate information about what was very quickly shifting in their access to a trusted federal program. including site visits by Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion to impacted grocery stores. And the city partnered closely with the Boston Foundation to respond to this

urgent situation and the entities together have raised now over $3 million that has been going out to organizations, help residents, Be able to afford groceries and to support the food access organizations and pantries that make up the emergency food system, which has been stressed beyond its capacity these last few weeks. not just in the present moment of need but ongoing there are just too many efforts to name across various departments. So I just want to stress it's not just Office of Food Justice that are addressing food insecurity, whether it is Boston Public Schools providing 50,000 meals that are nutritious and fresh even more than they were before, scratch cooked with locally sourced ingredients and culturally relevant menu items to students at no cost each day.

or whether it's the Nutrition Lab at the newly renamed Roxbury Library or Age Strong's work providing meals to older adults. We have a really impressive footprint across the city that we can muster to really tackle this challenge of food insecurity, and departments are doing this every day. Lastly, I want to just mention a major part of the affordable Affordability changes relate to how we maximize residents' access to and participation in existing state and federal nutrition programs. Without these programs that increase their purchasing power, it is difficult for many residents to afford groceries regardless of what type of outlet they would be shopping at.

That's why last year we piloted the Community Outreach Leaders program to support community-based organizations to hire residents to do peer-to-peer outreach about existing how to use and how to navigate existing state and federal nutrition programs. in particular neighborhoods of high need and hope to continue this program in the future provided we have resources to do so. In order to ensure that affordability programs and these state and federal programs support Boston. We also can work together to advocate for state programs to be maintained or expanded. For instance, the Healthy Incentives Program which is currently utilized by less than 10% of SNAP recipients in the state or other programs that have supported organizations in Boston like Mass Department of Agricultural Resources, Food Security Infrastructure Grants. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chair Pepén, and good afternoon, Councillors. Thank you for convening this important conversation on food affordability and Thank you to the advocates and the entrepreneurs in our food ecosystem that have been fighting to keep food affordable for communities. As you've heard, the City of Boston has been engaged in a caring food policy agenda to improve food access, support local food production, and strengthen distribution networks. Over the last few years, Boston has woven together city funding, federal grants and private partnerships to fortify every link of its local food system. From growing food in community gardens to funding local food businesses and worker co-ops that help keep dollars in community, to enhancing how food is procured for schools and distributed to vulnerable residents,

Community impacts are emergent with more gardens and urban farms in low-income neighborhoods, more affordable fresh food options for SNAP users, expanded capacity for food pantries and new collaborative infrastructure like the Roxbury Food Hub that you've heard about. designed to reduce both hunger and waste. Through our Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, beyond the millions of dollars that we facilitated to keep many food businesses alive through the Small Business Relief Funds, and the many businesses that we've supported through our Main Streets partners, the dozens of food businesses that are very cherished being sustained by the Legacy Business Program, Over the past couple years, we've also directly assisted over 300 food-related businesses from restaurants, cafes, and bakeries to neighborhood markets and food trucks.

These are entrepreneurs with deep industry expertise and deep roots in their communities and by helping them with capital Technical Assistance, Navigation of Permitting. We're not just supporting small businesses, we're strengthening a food ecosystem that provides accessible, culturally relevant food in every neighborhood for Boston. I'm going to keep these statements brief. So thank you so much and I look forward to answering any questions.

Thank you to the both of you again for the work you do and for being here today. I also want to acknowledge that we've been joined by Councilor Weber. So we're going to start with the first round of questions. And I'm going to give my colleagues six minutes for your first rounds. And then we, if necessary, will do the second round. Councilor Breadon, the floor is yours.

Thank you and thank you both for being here. In 2020, the Good Food Purchasing Ordinance sponsored by then-Councillor Michelle Wu in 2019 guides food City Food Procurement around core values of local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare and nutrition. I know that probably has an impact on how we Procure Food for Boston Public Schools. Does it apply to other city departments and other places as well? Just wondering about that.

Yes, it applies to other Purchases by food purchases by other city departments.

Very good. And that would like the age strong and support veterans affairs and other groups. Exactly. Purchasing food. Yeah. One of the big issues that we find is Will Hasen with the Alston Brighton Health Collaborative Food Access Committee provided testimony for this hearing arguing that much of the rising costs of groceries happens further up the food chain like very much we hear about monopolies in the meat market for example that there's in terms of the meat processing so they it sort of really takes away any competitive edge that different producers can have. Is there any way that we can interact? This seems like a humongous way up high level Is there any way we can intervene in that and introduce more competitiveness among providers at the provider end rather than the consumer end?

Well, I can't be too precise, but going up that far in the supply chain, I would think you'd need regional collaboration. We have worked to Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. really address that issue.

Yeah, exactly. There is work happening around that nationally. in some states and regionally. Those are definitely issues that the organization that conducts the assessments for the Good Food Purchasing Program, the Center for Good Food Purchasing, actually some colleagues from BPS and my office were just At their conference, sort of learning more about what they call the power of procurement. So combining many cities purchasing power, there could be opportunities to shift the food system and that takes a very long time. I have recently learned about some state legislation and I haven't read it so I don't know exactly how it would work or if it is something that we would

You know, have a position on or not, but it is to strengthen the state's antitrust act and that may have an impact on retail or other aspects of the food system in Massachusetts that do have the kind of, you know, vertical consolidation or lack of competitiveness that you're talking about.

I want to bring it back to more locally again in terms of in Austin, Brighton, we have We have four CVS stores that were in a previous life, three of them were local grocery stores, and we have a food desert, Oak Square, Brighton Center. and many of the issues that we're dealing with in relation to the food desert question is we're more than a mile away from a grocery store. The stores that we do have have limited healthy options. There's a lack of affordability. We have seniors living at Patricia White, which is a BHA senior housing on Washington Street across from Whole Foods. They could literally throw a stone to the Whole Foods. But they can't afford to go grocery shopping there because they have limited income. And then just the transportation issues. When I meet with those elders, very frequently they say, Can you do a shuttle bus to Waltham to go to the Market Basket?

And in terms of the foods that are accessible and affordable for older residents and those folks on limited income, There was something in the paper yesterday, I think, about the two most affordable grocery store chains in the greater Boston area were Wegmans and Whole Foods. Not Whole Foods. Definitely not Whole Foods. Whole Paycheck. Wegmans, and Market Basket, but both those are not within the city of Boston. And it's really the transportation issues, like you can get to Waltham on the 70 bus, but it is a We have limited reliable transportation that Connects residents with grocery stores that are affordable for them to purchase food in.

So in terms of the planning, do we work with the planning department on anticipating like zoning reform or I know the CVS stores are classified as general retail and then we lost that ability to sort of be more directive and saying that's good that that that That former grocery store has to remain a grocery store even if you want to put a small pharmacy in the back but you can't just give over all that retail space in a place where you have a food desert to stores that don't provide for the needs of the community. Are we working with planning on any of that stuff?

So unfortunately, colleagues from planning weren't able to be here this afternoon, but I do know that they Their upcoming needs assessment is going to include some work producing maps of grocery stores across the city to understand neighborhood by neighborhood differences in access, areas with limited or without nearby options and across the different types of stores as well. So we do hope to work with them on that. Very good. My time's up, so thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Louijeune.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chan. I also just want to thank, and I mentioned our labor partners, but want to thank, again, the members of UFCW who were able to come today and were very, once they saw this hearing order, were very interested in making sure that we had a very A conversation that was really informed by labor and made sure that we were centering our workers. So I just wanted to uplift USCW for being here today. And we'll hear more from them later. And again, Elijah, I just want to thank you. For really someone who I see thinking about innovation and new ideas in the city. And I really appreciate the work that you do on that end. And Aliza, thank you. because I know that these past few weeks have been really difficult and continue to be difficult. You presented sobering statistics regarding the six zip codes. Can you again state what those zip codes, what that represents?

You said that there were zip codes in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapin, and Hyde Park. You said to have the six zip codes with the, is it the largest percentage of food insecurity or how do you?

So I can follow up with the specific zip codes, but when looking at data from last year on the households and SNAP recipients in Boston, and the Snap Sales in Boston. If you look at the total, 50% of the total SNAP recipients in Boston are in six zip codes and a little over 50% of the SNAP sales. So we can't tie those two things together. Over 50% of the SNAP sales in the city of Boston are in six zip codes.

And do you know where those sales are happening? Like at what markets? Is there a way to get that data?

We don't have access to that data. It could be accessed from the state potentially, but it's not public data.

Okay. There are several cities, including Chicago, Minneapolis, and Madison, that have conducted feasibility studies or policy research into municipal or community-owned grocery stores. Do you think that that's something the Office Food Justice could conduct or commission a similar study and what would be needed to get that underway?

in touch with most of those cities and I am aware of the research that has been ongoing in several cities. I'm not sure exactly what it took to produce those studies and if they're would be additional knowledge gained by conducting a similar study here, but it's certainly something I could find out what that would take.

At this early elementary stage, what do you see, and from what you know, it may not be, you know, it may not afford the research, but what have you seen, or do you understand it could be some benefits to the city leaning, and the double up food bucks, There's so many people who were nervous about what would happen to that during SNAP, the SNAP scare. And again, the food collaborative at the YMCA, the city is doing so much, and the city council was glad to pour money in from the ARPA budget to support that. But what do you see as potential advantages to a city leaning in more to helping solve the food insecurity issues specifically in the neighborhoods that you mentioned? Sorry, can you repeat the question, the advantages to... Of like a city-owned grocery store, city-sponsored, supported, whether it be via land or through other models of the city...

leaning in to help create and spearhead a supermarket, a grocery store, particularly in the neighborhoods where there's a large percentage of SNAP recipients.

I think that I would need to learn more about how that type of model would work to understand what the if if there are advantages what they would be given sort of the Thank you. Elijah, do you have anything?

Well, I could say, and this might kind of also go back to Liz's question, is I know in the past, particularly with the Charleston neighborhood, planning was a part of making sure that groceries could be enabled and Thank you, Mr. Chair. reducing regulatory burdens and enabling private operators to thrive would be successful at making food accessible to residents and There's a history of that going decades into the past in Boston, and I think it's an outcome that we can expect from squares and streets and planned downtown.

Yeah. OK. I guess we could look at the models that currently exist. A large part of why I was interested in this hearing order is to support our nonprofit grocers. We saw the Daily Table fold in Mattapan, Roxbury, and Dorchester. I was in Roxbury, I think it was two months ago when the community in Madison Park, CDC community there was still reeling from the loss of The Daily Table. I'm wondering, what is it in your opinion and understanding about the model of a nonprofit grocer that has proved difficult? And how can the city be more helpful, whether it be looking back In hindsight, at the daily table, we're looking right now at the operational challenges that the Dorchester Food Co-op is experiencing.

Well, I don't intimately know their financial model. I can only imagine it's difficult for smaller independent stores to get the kind of scale of goods to provide at a reasonable cost compared to certain competitors. There's a potential of looking at how could we make these supply chains stronger, more cooperative for the many stores that already exist in community to contain cost.

This is a good question. We have been talking with Metropolitan Area Planning Council, who I think is going to be convening a conversation soon between us, as well as the cities of Cambridge and Salem, where the other Daily Table stores Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I know there are unique factors in addition to what Elijah mentioned for nonprofit stores where they have to get the right mix of revenue from sales. Thank you. Thank you.

people with a lot more business strategy experience than I do who have sort of tackled that question but since it I believe The statistic I've heard takes on average eight to ten years for a grocery store to even break even because the margins are so low that it is a very difficult business And then when you add a really well aligned with the Office of Food Justice mission on top of the challenges of running a business like that, I think these are really technical challenges for us to continue exploring.

Yeah. And then my last point, because I know my time is over, but one of the biggest operational costs that markets have is rent, which is something that If the city were to lean in that way, or if there was an opportunity for ownership, that could be a solution to one of the overhead costs that the supermarkets face. I look forward to hearing from others in the next panel to talk about that. But thank you, Eliza, again, for your work and Elijah for your work as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Worrell.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you again for your work in this space, and thank you for your presentation. Can you describe or explain for me I just did a quick Google search to healthy incentive program and the benefits that SNAP recipients receive from that program.

Yes, so the Healthy Incentives program, which started as a Healthy Incentives pilot, Massachusetts was actually the first state to have this type of a program where directly integrated into someone's EBT, SNAP EBT card. Anyone in Massachusetts now who has received SNAP benefits each month can receive an additional $40 to $80 depending on the size of the household that can be spent If there's even just one cent remaining that month on the EBT card as long as there's a balance above zero someone can go and to a farmers market most of Nearly all of the farmers markets in Boston during the season and the summer season and for the winter farmers markets as well Have hip eligible vendors which is determined by the state by

Yeah, and so, sorry, gotten into the weeds there, but can you use those additional resources on top of the federal SNAP benefit to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from any hip and so forth. And then we also have an authorized vendor at a farmer's market, farm stand, or mobile market throughout. So that $40 to $80 is replaced each month by a state supplemental to the federal SNAP benefits.

And then you stated that only 10% of SNAP recipients is using that benefit. And can you just kind of speak to why do you think that is? And then how can we increase more individuals, recipients tapping into this $40 to $80 additional dollars a month?

Yeah, so that is actually one of the questions we explored a little bit in the assessment that we conducted recently with Boston Public Health Commission as part of their federal REACH grant resources. I think there's a lot of different reasons for it. It can range from convenience of locating one of the farmer's markets or farm stands or mobile markets to not knowing about them. to not knowing about this program. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of promotion baked into the way that the program is structured at the state level. So we actually as part of the same federal REACH grant Boston Public Health Commission partnered with our office as well as our farmers market planning committee and some other partners to do a Thank you.

Thank you. More promotional events at farmers markets to really make more folks aware of the farmers market resources in their particular neighborhood and the hip What it would look like if they're eligible to be able to use hip benefits at their farmers market. So that is something that I hope we can continue to do more of their sort of various types of these promotion campaigns mostly community-led across different parts of Massachusetts in each region and clearly more more work is is needed to be able to Thank you.

Thank you. All the farmers markets within Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, and Hyde Park, which have the highest sales, SNAP sales, a majority of those farmers markets eligible for the HIP program.

I believe so I will double check and get back to you to make sure I'm not miss miss stating anything but I'm not at the present moment aware of any in those neighborhoods that that wouldn't have a certified hip vendor but the The information is best accessed through DTA has a map, DTA finder, where all of these farmers markets and vendors are mapped out across the state.

Awesome. Thank you. And then community gardens. We have some inside of the district. And there are some challenges when it comes to these community gardens. whether it's like vacant beds has there been like an evaluation and assessment to see if we're getting you know the most out of our community gardens can you talk to me about you know Any assessment and then any work around bringing online or increasing the production coming out of some of the community gardens that have probably been a little bit dormant?

That is a question I would love to confer with my colleagues in Grow Boston to get you the best answer on that question that they would have that.

All right. I think that is all of my questions, Chair. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Worrell. Councilor Rubin.

Thank you, Chair. I think something I heard a lot of about During the government shutdown and loss of SNAP benefits was that even the full benefits aren't enough and one thing you know people were worried about the the sort of You know, losing of exemptions for, you know, the work requirements. Are we doing anything? What are we doing? What can we do to sort of to make up for the loss of SNAP benefits even when they're being fully paid to adequately feed people.

Yeah, that's a great question. I think it got overshadowed unfortunately by the massive delay in SNAP benefits in November because November 1st is also when the change in eligibility started to was required by the federal government to be rolled out by the states, which will happen over a rolling time period as individuals have to recertify their participation in SNAP. We have been talking across several departments several cabinets to understand what what we could do as a city and what other cities in nationally and in this area are doing to Make sure that anyone who is eligible and has evidence that they are completing the work requirement either through work or education or volunteer hours

is able to provide that proof of work requirements and whether there's a municipal role in working with community organizations to support that. So it's something we're kind of exploring what that would look like at a larger city scale. anecdotal examples recently of community organizations being approached by community members who are looking for volunteer hours and someone to sign their form basically to help them recertify once they've completed the the required number of hours and so I do hope that that's something across sort of a whole of government approach we can take to make sure that of the approximately 140,000, 143,000 SNAP recipients who live in Boston that we can ensure that as many of the folks who should still be eligible when they come up for recertification remain eligible and don't lose their benefits.

Okay. And then in terms of like a city run grocery store, you know, what kinds of questions do we need to answer before we, you know, Would open one. I know you alluded to food deserts. I assume we have to figure out where the best place is where we can do the most good with a grocery store like this. assuming that's one of the questions like what are the other questions you think we need to answer before we you know if we're gonna open a store like that well

I would say there are many operational challenges that would have to be addressed. And from our perspective, We've been very focused on providing resources You know, as the city financing for infrastructure, cold food storage, access to capital, technical assistance for industry experts. because it's very difficult to run a grocery store. You have to understand supply chains, volume, customer demand, things that are very dynamic between location to location. And so it's possible to do

Feasibility assessments for those kinds of things which you know we would in our role more provide technical assistance for entrepreneurs to understand that since they already have a base of understanding but you know that's just a sense of the many variables that make it A very tough industry to succeed in where the margins are so thin that only a couple of mistakes could be very detrimental.

Yeah, so let's see. Last night I was at Mildred Haley Apartments, and I know the Children's Hospital, which provides invaluable food resources and resources for the community for the food. Bank. And thinking about that and looking at the city run market in Atlanta, which was opened, I think it was like a and so on and so forth. Supermarket, a local supermarket chain to do it. Would a public-private sort of partnership work with something like that here in Boston? Give any thought to that.

Well, I'm not familiar with the Atlanta model. I've heard it brought up a couple of times, and it could be worth engaging with those partners in Atlanta. The conversation about food affordability is very important. So I think we would be interested to learn what Atlanta is doing to succeed in that regard.

Yeah, I mean, I do think that just in Thank you. Thank you. The city has limited resources to sort of tap into that. Make that feasibility issue, you know, easier to digest, I think. Anyway, just a thought. Thank you, Chair.

CHAIRMAN BRYANT. Thank you, Councilor Weber. We've also been joined by Councilor Fitzgerald, and if you like, the floor is yours for questions.

Would I be up? Great. Thank you so much, and I apologize for the tidiness. I was coming from a senior event. Forgive me if anything has been, I did miss the beginning, and so if any questions are asked, just say that's been answered and I can go review the tape. I don't want to waste anyone else's time. But when I think about this concept, The one thing that I wonder is, what is the difference between setting up one of these public run, publicly owned grocery stores and just trying to invite in a consumer-friendly existing market. The names don't matter, but just one that provide a lower cost I know that's already happening out in West Roxbury. We're seeing some new markets have opened up. We had lower price points and other markets out there are having to change Thank you for joining us. Is that something?

And just sort of let that private sector do their thing, and the margins are so thin on grocery stores anyway. And I think about some of the other things we've done in Nubian. Where else is there one? Dorchester Food Co-op, all these other ones that we're starting to see that there is trouble. There's been investment and there's been some trouble there. What would be to say that we wouldn't find that same scenario that we're running like at Dorchester Food Co-op and others that have run into harder times versus just saying, hey, what if we attract a consumer-friendly existing market? I think we're pretty close to that.

Interested in the broad conversation of how do we make food affordable and accessible to Bostonians. And I think what we've seen in the past, I talked a little bit about zoning reforms that in the past have Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and you know potentially other things like article 80 reform that might similarly lead to private grocers who may be even Thank you, Mr. Chair. keeping prices contained across the region because of their presence. And that's also sort of an outcome that we see from the couple hundred

independent grocers that we have in Boston competing to be responsive to community so I think that is a good part of the conversation to maintain.

Great and lastly do we know The investments that have been made in some of these, like the Dorchester Food Co-op and Nubian Square and some of the other city investments, do we know how much we've put into those or you guys have any numbers of that? What we've sort of currently done already. to help sort of address the food issue in the city.

I would have to try to double check to get total numbers. I know in some instances, like Dorchester Food Co-op, it's At least $100,000 not for operational expenses but for capital expenses where we believe that's Thank you, Mr. Chair. Grocers of Food-Related Business, what a total figure of public investment has been.

Yeah. No, and let me just clarify, this is if I say, I don't mean that I am against anything that all those, you know, food co-op and what we're doing at Nubia and all that, they're not things that I'm against. This is a good thing, but I just know that they are having some financial struggles, even with city-backed investment in them. And so when I look at this, I sort of begin to wonder, oh, shoot, are we going to go down that same road? Like, do we have sort of a litmus test of what might happen already? Let's not make sure we duplicate it. Or what can we learn? to make sure that if something like this is enacted, that it is successful, right? Again, I don't expect you to have the answer to those questions. I don't either. I think that's just putting it out there Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much for being here and taking your time. Chair, thank you very much for your questions. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll give myself some time for questions. Again, thank you so much for being here. And a lot of my colleagues have already asked a lot of the questions that I had. But I wanted to know, is there anything currently that the city manages that could potentially be used as a blueprint for a grocery store? or anything that we can compare it to or a specific municipality that you say, all right, this is something we can model after.

I don't think I'm aware of any analogies off the top of my head, sir.

Okay. And that's fine. That's fine. I think this is a new idea that we're exploring. So I think that's fine. It's going to take just a little bit more research. I was just curious to see if there was something. Similar to similar to Councillor Fitzgerald's question about partnerships, Are there opportunities in the future to partner up with other grocery stores to bring them into any? I'm very concerned about my area of Mattapan, for example. There's a location there where the Daily Table used to be where it sits vacant. I wanted to know, like, Does your office work with the Office of Economic Inclusion and Opportunity to kind of say, hey, we need a grocery store here. You should look into who's interested in expanding. Is that something that you all are a part of?

Yes. and we think about Business recruitment in a broad sense of where can we be responsive to what we're hearing from the Office of Food Justice and Planning and residents that attend planning meetings so that there's responsive Goods and Services and Community.

Okay. Yeah, there's definitely an appetite for it there. No pun intended. There's an appetite for it. Just the loss of Daily Table. I always think about it, it was a huge blow. There is an American food basket up the street, but prices could be pretty expensive there. So I'm always looking out for what other opportunities we have.

Yeah I mean I'll just say I a lot of this is outside my area of expertise but our two our offices have been in communication specifically about those spaces and about how to Work across city departments and to really understand who is out there, who might be.

Thank you so much again a lot of my colleagues had similar questions what I had so I really appreciate all the answers provided here. Do any of my colleagues have follow-up questions to this panel?

Maybe? Yeah? Breadon, do you have any?

No, I think it's been great. Thank you. And I look forward to... Thank you for your input and looking forward to continuing the conversation. As I said earlier, this is the opening salvo in trying to have a bigger conversation about the infrastructure that we need to support a diversity of of affordable food outlets for folks in our neighborhoods depending on because a lot of our residents are incredibly sensitive to price sensitivity and something that increases by 20 cents I met a guy in Somerville once at the Market Basket and he'd driven the whole way from Mattapan to go and he says he saves $100 a week. by doing this family grocery store shopping in Somerville. And I've heard that from other families.

If you have a young family, growing family, it's worth the effort to go to somewhere that you can get more affordable hot food. and it's also really critical for the folks that are on extremely limited income as we find many of our elders are. So thank you. Thanks for bringing all your good thinking to this and we look forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Louijeune, I know you have a follow-up.

Yes, thank you. I have two follow-up questions. One, I believe at least I talked to you about this on Monday, but when you talk about the neighborhoods with the deepest level of food insecurity, Roxbury, Dorchester, Matt, well, I'm, I am alluding from that based on like the percentage of the highest Right, also the neighborhoods with the greatest food insecurity. Not on that was East Boston. And as an at-large city councilor with an understanding of our neighborhoods, it is a neighborhood that I understand is having and experiencing A lot of food insecurity, but what's the explanation for them not being among the top SNAP recipient neighborhoods or the neighbors with the deepest food insecurity?

Yes, that's a great question. I asked myself that question when I was looking at the data. I don't know the true explanation. I will say, well, A, I will say, I know there's at least one person here who does this work in East Boston, so maybe there's more food for thought in the room. But what I was talking about was specifically folks enrolled and receiving SNAP benefits. And so there may be differences in eligibility based on who is living in different neighborhoods. And so I'm not sure if This is more of a gap of, is it an assessment of food insecurity, is it an assessment of uptake and or eligibility of SNAP as a federal benefit, which might be lower in East Boston for

Immigration reasons or other. What is the metric that you use as an offhand metric to determine food insecurity in your office?

We so right now we we often look at the Greater Boston Food Bank and Mass General Brigham's annual study which is a survey well all Data Tracking Food Insecurity are surveys because there isn't a way to obviously have that information for all households just automatically. Boston Public Health Commission also includes some analysis of food insecurity in their, I believe, every two years, CDC partnered I am not a researcher so we're sort of trying to understand what is the best way to do this moving forward.

So that our data are as accurate and can really predict where we want to direct our efforts. So I would say that the answer to that is a live conversation and the fact that the federal government has discontinued their sort of Hallmark. Food insecurity benchmarking is really a disservice.

This administration has discontinued it.

Yeah. Yeah.

What a shame. I guess we've talked about this as well, but I think the data is important because we have so many, and it's a great thing, especially you see during this holiday, so many people, nonprofits, organizations addressing food insecurity. Thank you. You give people the ability, you give them money, they make decisions for themselves how to spend it. But short of that, sort of like a guaranteed income. I think that we are sort of like plugging holes in sometimes an inefficient manner. And then my last question slash comment is about

One of the biggest struggles that I saw with Daily Table, and Councilor Pepén just mentioned America's Food Basket, in Mattapan Square, in this neighborhood that I know really well, is talking about brand association and how do you help Change consumer habits, not necessarily just around healthy food, but just in terms about where you shop for food, and if you've done any thinking about what changes Consumer Behavior, like where they shop, other than the lowest price. The Daily Table, in many instances, was offering the lowest price on a number of goods, but they didn't have the most inclusive number of items, let's say, that an immigrant household would want to do a one-stop shopping. And so I'm wondering if you've thought any a little bit about the psychology behind consumer behavior and brand identity in terms of how people make decisions about where they shop.

I would say that's an interesting question that we have not looked into at a large scale.

Okay, those are all my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Does this panel have any closing remarks?

I really appreciate the... The deep concern that the council has on this issue. I know my team, it's helpful to be in rooms with people who have the same shared concerns as us. So thank you.

Of course. And again, thank you for the work you all do because I am able to Just see it day to day and be able to learn through you of the hard thought process you put behind all of this. So thank you. With that, you are dismissed. Thank you very much. We will continue with our second panel now. So if you can, please make your way down to the floor. And we've been joined by Councilor Durkan as well, so welcome.

Okay, thank you so much for joining us. If you can, please introduce yourselves and which organization you are representing. We can start here and work your way down.

Hi, everyone. Darren Lita, she, her, they are pronouns. I'm the Dorchester Food Co-op Board Co-President.

Hello, I'm Maxwell Cheesum. I'm the Assistant Executive Director at Maverick Land and Community Services in East Boston.

Good afternoon. My name is Ellen May. I am the chapter president of NTEU 255, representing workers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Services Northeast Regional Office here in Boston.

Jack Kensla, Political Director with United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1445. We're the grocery union in the United States. We have over 800,000 grocery workers across the country, including over 1,000 working at nine different stop-and-shops. Thank you.

And we have two virtual panelists. Can you hear us? Yes. Yes. Yep. Can you introduce yourselves?

I'm Shawna Weaver, former executive director of Fresh Truck and currently representing Boston Food Access Council Steering Committee.

And I'm Terry Trotman, also a member of BFACT and Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative.

Perfect. Thank you all so much for being here, both in person and virtually. So what we'll do is, would you like to give just brief opening statements on the work you're doing, and then we can go on with our Q&A portion.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, as I said, I'm the Dorchester Food Co-op board co-president. We are the only community-owned grocery store in Boston. Woohoo! As it states, we are community-owned. We first started over 10 years ago after our founder Jenny Silverman, after being a resident of 20 years of Dorchester. said, hey, I work at a co-op, a printer co-op, why don't we have a grocery store co-op? And so that was 20 years, that was 20 years ago, 10 years, over 10 years of fundraising. Really trying to get the community to understand that we need collective empowerment, not only for food, but for other sectors and that's what cooperatives are.

We live in a world where it's powered by powerful people that own big businesses and take advantage of the community that we serve. should all share and should all contribute to. And the fact that there are less and less community owned places, community grocery stores, community pharmacies, community housing, It's just a result of years and years of powerful influences. The Dorchester Food Co-op, we provide a free meeting space for our community members. We provide a culturally competent cafe. We provide bulk services. We are environmentally conscious. We are one of the first buildings that Mayor Wu wanted to make climate friendly.

where most of the residents above us are affordable housing. And so again, speaking truth to community collectiveness, At the very beginning of this, we actually asked the community what they wanted. And so they wanted culturally competent food. We have peanut oil. How many people know where they get peanut oil? in Boston, we have bok chow, we have our local farmers literally bringing their food and we don't charge them to put it on the shelf. We, our members and our community members as well, We asked them what they want and we put it on the shelf. As I said, we have a culturally competent cafe because the community said, hey, I actually don't know where to,

and many more. The community runs the store, and we have to proceed accordingly based on what they want. I can say more, but I think I'm talking too much, so I'll continue to the next person.

Yeah, all right. Speaking about Maverick Planet Community Services, So Maverick Landing Community Service has been around since 2007, focused on the needs of East Boston, in particular the residents of the public housing community. Maverick Landing is a Family Mixed Units, developed through HOPE VI Redevelopment Grant, privately managed, but many of those units are Boston Housing Authority units. So because of that the services that we offer are always working to address the needs of both the public housing residents that are directly adjacent to us and the larger community that often comes to us for services including Eviction Prevention, ESOL classes, Teen Employment, but also our food program. The food program really came out of the pandemic era.

There was a massive need for food that was going completely unmet in the neighborhood. and Rita Lara, who is my boss, the executive director, made the decision at that time to shift all operations during the pandemic closure period towards addressing those needs There was large-scale community effort to do deliveries to people in their houses, recognizing the need for continued isolation to prevent the spread of the disease. and due to that substantial following has sort of been developed for our food work in East Boston. At this time, the scale has been substantially reduced relative to the level of need that existed in that initial months of the pandemic, but we do see a continuous community need and in particular,

Since the start of November, we have seen that usage of the food programs that we're in touch with and are providing for has more than doubled. including both distributions at our own site as well as the Humana Elementary School and another distribution at a nearby church which we help supply food for. I suppose I'll leave it at that for now.

Um. First, before I start talking, I must disclaim that I'm not representing the views of USDA FNS here today, but rather the views of myself and my fellow employees at USDA FNS. At the Northeast Regional Office, we provide oversight and work with state and local agencies to provide oversight across The six New England states, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands, to administer FNS's 16 federal nutrition assistance programs, including SNAP and WIC and the National School Lunch Program. We at FNS are kind of a smallish office of around 45 employees as of April of this year and we

I want to first acknowledge that there's a lot of work that's being done by the city and by community partners within the city and retailers. And we're really glad as federal workers to be able to support the work that you all are doing. and we also want to continue doing that work at our Boston-based office on Causeway Street. July of this year, many folks have mentioned the SNAP changes that were enacted in H.R. 1 by Congress and On the heels of those changes, USDA additionally announced that they are planning on closing three different regional offices at USDA FNS, including most likely the Northeast Regional Office, which means that we would have much harder time supporting the Department of Transitional Assistance as they are helping SNAP recipients navigate the changes that were formulated through H.R.

1 and also that we may have some difficulty with or have Yeah, the FNS may have some difficulties helping the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education navigate Any federal changes that are coming to the eight federal child nutrition programs and the four food distribution programs that they administer, many of those programs Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm encouraged to talk here about my specific story as a chapter president, so I'll do that. It's not fully relevant to the task at hand.

October 2nd, I was interviewed on MSNBC in my capacity as chapter president to speak on behalf of federal employees and how we were feeling about the government shutdown, as we're commonly told not to speak up about. The bureaucracy that we administer. And so I spoke about how my members and I felt during the shutdown and how funding for SNAP and WIC benefits were uncertain due to the lapse of appropriation. The very next day, I got an email that my employer intends to fire me because I made statements that undermine public trust, risk misinforming stakeholders, and jeopardize the agency's credibility. and I was additionally told that for speaking on behalf of my coworkers, I may be causing reputational harm to the agency.

I won't be able to fully answer questions about USDA FNS operations, but I hope to be able to speak about how my coworkers and I will kind of feel and to just help elucidate some of the I also want to make sure that SNAP and WIC benefits will always be accepted at any store that applies to be a SNAP and WIC retailer, as long as they meet the requirements to be such a retailer that are posted publicly on FNS's website at fns.usda.gov. And with that, I will end my opening remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Pepén, and to Councillors Breadon and Louijeune and Coletta Zapata for introducing this ordinance. We feel very privileged to be a part of this conversation. You know, obviously as the grocery union, this topic is something that our international union has looked into a lot. and our members can see the impacts of food insecurity firsthand and obviously know a lot about the logistics of running a grocery store day to day. So I think it's something that we're definitely excited to be part of this. It's important to talk about sort of like the broader context of why we're here and kind of alluding to some of the questions that Councillor Breadon was asking the earlier panel because Like a lot of issues facing our society, the root of this really is unchecked corporate greed. There was a piece of legislation that was passed in Congress in the 1930s called the Robinson-Patman Act

That prevented wholesalers and food manufacturers from having discriminatory discounts that they give to certain companies because of the sheer scale It allowed for things that made sense based just on the economics, but disallowed them from giving special incentives to certain companies. And under the Reagan administration in the 80s, that piece of legislation basically just stopped being enforced by the FTC at all. The rationale at the time was that they were arbitrarily raising prices and preventing the greatest discount to consumers. But what we've seen since then is that big retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Albertson started using their and their market power to essentially coerce wholesalers and food distributors and food manufacturers into giving them special discounts.

and so you know food desert as a term was something that hadn't really entered the lexicon before the 1990s and it's No coincidence that they started popping up so soon after this piece of legislation stopped being enforced. If you look at the grocery industry as a whole in the 50s and 60s, independent grocers represented as much as 50%. of the market share, and currently they're down in the low 20s, which is comparable to what Walmart alone has in the current day. And it's no coincidence that and many more. In our research on the municipal grocery model around the country and examples that have popped up,

Thank you very much. warehousing and transportation and cold storage and all that stuff, building it up from scratch, especially if you're looking at doing it for just one or two stores, because those are things that do become a lot easier when you're looking at economies of scale. And then on the nonprofit model, as Councilor Louijeune mentioned earlier with the previous panel, a big issue is always just the price of rents because it's hard to dedicate cheap goods and access to better goods while also having to meet the The rent of a big real estate, a big footprint that you're operating out of especially in urban environments.

So we've found that some of the models that do have the most success around the country is what we call municipally owned, privately operated, or the MOPO model, where it kind of mitigates the difficulties of each of those because by partnering with an existing grocery chain or even a food co-op, you can access Some of the logistics networks that they are already utilizing, but then by having it be municipally owned, you can really undercut the steep price of rent that can make it hard and many more. Maybe that it makes sense to do a fully municipally owned model in Boston and we wouldn't want to prescribe anything but I think it's definitely important to consider all of those logistical considerations

if that is a path that we do want to follow and it's important to figure out you know even if the store itself is municipally owned and operated maybe there are and other existing logistics networks and warehouses that the city could partner with to ease some of those challenges. I think another thing that we've seen just in the private grocery model, Retail theft and grocery theft is a big issue, and especially for some of these municipal stores in food deserts, the level of theft in the stores can often be a big reason why they do end up failing if they're not able to control that. and so we think cutting down on self-checkout machines especially is a small tweak that could have a big impact because what we've seen from even our private stores is that and the data will back it up that the introduction and especially the over utilization of self-checkout machines really increases the level of theft and shrink that happens in the store.

and on the flip side by ensuring that there are more cashiers working it makes sure that we can provide better jobs as part of this and so with the nonprofit model and with the Thank you. Thank you. and many more. Excuse me, significantly scaling back the amount of time that they can dedicate each week. And so if you have a full time properly compensated workforce that can and so on.

We've been part of those programs and making sure that since the city or the state has a financial stake and many more. and benefit rates or even labor peace agreements so that they wouldn't interfere if the workers were to try to organize a union. Because at the end of the day, I mean, the common goal in all of this is to try to benefit communities as much as we can, and so obviously providing Cheaper goods is a big part of that, but also making sure that a lot more community members have good jobs that can turn into long-standing careers and have good compensation and good benefits has to be a part of that consideration as well.

I think the New Jersey example has a lot of interesting things about the level of tax incentive that they can provide, and I have some more information that I can share with the council. And then it also has certain requirements about obviously making sure that they provide access to WIC and SNAP benefits and have certain levels of fresh healthy foods that are a part of their offerings inside the store. And I think another important consideration is doing market analysis of the city itself to make sure that We're targeting locations where there's not direct competition with either a union grocery store that does already provide good jobs or with independent grocers that meet certain levels of

Good jobs and good compensation and no issues with wage theft or any other considerations and making sure that the locations are targeted to benefit the community without posing any risks to other businesses that are already upstanding members of the community. So like I said, we're just very excited to be a part of this conversation overall.

Thank you, Jack. And can you repeat the name of the legislation one more time?

It was the Robinson-Patman Act.

Thank you. OK. who are panelists virtually. Do you have any brief, do you have opening remarks?

Hi, yes, I came in a bit late due to a technological difficulty, but just to introduce myself. My name is Brianna Acosta. I am a project manager at Vital Connections. We are the backbone organization for the Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative. As Terry mentioned, she is an NFAC member and Dorchester resident, so I'll actually pass it to Terry to give our opening statement on behalf of NFAC and BFAC, who is one of our close partners.

Okay, good morning. It's good to be in this, you know, Space again. I was blessed enough to speak at the Statehouse a little while back in regards to hips, so I'm glad that's back up to 40, 60, and 80. So as my counterpart, Brianna said, I am a member of Dorchester and I am a proud member of Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative as well. as Boston Food Access Council and Vital Connections and all of the above. And I love it. And I just wanted to address something real quick because I'm out here on the front lines and I see the people that are in the lines. that weigh in the cold, that weigh in the heat, you know, for our food distribution items. And so that goes to show you that there is a big need. And I also work closely with Mattapan Food and Fitness in the summertime.

during the, oh God, the farmer's market voucher times. And I give those out and people are chomping at the bit, like in June, because it doesn't start till July. And, you know, because they want them. and a big part of um with the um I heard as far as people not using their hip even till this day and being a snap advocate and tabling and giving this information not only When I'm doing my volunteering but just in my everyday life a lot of people still don't know that they have that on their card. So that makes a lot of difference. If you don't know you have something, how are you gonna use it? So that's what makes the numbers low as well. and just one other thing. We also, in the community, we have community fridges on Claiborne Street. We lost the one in... We have one in Claiborne Street and another member, because I'm a part of Next Door, he has one on Millet Street.

but it's his own thing and he just has the pantry part of it. He doesn't have the refrigerator. And we also have a food forest which is Edwater Food Forest on River Street as well at 640 River Street in Mattapan. So we as a community, we're doing all we can to service our community in these hard times. Okay, and with that being said, the Boston Food Access Council and the Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative appreciates the committee leadership in calling the hearing on docket number 1791. We view this discussion exploring the role of publicly owned grocery stores as a critical and necessary step towards addressing the profound food access inequities that persist across Boston.

In fact, as a coalition of organizations and most importantly, community members who experience food insecurity daily and their voices must be, I mean, must anchor this conversation. Station. NFAC's mission is to reduce food insecurity and foster equitable access to nutritious, culturally relevant food through community-led solutions. Our bi-weekly community meetings are well attended and represent residents from Mattapan, Rosendale, High Park, Dorchester, Roxbury, and other Boston neighborhoods, as well as organizations working to address food access in those communities. BFAC's mission

is to empower Bostonians with the knowledge to access food resources and to bring together and amplify community voices and needs through collaborations, Partnerships, Advocacy, and Awareness Building. Through our collaborations, we elevate The lived experiences of Boston residents to shape state and local policies. The recent closure of Daily Table, which we're all talking about, which is devastating to a lot of communities, highlighted the The fragility of existing food access solutions and underscored the urgency of filling the structural gap in Boston's food system. We strongly agree that the city has a moral imperative

to pursue relative permanent interventions that ensure every resident has consistent access to fresh, nutritious, and affordable food. This hearing represents an opportunity to move beyond short-term fixes and explore truly transformative change in Boston's food access ecosystems. While our community members are eager for a solution, it is important to convey that the initial reaction from residents and partner organizations to the idea of a publicly owned grocery store has been one of skepticism. This system from a number of concerns, including a lack of clarity on how much a model would function, historical distrust of government-led initiatives.

especially given recent federal instability and a fear, oh my God, somebody's calling me, Jesus, I'm sorry. Oh, gosh. Okay. Any initiative will be unsustainable or unreliable in the long run. The core message for NFACS Community members is this. Any intervention the city pursues must be reliable, sustainable, and rigorously thought out. With community voice at its center, we urge you to center community voice and lived experience in this exploration. Also,

communicate broadly, frequently, and in an accessible way as the exploratory. Exploration progresses to build trust in our community. Move forward on this work only if mechanisms for long-term operations, excellence, and financial sustainability can be maintained. Speak with your peers and other municipalities such as New York City, Worcester, who are also considering this concept to learn from their explorations too. BFACT and NFACT believe this conversation is important and can lead to a reliable solution But only if the pursuit is grounded in rigorous planning and informed directly by the voices of those

who need it most. We have to listen to our people, our people that vote, our people in the community, our elders that are our backbone and for our children that are our future. Okay? Thank you for this opportunity to provide this testimony. Sincerely, sincerely, Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative and Boston Food Access Council. And myself, Terry Trotman. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Terry. I believe we have one more.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm representing representing BFAC today. So Terry really spoke for us. and I'm really grateful for her words and I'll answer any questions support any questions that come for the panel.

Thank you so much. Again, thank you so much to every single one of you for the work you do and for being here as panelists. I'm going to now kick it over to my colleagues for their first round of questions. You have six minutes, starting with Councillor Brady.

Thank you. FYI, I grew up in a little country grocery store way back when and I do appreciate the margins in grocery are very narrow and not that there's any comparison. Thank you very much. You know, in Alston, Brighton, we have a proposal to rebuild the Whole Foods location on Washington Street over, it's right on the Brookline line. Is there a critical, sort of optimal scale for a mid-sized grocery store I think an urban market is something completely different from a suburban market like out in the suburbs where there's much more land and it's not so much more expensive. Not so expensive to build.

Is there a sort of an optimal size for an urban grocery store?

I'd probably have to look into the specifics to get back to you on a specific number on what that would look like. I would say, obviously, there's going to be a trade-off between You know, the smaller you go and the smaller the footprint is, it would mean less options that you have. And then typically what you see is that some of the fresh fruit options are the first ones that get kind of curtailed. And so it emphasizes more of the shelf-stable kind of what we call center store items when it goes to one of those smaller models. So I think as you get into a center city, it definitely does get smaller and smaller. But I think there needs to be that consideration. And if the ultimate goal is food access, then it needs to be a balance that you find for how do you make sure that you're making it more economical, but also providing all of those options to the communities you're looking to serve.

Yeah, and I fully appreciate the logistical challenges, like having access to supply on demand, sort of like if you need to bring in refrigerated foods, they can come in in a timely way. Keep your shelves stocked, but not overstocked. It's a very delicate balance to give it wastage. I'm just wondering, a few years ago, Stop and Shop did an experiment. I don't think it was very successful. They did the brief fresh model. of an urban type smaller store and did one on Washington Street in Brighton Center and it didn't work and part of it was the cost was it was like going to Whole Foods so they didn't I don't know, it didn't work. Have you any thoughts on understanding the price sensitivity in a community like

Some neighbourhoods are definitely more economically challenged and then we have a neighbourhood that's sort of a mix. The folks who've got more money can get in the car and drive to wherever but then the folks who don't have a car are reliant on local stores and really restricted in what they can go get. So in terms of price sensitivity, how do you think about ideal locations for a grocery store?

I mean, I think when you're looking at those urban formats a lot of it just comes down to the price of real estate. And so I think the big advantage that a municipally owned model would have is that it can really cut down a lot of those upfront costs that the store would have to and many more. and so on. You know, you make a A bunch of trips for small items or just a bag or two at a time multiple times per week instead of one large once per week trip where you're getting everything you need for the whole week. But I do think that

Just being able to operate that without having to have the consideration of the price of owning the lot or renting it out from likely a corporate landlord would really just change the whole dynamics of what that looks like.

And have you folks thought anything about the squares and streets, and maybe this is a broader question for any of you, just thinking about squares and streets, if we displace smaller independent grocery stores and spaces are redeveloped or whatever. Do you have any concerns about displacement and how those smaller independent grocery stores might I will just say that I don't believe in the ethics or the trust

Whole Foods, or Stop and Shop, or any of these corporations. First of all, they're not looking out for the community. They're only looking... out for themselves. And we are not displacing our neighbors. A lot of those girls, bodegas, Again, community pharmacies that have been decimated by Amazon and CVS and private equity and all of that. We are just an addition to a problem that has been systemically made. Good looks on my comrade over there that provided the legislation name. I mean the prices are there because of The influence of these corporations, right? And I would love for the five different, six or seven different brands of peanut butter that we have at our co-op to be affordable for the single mom of five.

But unfortunately, that's just not the case because a lot of those companies, and again, the companies that unfortunately own Policymakers, and these corporations get discounts from Stop and Shop and Whole Foods and all of that. We don't get those same discounts. Grocery, Co-ops, it's extremely challenging for us to even get Snap and Wick. I mean, the only reason why we spent months and months and months making sure that we had Snap and Wick in the store is because the community asked for it. A lot of the national, the whole nation, a lot of the co-ops don't even have SNAP because It takes money that of course we have less of compared to the corporations and administrative time and all of that to do that, that again are put into

procedures and standards of practices and protocols to stop, to eliminate the opportunities for smaller entities to be able to flourish in communities. So I'll just say that.

I think there's one other thing that's worth sort of addressing here, which is between the first question and the second, I think The element of scale is something that really bears consideration because there's one really important break point, which is the presence or absence of a loading dock. When you're talking about a grocery store versus a bodega, and something like that has such an enormous logistical impact that the kind of grocery store that I think we're talking about, which would have a loading dock, is almost, I mean, It's so difficult to really compare the business model to something that is probably being supplied by Cargo Van instead because it just completely changes the number of people that you can feed, the scale of different items that you can bring in and The practicality of increasing that throughput with the addition of more infrastructure. It's impossible to move

substantially more food through a bodega-style store than what you can literally just walk in and out through the doors, right? Whereas in comparison, if you're talking about a grocery store that has a proper loading dock, You can increase the number of trucks that are going to the loading dock. You can increase staffing. You can increase the number of registers. And you can actually really scale to solve a problem. But a bodega is inherently unscalable because it doesn't have the physical infrastructure necessary to really meet That's my time, so thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Absolutely. Councilor Louieune.

Thank you. I want to thank you all for, again, for being here, for your input. Ellen, I just want to thank you for your bravery and apologize for you even having to have it. But thank you for the work that you're doing. And I also just want to shout out to Darlene Lombos, who was here and left, but she made sure that we were centering the voices of labor, UFCW, Ellen, and everyone in this conversation. So thank you for that. I had a question. I have this sheet here from UFCW that talks about the New Jersey Food Desert Relief Act, where the Food Desert Relief Act provided financing for up to 40% of the cost of opening a new grocery store in food deserts. And Jack, I was wondering if you had any more You know, insight into what that model could look like here. It's like food deserts identified by the state government. You know, we had Aliza speak earlier about this, the neighborhoods with the highest level of SNAP benefits.

SNAP recipients, and wondering if you think something like that You know, we've talked about whether it be one of the biggest operating costs being rent or providing for the financing. And you talked a little bit about the municipally owned, privately operated. So just trying to get a little bit more insight into what they did in New Jersey, if you have any insight there.

Yeah, I mean, I don't have the full scope of the details. I could certainly find out more about how that specific plan has been implemented and what the results have looked like. But I know, I mean, Someone on the previous panel mentioned this idea that typically a store a new store and one of these type of models would take up to 10 years to the point where it becomes fiscally sustainable. So the idea was that it would I think with the New Jersey model is mostly using existing grocery chains but the idea was that by

And they also have the labor peace agreements, right? Which I think is really critically important to the conversation as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So the idea is that because the state is having that financial stake and really helping with getting it off the ground. I think it provides the level of investment for the first seven years with the idea that it's a fully sustainable store after seven years. And then because there is that financial stake, Put the requirements on things like access to WIC and SNAP and the labor peace agreements and prevailing wage. Another thing mandated there was and many more. You can sort of get around some of the concerns once the store is up and running and once the logistics networks are set up, but because this is an industry where the margins can be so thin and there's a lot of initial investment when it comes to Building a new store and fitting out the store with the shelves and all the processes.

There's a lot of just initial capital investment. And so the state can partner with that and then have those expectations on access to WIC and SNAP Thank you. Thank you. and more sustainable moving forward. I think the law was only passed in 2021, so none of those stores would have reached the seven year mark yet. So it's worth continuing to pay attention to how those work and we're not sure How many of those stores are going to be at that sustainability level after seven years? But it seems like it's been pretty promising so far.

Awesome. Thank you. I think Councillor Penn asked a question earlier and for some reason this is what has come up but based on the way that we've talked about it but are there examples that lend to this in other ways that like the there's been public intervention in the private market And we see cities around the country doing it when it comes to access to utilities, when it comes to broadband, a number of different ways. But here in the city of Boston, I think about the legislation that was able to co-sponsor with Councilor Worrell. about liquor licenses, right? That's a way in which the public, where we very much intervened on something that is a capital investment for a lot of restaurants that comes upwards of the cost $500,000. It's not money that we had to put out, but it's the result of our own city and state regulation that has forced a market that requires you to have $600,000 Money to be able to buy or lick a license.

And so I think that's just an example in which there is a government intervention to solve an economic problem that has gone out of whack because of the private market. Darren, I want to thank you for the work that you've done at Dorchester Food Co-op. I'm a proud member and want to make sure that I do think that there is value to a community ownership model of a market. And I think that we have looked and thought about ways in which we can support and what that could look like from the city. So if you can talk a little bit about the challenges that you have as a community grocer What are some different avenues that you are exploring to put you on the path to success and what the city can do to be helpful? Because again, the hearing order that I filed was a bit broader that looked at how do we support our nonprofit grocers as we explore alternative models. Losing Dorothea Fucapa as a model. I know you're a partner with Viet Aid, but you still have to pay rent.

So what are the ways in which, what are you exploring? How can you be helpful? What are the challenges?

Yeah. So we opened officially in October of 2023. I'm like, oh God, what's time? And to be honest, and this is what I shared with you personally and other elected officials and community leaders, that unfortunately, a lot of leaders let us I mean, every leader was there, every elected official was there, and then we never saw them It was very rare that we saw anybody come to the store or have meetings there or email us or anything. And it was in the beginning of the year when we started slowly sending out those newsletters of like, Hey, remember, we're still here. Please shop with us.

And then, of course, the inevitable letter that everybody saw in the middle of August where we were like, if you don't shop with us, then we're going to close. and we're not closing. Let me just point that out because again, we've gotten over $20,000 in donations. We've partnered with other private entities. We're still writing grants. We're still getting grants. But, you know, it's still a constant struggle, and it is, you know, to give an example, to Eliza's eight to 10 years when we wrote the forecast for our plan for the Dorchester Food Co-op, it literally says 10-year plan will be Sustainable. And again, we're only two years in. Co-ops all around the nation are sustained by grants. and obviously the capital that comes in when shoppers come in, but we are just not getting the shoppers.

We don't have everything obviously in the co-op. We sell obviously local products. Most of the things that you get in any other grocery store you'll get here. There, but we also limit it to not include certain items that are, quote-unquote, and many more. Thank you. and vegetarian section and all of that. And again, we put in the shelves local products that a lot of the other larger grocers don't have. and then the biggest challenge that we've heard from our members and a recent survey that we did with UMass is really the pricing, right? It's really the pricing and again that goes to what I spoke Thank you.

Thank you. Single Mom of Five is going to be different to someone from JP that constantly tells me it's FAR. I'm like, no, it's not FAR. It isn't FAR. You have resources, you might have more network, and you have a place there that's actually more expensive than the Dorchester Food Co-op. We just need to practice the third principle of cooperative which is active participation. and how do we continue to remind our members, our neighbors, our community, our elected officials, our community leaders that we wanted this as a collective. We wanted collective empowerment, we wanted, Thank you. Thank you.

We just need folks to practice what they preach and actually shop at the store, engage with us. Again, we have a free meeting space, so you can have your counselor and coffee hours at our co-op. You know, you could partner with a number of our partners. Bournemouth Street Neighborhood Health Center is literally right across the street. On my day job, I'm a public health professional. I literally work with health centers. making sure that they share our brochures with their patients and understanding that like, hey, if you become a member, which is a one-time payment of $100, which is more affordable than a lot of the other co-ops because a lot of co-ops pay monthly or pay yearly and things like that. It's only a one-time payment of $100 to become a member and you get discounts and you get to vote on who your board members are, which is the community. And so, yeah, so those are the major challenges, encouraging folks, again, to practice what they preach,

come shop at the store, but also be an advocate and a policy change maker, support policy changes that will, to Ruth Z's point, Take those barriers, those administrative barriers that has been put in to make it so that it's super expensive for us to put in SNAP in our stores, for an example. So yeah, I'll stop there. And of course, if there's any specific points that you want me to speak to, I'm happy to.

Yeah, I think my time is up. Have you explored? recurring yearly smaller $100 payments, like $25. And I know not all members, but I'd be happy to pay.

Yeah, we have solidarity. Thank you for reminding me. We also have solidarity shares, so people that can't afford the $100, we do have solidarity shares, and we have payment plans for individuals.

And thanks to everyone on the panel. Thank you. That's my time. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's see. So for Ms. May, I don't want to get you in trouble. So feel free just to not answer. The Food and Nutrition Service administers the SNAP program, is that right? Correct. Yeah. And so I just, you know, not your opinion or anything, just factually, like what are, once the We heard about the changes to eligibility. What's the impact here in Boston for when those take effect? And again, feel free just to I can't talk about that, but I just want to hear in terms of numbers and you don't have

Sure. I cannot speculate on how many people may be impacted by the changes that were set forth in HR 1 that passed in July. I can try to summarize some of the changes if that would be helpful to you, Councilor Webber.

Yeah, I think that would be good, too, because it's still, you know, for people listening and for myself, it would be great.

Yeah, so the changes that are suspected to have the most impact on current SNAP recipients and those who may be applying for SNAP are that The work requirements, particularly for folks who FNS considers to be able-bodied adults without dependents, Those requirements will extend to cover a larger portion of the population. So currently, or prior to July, able-bodied adults without dependents were people between the ages of 18 and 60 and without children, of course, and who were not disabled. and as a result of the legislation from July, that population is now people from the ages of 18 to 64. So the impacts will really depend on how many people within

that 60 to 64 age range are within the city of Boston and do not have dependents.

And there was a veteran's work exception for non-disabled veterans. Yes, yeah.

The Veterans and Homelessness exemptions also went away with the passage of H.R. 1 and there were some categories of immigrants who were eligible for SNAP. And those immigration categories have changed. I cannot remember them right now.

Okay, okay, well, thank you. I just wanted to touch on that briefly. For, I guess, you know, to anyone on the panel, like, so do you, Do we have food deserts in Boston? Where do you think that they are in terms of that analysis? Does anybody have any thoughts on that? And I'm asking, I mean, we're talking about grocery stores. The part for city-run grocery stores is to place them in, correct me if I'm wrong, So place them in food deserts because we don't want to compete necessarily directly with existing supermarkets. I mean, maybe eventually. My sense is that's not the... The purpose of this. So correct me if I'm wrong about that. And then if there's been any analysis for where you think we could do the most good.

I guess speaking to the food deserts question, there are maps of food deserts. This is one of those things that's been very rigorously maintained. There's a variety of definitions. It's variable based on whether it's an urban or rural area, vehicle access, a few other categories like that. There's a substantial portion of East Boston is included. Certainly there are food deserts in the Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester zones. One element that is... I think kind of crucial to this conversation in the broader sense is during the earlier portion with the previous panel, there was some discussion about people making trips out to, for instance, like a market basket, right?

and thinking about that in reverse it almost never makes sense for someone that lives in Somerville to go drive to Chinatown so that they can go grocery shopping right between traffic patterns and the distance traveled it's almost ever feasible For an individual. And on top of that, the prices, right? A lot of the inputs are going to be higher cost in the center of the city, right? Talking about rent and things like that. but then because of that you have the knock-on effect which is that the total volume of sales is so much smaller right for for an urban grocer as opposed to the market basket that's right across the river in a different municipality that a lot of people are driving to, right? So I mean, I think The other thing we see is that the people most impacted by the food desert situation are people who do not have the means to go to that market basket. We're talking about people who do not have a car,

and obviously that is an indicator for other economic conditions that might correspond to spending less on groceries or having less capacity right to buy goods that might be high margin for the store as opposed to staples which are often priced very low to try to bring people in the doors. So I think for all of those reasons, there is a lot of need, particularly in those neighborhoods. But I think it's also important to recognize that These spaces are food deserts because it wasn't profitable to build a grocery store there in the first place, given the cost of inputs. And so regardless of how we choose to subsidize those things, In order to have affordable groceries in spaces that are currently food deserts, it needs to be continuous investment, right? It's almost impossible to imagine a situation where a one-time investment could permanently solve a space being a food desert, short of there being complete demographic change.

and the areas around there to essentially gentrification of the neighborhood would be necessary for it to be profitable to run a grocery store in the spaces where there currently aren't grocery stores. So recognizing that we want to avoid displacement in these neighborhoods. We need to acknowledge that in order to truly feed people to the level that will put them out of risk of malnutrition or out of risk of dietary issues, there needs to be Some recognition of the fact that if it were solvable purely through the market, it would have already been solved.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Chair. I thought Councilor Louijeune brought up some great points about changing the policy because I'm always thinking, I've always thought about this as like the investment, what is the public investment monetarily into this and like right return and all that stuff and is it feasible, sustainable. I'm all for any policy changes, so please help us as you have today continue to be aware of things that we can do to change policy-wise that makes things easier to sort of pull off something like this. But from that sustainable from the public investment standpoint, I'll go back to the financial piece. The one thing that concerns me, I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts, is like funding can change, right? The face is up here. The faces in the front office change.

Knowing the uncertainty of the people that can vote on this and where funding may or may not come from. Do you see that as a real barrier to the sustainability? How can we get out ahead of that in any way, if we even can? Is that a fair question? You guys get what I'm getting? Things will just change. So it's like, all right, we got this money, and we're doing it, we're doing it, we're doing it. We need 10 years to do it. And five years in, hey, that's not there anymore. So now what are we left with, right?

I can add here to the conversation is that what we commonly hear at FNS when we are as federal workers like administering the programs is that SNAP benefits, every $1 of SNAP benefits used generates somewhere between $1.54 to $1.80 in economic activity. So the kind of multiplier effect that that can have in sustaining a marketplace, I think may lend itself to the sustainability aspect, acknowledging that it does take a very long time to become a SNAP retailer. There are a lot of requirements that We do have to enforce them that have been formulated by Congress. But having a store that was previously perhaps not there, who is also a SNAP retailer, who is also a WIC retailer, because WIC has similar multiplier effects could be one way of just assisting in the sustaining of that market.

This is one thing that I think I can add.

And just to think, but just Snap, but also just publicly owned grocery stores. I know I would assume Snap and WIC would be a part of that. But even just the operational capital and all the other things that go with it.

I do think there's sort of a longer term infrastructure problem, which on the scale of any given nonprofit, for instance, that can be a huge issue. but I think there's also sort of the larger tides of these sorts of things. One thing that I think has been sort of a recent wave is the recognition that that food is essentially prevention for many health conditions. And so when you think about federal, state, and local budgets, in many cases making an initial investment in ensuring that people have Access to adequate nutrition and a diverse variety of produce can lead to lower costs in the long run when you think about the cost of care for people who had their problems been addressed earlier and had food been treated as a priority, they would have never developed diabetes, for instance, which is a huge public health cost and is very much so dependent on dietary,

I think from my perspective, there is a such thing as spending money to save money, especially when it comes to public health and public good. Another aspect of this that I think is worth addressing is that while the grocery model is something that I think is in many ways novel, There's already quite a bit of public money going towards food efforts in general, regardless of which particular actors in the system you want to point out. There are many people doing work. to try to get food to people for free. But one of the main efficiency pieces that comes up with a grocery model instead, or right, the comparison between something like Snap versus a food bank, is that the people that have to stand in line at the Food Bank, are spending hours of time. All of those people in that line must spend those hours of time.

While in contrast, having something like a grocery store prevents needing to create a line because you have continuous access to food, You're able to distribute the people across a full workday. You're able to try to really address a broader scope of what kind of food might be available with a grocery model as opposed to a bag model. and so for all of those reasons I think it's worth thinking about not just sort of what is the what is the immediate cost of this right from the city's perspective but also for any nonprofit or for-profit even stores that happen to be trying to operate in this this space but also what are the hidden costs of us not addressing these issues in the first place?

It's a great answer. Thank you very much. I do appreciate that angle.

I mean, to continue the hidden cost, public health professional here, it's not social drivers of health, it's structural drivers of health because we're taking the onimus off of the individual and placing it on the system. That makes it so that our food is super expensive and that we even have insurance. To begin with, their folks are paying their rent instead of buying possibly the more expensive fruits and vegetables, but instead they're buying the Chef YRDs and the soda that's, I don't know if they're 99 cents anymore, and the bodega's probably not. but you know they're the cheapest or like the mac and cheese in the microwave things like that that you know contributes to negative health outcomes.

And, you know, that makes it so that we need to be... We need to de-silo all of this, right? Like, we need to be... and many more. also for adults as well. And speak to the hospitals and the health centers and saying, hey, You know, BMC did the garden. They were one of the first to do the garden up above, and then they invested a couple millions of dollars to do a Nubian market, right? You know... I'm not sure if I'm mistaken, but

A lot of the medical spaces in the countries, they provide prescriptions for rent, for utilities, for food prescriptions. That's actually... Dorchester Food Co-op was one of the recipients of the Atrius Equity Foundation and where we partnered with Upham's Corner Health Center and JPNDC, Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation to actually do prescription boxes to 500 of their patients that have high blood pressure and and other chronic conditions. I mean, this is a sustainable, but again, if we're just relying on grants, on private equity, on private foundations to give us this money to solve a problem that is not our fault,

Then, you know, we're going to keep on asking the same questions and we should instead, you know, change policies, be again multifaceted and changing a lot of these different ways of life that we've unfortunately just so have gotten used to.

Just one really quick addendum to that is, right, the 500 people receiving the food boxes, that was probably a pilot program, but the state has actually moved on to now providing that as an HRSN service, HRSN nutrition service, meaning that if you are on one of the state level and many more. measurable change in health outcomes for people to the point where it was determined that it was more cost effective to provide food for people than to deal with the conditions that would result from them not getting the food.

If I could just add one thing to your question about the political will for it. I think one of the old political adages that really holds the most true is that once a benefit is in place that people rely on, it's really hard to then take it away. As much as the current presidential administration is trying to test that, it's even that much harder on the municipal level. So I think there would certainly be a lot of challenges in those first five to 10 years to prove that it can be on the road to economic stability. But if it's something that the community does start to utilize and start to rely on, then whatever the appetite or ideological reason someone has, it's going to be very difficult to just take that away from their constituents.

Understood, and thank you so much for those answers. And I think about your answer, Darian, about how, you know, Affordable Housing, and if we can do all the other things, then it helps, right, conserve money for people to be able to go and afford food. But the only thing I think about, and just mind you guys, right? Like, this is our job. We have to put this idea through the ringer, right? So please don't... I'm here just to, you know, really dive into this. But like... That also requires, and I think about again about the city's financial partaking in this, and all those other things you mentioned are also requiring a lot of subsidy from the city, right? I mean, for affordable housing,

and for health and all these other things and so the question I think it leaves us is like how much is there to go around of to be able to do we support things that way to support you guys or is it better to you know do the operational and and capital and so on. putting it towards some of those other issues. I think, I mean, it's the job of government, right? We're just here to find out where's the biggest bang for your buck in all these fields of need. So you're, Darren, you said at one point you're just not getting the shoppers. I just sort of had to, like, I was just wondering, like, do you know why? Like, we do know why.

Yeah, I just...

Sorry, Chair, I apologize.

Just to your earlier point, with all due respect, that's a fallacy. That's, again, the crabs in the barrel that there's only so much for us to be able to... We spend... Billions of dollars and killing children in Palestine for our military budget. That's false. Good officials because they serve us to encourage them and remind them that you work for us. to be able to say, hey, we actually need that money that you're prioritizing other things so that we can actually help the people in your district. is also the job of elected officials. So I just want to say that because, again, that's a fallacy. We could demand more from our elected officials. So you answer your question about why shoppers aren't coming is the biggest one.

is the price, and we've discussed why that is previously. But again, the messaging is different for different groups of people. Mother of five and you know when I have my regulars come in and say oh you're coming in for lunch again for the little ones and you know they get their free fruit because we have a program funded by Boston Children's Hospital that a kid gets a fruit a day and like all those different things She only gets lunch. She only, you know, gets lunch for the kiddos and her because I understand for her it's cheaper, unfortunately, to buy maybe the soda from the market basket down the street. Instead of the maybe more expensive juice that's like two to three dollars, right? But again, for families that, we do have families that make it a whole day trip from like the Cape and be like, I believe in a community-owned grocery store. This is why I'm here in Massachusetts, a blue state, right? To be able to to come in and they make it a whole day.

They have breakfast there and the kids stay there in our little library because we have a little library. No Stop and Shop or Whole Foods or Market Basket or Price Rites has a little library. That's what a community-owned grocery store, we do what the community wants and they wanted a space where kids can hang out and play board games and do all those things and they shop. And then if they stay there for longer times, they also have lunch. And so it really just depends on who you're speaking with, but the price is obviously a challenge. And then folks just don't know. I had somebody come up to me the other day and was like, I thought this was a food bank. It would be great to also get support on helping fund volunteers or giving stipends to volunteers. We just had our first door canvassing event. Last Sunday, and we're gonna start our phone banking event. But, you know, I have a full-time job, board members have a full-time job, like, again, third principle of cooperatives is active participation. Yes, shop with us, but join our committees. Help us write grants.

Help staff improve their English. There's a lot of things that Folks can do for a community-owned grocery store or any organization that are represented here on the stage. This is community. We live with our neighbors. We need to be less siloed and come together and do that and be a collective.

Thank you all for your advocacy. I know I'm way over time. I apologize, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Fitzgerald.

I would like to give myself some time to ask some questions. No, I can't do that. Darren. For the Dorchester Food Co-op, how is it that you are funded? What's the structure of your funding? And then also, I know that you're also located in a newer development. What was the process like to get that location?

Yeah, so over the last 10 plus years, we went through a lot of different places where we landed with this one. Again, I can't... So I became a board member last summer. I wasn't in the very beginning stages, so I don't know the very specifics, and so I don't know who approached who in terms of the mayor's office or... Our founder. But it was really a win-win in that we were in one of the first buildings that really spoke again to what a collective is, right? Our architecture is Co-Everything, which is a cooperative architecture organization that's Queer-owned, women of color-owned, like again, we're speaking, we're practicing what we preach here. And again, the building is environmentally conscious and houses, you know, folks

We couldn't do this off the bat. We had to raise so much money. We have over $2,300. Members, but over those 10 plus years, we were constantly getting smaller donations, bigger donations. The city gave us some funding, federal funding as well. because obviously we needed to build it and like all those different things. And then of course, we had a large cushion in the very beginning to fund a marketing person, cashiers, store manager, general manager, finance manager, all of that. But we slowly had to let go of everyone else besides the cashiers, the general manager, the store manager, Finance Manager, because of the lack of shoppers. And since then, we've, our operating costs has been really swallowed by

All the donations that we had garnered over the last, you know, 10 plus years because of the numbers of shoppers. And so that's why, you know, January we did that kind of slow call, right? And then at the end we were like, Okay, we're serious this time. Please remember why you became a member. And also here, again, we are the only community-owned grocery store. Why folks aren't only shopping there is beyond me, but again, there's a lot of different reasons. And so, you know, we just have to remember, again, we're neighbors. We want to see everyone succeed. and we're just hoping that folks remember that because you know there have been many loved places that have unfortunately had to close down and so we're just hoping that that's not us.

Right and First of all, I really wish there was something like this in my district. It looks beautiful. We can make it. Right, right. Or I could become a member.

Anybody can become a member. And you can shop there even if you're not a member. Right. That's also, people think that that was a case, too.

That's key. That's key. To your point about... First of all, I'll just take a step back for a second. That is why I'm so pro rezoning and making sure that more developments like the one you're in are possible in major business quarters, at least for my district. Rawson Square, Mattapan Square, Cleary Square, where there is a possibility to put in a co-op like this, where in current zoning that is really not the case, and where it would be very difficult if we don't continue to upgrade our zoning. Do you have a partnership with or have you connected with like the Boston Public Schools family liaisons or like also wondering what is your partnership with like you say you work with community health centers like your outreach because I'm thinking about Trust Building with Residence, because, I mean, I'm Dominican, you know, my family, you go to a bodega.

We literally, I mean, our rootsy, tell them, what's my favorite thing? Empanadas. Like, literally, Dominicans run the kitchen. at the Dorchester Food Co-op.

And I bring that up because once we hear a happy supermarket, oh, we know that's somewhere that has our products. You know that, Steve? or the American Food Basket. Oh, we know that the Platanos, they are three for one dollar, whatever. How do we tell them, hey, the Dorchester Co-op is, could be like a Happy Soup or American Food Basket. We have the products for you, if anything, were better for you.

Yeah. Do you want to volunteer one hour a week to tell them that?

People power, right?

Again, I have a full-time job. I literally have to go into my offices right across the street at 7 a.m. this morning so I can be here at 3 a.m. because that's eight-hour workday. But if we had, again... Active participation and cooperatives. If we had people to do that for us, then we would be golden. And again, it's on us as well because we also have to tell people, but if you're forgetting that we're there, that's actually not our fault.

Right. And I bring up, I brought up the family liaisons for Boston Public Schools because if you could somehow, at least for the schools near the co-op, send out like a flyer because, I mean, for like, I just became a BPS parent and every week I get in either the newsletter from the school or in the homework folder, we get local Resources. Yep. So I'm wondering if that's a partnership.

Yeah, so we're in contact with several of the liaisons, the Main Streets, too, as well. But of course things fall through the crack because most of the board members have full-time jobs and I also need to sleep. So we're just really asking folks to help us. Really, to join one of our committees. If you live in JP, if you live in Mattapan, you know, Do carpools. We had a member that she was like, oh, I have a car. She was an elderly person. She was like, oh, I would love to come here, but I don't have a car. It would be great to shop here. We just have bulk. We have bulk now. And so bulk is you can order larger things in larger packages. So you don't have to go out every three weeks, but you can order grains of multiple pounds of rice. And if you're a member, you get 10% discount. If you're not a member, you get 5% discounts.

Thank you for sharing these things with a lot of people but of course we're missing folks because we can only go so far by just the board members that have like four hours out of the day out of the week also doing their Thank you. Thank you. Canvassing event where we like, you know, put the little door thing on door knobs in the immediate area of Bowdoin, Geneva. And I live right down the street on Draper Street, so I saw it and I was like, oh, look at that. We're actually doing it. But it would be great if we had canvassing in JP, if we had canvassing in Mattapan, if we had canvassing in Roxbury, but I also need sleep.

Yeah, and it takes a collective effort.

Yes, and that's what we need to remind folks. Which is what's been happening over the last few weeks, especially with the Government. I'm also one of the main volunteers of the Dorchester Community Fridge, which is the only fridge since COVID that has been active, right? And so we've got thousands of donations even for that over the last Two weeks, we do our food drive, sin falta, every single Saturday, 10.30, and every single week, I feel like we have more and more families. Again, I'm true to this. People have to be true to this, whether you're an elected official or you're an organization that works nine to five. Give a couple of hours to your favorite organization, like the Dorset for Co-op. and support your neighbors because that's what's really gonna keep us going. It's not the government, unfortunately, so.

Yeah. Hey. No, this is... This makes me think so much about how everything's like a cycle, right? It's all connected to like, I'm gonna talk about my own experience here. Like as a kid, you get a few dollars to go to the bodegas to buy a honey bun The red popcorn. Or the red popcorn, the very unhealthy popcorn. But that for you was your meal. And that was either your lunch or your breakfast, whatever you want to call it. But that became just... Custom for you. Now it's like we have to try to break that cycle where we are making healthier food more, one, accessible, affordable, and just breaking that cultural misunderstanding that you've got to It's okay, what am I trying to say here? Don't go for the unhealthy food.

And at least for in the quarters that I see as well, there's also, it's a battle as well for us to say, No more to the unhealthy food options that are being brought up on the main corridors. I'm right now in a battle where we just lost the Starbucks on River Street. and that plaza.

Boycott Starbucks, we ain't talking about them.

Yeah, so I'm glad. So, you know, I drink Dunkin' Donuts, I'm saying. We don't have a coffee shop.

But that's systemic.

Now the... to my point now the conversation is having a conversation with that with the plaza owner like what is going to take over this spot and can it please be something that's beneficial to the community while also something that they can enjoy as a third space like that's Everything is so interconnected about having these conversations to make sure that we have the right resources in place with the right dedication.

And we're not taking agency from people. You can eat 20,000 cupcakes. I'm not going to tell you that you can't do that because, again, that's also a fallacy. Billionaires can buy five yachts and we ain't telling them that they're gonna limit their yacht count, no. It really is just making sure that folks have agency, because that builds self empowerment, which builds community cohesiveness, encourages again the collective movement, right? And we're just saying that, hey, let's change these bigger things so we can have these, You know, beneficial things for the community so that we all grow and we all have a collective power. That's really what we're here for and we can do it several different models. We can have 20,000 bodegas, but we can also have You know, a lot of co-ops, right? And we're just trying to make the people that, you know, you all and other leaders, to make that, you know, we need to just go back to our values and not, you know, give in to corporate power.

I think that what we're seeing is the federal government is we're losing a lot of programs. So a program that my coworkers and I used to administer and that gave out $500 million to nutrition education across the nation was SNAP education. and SNAP Education used to fund food prescription programs. It used to Fund, Community Gardens and Neighborhoods, and that was also one of the casualties of HR1 in July. And so where the federal budgeting process has taken away money from communities, Just from my personal perspective and a perspective that I've heard from many of my members is that other forms of government may need to step in to fill the gap. So I appreciate that y'all are holding the hearing today about how the city government can fill in where we're no longer able to.

I just want to add a couple points, sorry, to jump in. This is Brianna Acosta from End Fact. Just about some of the topics that are coming up. So one around, you know, I think, you know, we have to recognize that government is not the only source of wealth or resources here in the city. I think there are many other Industries, Big Pharma, Healthcare. There are a lot of entities or corporations that have money. So being able to maybe redirect some of that money instead of relying purely on Maybe government funding to these types of initiatives, to these solutions to food insecurity should be explored as well. And that could be more permanent through policy than the government does do to ensure that that happens.

The other piece too is I think a lot of what we're talking about around nutrition and just like making sure people actually use these benefits or these solutions that we are putting into the community. That all centers around actually designing and having these conversations with the community at the center. That is, you know, part of what NFAC does is Terry, had shared earlier, we are a community-led coalition made up entirely, almost entirely, I would say. The vast majority of our community members are from these six zip codes that you all are talking about, Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park. and so being able to engage like resident-led bodies such as that that have a wide reach and also Terry's one of our Food Resource Advocates who is out in the community. We pay her and others to be out in the community to share information about food resource options,

Now actually we're going to be adding nutrition, basic nutrition education to their skill set starting in 2026. I think just really re-emphasizing how important it is to do everything that we're talking about with partnership with community because that is really what's going to enable us to be successful in whatever we're trying to do. Terry, I don't know if you want to add anything since you are our community member here.

Well, I pretty much said what I had to say earlier, but, you know, we have to utilize what we have, you know, before us. Like, it was brought up earlier about using the, or one or all, if we can. um the daily tables that are just sitting there you know like like I said these I don't know what it takes for Our government, our elected officials, to see that there are food insecurities in all our neighborhoods. Like I said, I'm on the front lines. These people wouldn't be waiting in these long lines in the cold, in the summer, in the heat, if they didn't need these things for their families. People just don't be like, oh, I don't have nothing else better to do but stand outside for an hour or two. Some people are there for hours. because they want to make sure they're able to get because of all the funding that's being cut. A lot of these food pantries are not getting what they used to.

So some of the people come, the food pantry don't open till 10 o'clock in the morning. They're out there at six and seven o'clock. Because they want to get things. They don't want to be turned away saying, sorry, we don't have any more. You know, it's just like, it's like pulling teeth. Like the young lady said, we're sending money all over the world. But right here in America, you got children going to school hungry. You know, and it shouldn't be that way. People come to America for all the opportunities and this and that and the other. But meanwhile, the people that are living here are like begging government for funding for things. But, you know, they'll write a check for billions. For other places. It's like, take care of home first. Take care of home first. You can't be well if, and you can't help others if you're not well and we're not well.

Thanks, Terry. And yeah, actually, just echoing that, that is the whole premise of Vital Connections as an organization, which, as I said, we are the backbone organization supporting the resident-led neighborhood food action collaborative. We believe that Boston already has everything. All the resources, all the activism, all the motivation, community engaged individuals and organizations. to solve these problems. But it's just a matter of redistributing the resources and whatnot in a way that is equitable and allows the whole community to be strong and well and enabling that in a way that's collaborative, that we work together and nobody's left out because every stakeholder has a piece and an influence in this In this problem and in every health problem, it's just a matter of us kind of working together and trying to be innovative and being willing to take risk and do things differently because clearly the way things have been working so far haven't been working.

I want to also bring up one quick point that was responsive to some questions for the first panel that hasn't come up yet. But I think another thing that's come up is sort of universal school lunch and how effective that program is in addressing nutrition issues. And I think it's really important to think about, right, we're talking about like, oh, only 10% of SNAP recipients are using HIP, right? And then on top of that, you have a lot of people who don't qualify for SNAP for various reasons. And on some level, I think we have to question, do we really want to be in a position where we're relying entirely on the federal government list of who deserves to have SNAP to determine who is in need of food access assistance? Or does it make more sense to build programs in a way that doesn't try to Distinguish between the needy poor and the undeserving poor, which is this constant dichotomy that exists when we talk about all these means testing structures.

I think in a lot of cases it's actually a lot more simple to just say guess what everyone gets a free apple whatever you don't need to write your name down you don't need to like Sign up for the free apple. You don't need to send an email about the free apple. You just walk in and there's your free apple. And I think in a lot of ways, The conversation about city grocery stores is about how can we just get everyone a free apple so that everyone actually eats at least one serving of produce a day so that we reduce the rates of diabetes, so that we address food insecurity, right? because a free apple is really not that expensive until you have to go through a bunch of extra hoops to track where that apple came from. And if instead you have a city grocery and you can say, guess what? We gave out 5,000 apples today. You know how I know? Because we started with 10 boxes of apples and now we have zero. You don't need to go through some additional hoop to figure out, well, where did the apple come from? You just know because the city is easily able to just tally up how many apples went out.

In comparison, having a lot of hoops where it's like, but you have to qualify for a federal program, and then there's another program administered by the state, and the third one that's administered by the city, it's too much. People don't follow that train of logic, but they can follow, oh look, there's an apple, it's free.

And then that person that handles that count gets paid $100,000 a year. What? Just give them the free apple.

And what you also are able to accomplish by doing that is that you get that. We take away that stigma away from all of it where people don't have to prove they deserve that free apple.

And then they feel shame to stand in the food bank and they would rather go hungry.

Yep. And we know that's real.

It certainly would make things a lot more efficient if you didn't have to have a lot of the means testing. A lot of our jobs as federal employees is to you know oversee the means testing which yeah no offense some of your colleagues need to not exist we do it as a means to an end not because we necessarily believe in the programs or the structures that are Thank you. Thank you. How do we get produce into areas that don't have produce right now?

Yeah. And we've obviously mentioned by you, it works in BPS, in Boston Public Schools. You get a free, your kid gets a free breakfast, free lunch. And I believe even if you need it, you can even ask for a take-home meal as well. So it's a good program. And I think to your point too, It's going to take political courage and political will from all levels of government. I mean, I feel very proud of the work we're doing here in the city of Baltimore. It's going to take partnership from the state and definitely the federal government as well. Because what we're seeing is that our health care is at risk. Snap Benefits, obviously we're at risk. Our housing is at risk. Our transportation grants are at risk. We were just talking about yesterday at our council meeting how we're losing pharmacies all over the city. So it's like it's It's like one thing after the other, but when you look at the agenda, it's kind of all connected, and it's to squeeze things out of our people.

But all right, that's it for me on questions. Any of you two have any follow-up questions?

I'd love to come back to something. I think you said it earlier, that in food deserts, gentrification of the neighbourhood would be necessary to make grocery stores profitable. Did you say that?

I did say Sephora.

And isn't that a horrible indictment of our society that that's the only way? And then on the other side of that, I'm noticing like Guest Street, we have a brand new stop and shop with nice luxury housing above. and the old stop and shop carried a range of, it was considered the most affordable grocery store in the neighborhood and it carried a range of ethnic foods and fruits and vegetables and all and I'm going like, the gentrification's happening over there. and I'm actually seeing a shift in the sort of range of products that are being offered because they're trying to cater to a different clientele and have got more disposable income. So I'm just thinking there's this sort of mismatch in where Anyone speak to that? I think this is the injustice. This is why we call it food justice, because it's a huge injustice in this situation.

And that is why we need to have community-owned grocery stores because we don't care about client, we are not accounting that We're not accounting for that in the equation. We're not accounting for, you know, This zip code has less households that live under the poverty line or over whatever percentage. We just know that we needed a space that was community-owned, governed by the community, that they could tell us, hey, this is what I would prefer to be in my local grocery store because it's not elsewhere. and also can you be, can you have like a space that we can kind of gather because there is no other space to gather because we don't have a local coffee shop Or the places that we do have, you have to buy something in order to sit.

and but like hope like hope again the other places don't say that I mean just thinking about the Whole Foods that's in JP you realize where they put it right they literally put it right after the Rotary Like right after the rotary, y'all know what I mean, Center Street. They literally put it after, like once you pass that rotary, the life expectancy, life expense, expectancy? Changes. That is not a coincidence, right? Because they believe in the bottom line.

Well, not to mention that also used to be high-low as well. Yeah, yeah.

What we saw at the Guest Street Stop and Shop, too, is that they made this investment trying to chase after that new clientele, but then it didn't end up and many more. The higher price clientele isn't always effective and just making sure that you have access to good quality food and at affordable prices just I think the other thing was the

The Stop and Shop. Just knowing that that model, it works. I think making the food affordable will get people in there. It's not the other fancy stuff. It's really, apart from people getting confused about the parking lot, but that's a whole other thing. I also want to give a big shout out to you, Jack, and your brothers and sisters from AFCW, New Stop and Shops, the only unionized grocery store in Boston, the greater Boston area. So thank you for being here. Thank you for weighing in on all the details of all the different options about grocery stores. You provided with some really great materials to study and I really appreciate your participation today and this is going to be an ongoing conversation because There's sort of many different things and it's a very systemic problem.

Like we've talked about housing, we've talked about transportation, we've talked about supply chain, we've talked about gentrification. The other thing is minimum wage We have to have, people have to earn, people have to earn a livable wage, otherwise they can't go shopping anywhere.

Yeah. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Louijeune.

Thank you, and Councillor Breadon sort of like took the words out of my mouth because You know, we talk a lot about, we've been talking a lot about food justice, we talk about housing justice a lot in this body, but at the end of the day, people just gotta make more money. We have to make sure that people are making more money. It's no coincidence, right, when we talk about corporate greed, that if you look at the companies that have the largest, where their employees have the largest dependency on Snap, Amazon, Walmart, the icons of corporate greed.

I'm not making $20 billion my salary, let me just tell you that.

Right, no, yeah, and so, like, at the end of the day, paying people more money is an essential part of, The equation, which is another reason why I like that UFCW and Jack are at the table because that shouldn't be an afterthought in this. It needs to be baked into the process. And then secondly, I wanted to make sure I wrote this down because I just wanted to make sure that I got it right. Maxwell, when you were talking about You were talking about means testing and I just wanted to make it very clear that I am not a big fan of means because I think it leads to larger inefficiencies. Now you're paying so many people to do X, Y, Z. I think this is an excellent example about the free meals for kids now at school. I haven't been able to say this out loud. On election day, I was at another course of college.

and I was looking at the food the kids were getting. I was like, I wish I had gone to school at that time, like being able to choose between this incredible breakfast sandwich or this yogurt parfait. We've come a long way. And I do think that that deserves credit. But what I do care about is inefficiencies. And as someone who's an at-large city councilor, you're in Thanksgiving, everyone has a Thanksgiving turkey giveaway. Every church, not every church, I understand as someone that grew up in the church, has a food pantry. I'm just wondering about how can we be more efficient in the world of food justice and making sure that people are getting really what they need. It's also a reason why I support a guaranteed income, a universal basic income, because I think giving people the agency to decide what they need, and then you can take away, instead of having to do

Pantries or Giveaways, people have the agency to be able to make the decisions for themselves. So I don't necessarily, if it came across as me saying that we needed to do more means testing programming, that's not what I meant, but I do think that there are inefficiencies, sort of like how we think about the framework of Food Justice and like some of it we won't be able to really address because I do think there's no nobility in Churches having food pantries and people being able to do distributions. But I do think that at some point having a larger conversation about what true food justice and a true and efficient food justice looks like to make sure that everyone gets Their basic needs met, everyone has a meal, I think is an important part of the discussion that we can divorce for means testing.

And I think that's a very thin line. That's why, again, you have to have community input at every step of the way. because, again, as a community fridge, we're a mutual aid. We don't police. We are abolitionists. Like, we don't do all of that. You know, we hear people, oh, I took away the Mattapan Community Fridge.

Which my cousin, my cousin started the Mattapan Fridge.

And I understand, I talked to her, you know, she's like, no, people come here and I see them sell the food down the street. The only reason that person is selling the food down the street is because they have to, right? They're not getting the 50 cartons of eggs that was just put in the fridge and throwing it away in the sea. That's not what they're doing. Unfortunately, because we live in the world that we live in, they need to do what they have to do to survive. and we've put again we put it on the individual and that we this is not the individual's fault it's the system's fault and so that's why I said that there's a very fine line Right? But, you know, again, the community input.

We're supporting my office as much as I recognize that it would be good to have structural conversations about what makes my office right now actively supporting starting up and centered in countries about starting up a new community for each of the neighborhood that doesn't have one. And so it's hard because you look at the big picture. There's something that we could be doing better on a macro level here, but it doesn't take away from the micro everyday real issues of like, OK, You have a food pantry, and you're helping people, so let's help you help people.

I think one really important part of this conversation is that one of the reasons why free school lunch works is because The vast, vast majority of kids are going to school. So you know that you've actually hit everybody if you're able to give a free school lunch. And we recognize, right, that nutrition is especially important for people who are not fully mature because we recognize that the health impacts of not getting fed are especially important there. I think in that regard, the city has a really important role to play because Boston Housing Authority properties are all very obvious places where people are likely to be experiencing nutritional deficits. People are likely to have preexisting health conditions that might complicate their situation. and they probably aren't gonna have access to grocery stores because historically, right, there's a packing of affordable housing in specific places and that same packing makes the grocery stores unprofitable. So for that reason, I think that

It's really worth thinking about what are the ways that Boston already has real estate, already has structures, already has infrastructure staffing that could support a lot of this kind of work. And this isn't just a grocery stores conversation. It's a broader one. But the conversation about turkeys. Should every single church individually have to spin up a turkey distribution? Should every single BHA property? Of course not. It makes a lot more sense if there's some central authority that's like, okay, tell me how many people you have and we'll send you that many turkeys. And similarly, right, the whole thing with a grocery store, the whole point of it is that you can predict what your total demand is for a population, what your total demand is for your customers. And then you get that much stuff exactly or as close to it as you can. So that's the efficiency part. Whereas if you were in a situation where you're trying to do the one size fits all thing, you have like, I don't know,

there's frequently right it's always brought up that canned goods are not what people need or want and yet they're always getting canned goods because it's the thing that's really cost effective it's like if you're doing counts by poundage and that's your metric then it gets you to your metric but If your metric is actually about population health, if your metric's actually about nutritional benefits, if your metric's about customer satisfaction instead of just Thank you. Thank you. With something like a grocery store, people will shop there if it meets their needs. And if it doesn't, then you don't need to fix something. There's an inherent feedback loop in a grocery store model that isn't usually addressed in nonprofit food models.

Okay. Colleagues, we're good?

No, I just want to appreciate everybody who's contributed this afternoon. This has been a really great conversation. Thank you.

Thank you. Before we wrap up, I do want to allow for a quick public testimony. I do see we have two people that signed up, if there are some here. Will and Dwight.

You have two minutes here in the microphone.

Hello. First of all, thank you everybody for all of your work, all of your comments, absolutely incredible. My name is Will. I'm Will Hanson. I'm a lead advocate volunteer, part of the Alston Brighton Health Collaborative. especially focusing on getting a food cooperative, figuring out how to have a food cooperative in Alston Brighton one way or another. But I just want to share a quick story to add to what I wrote. So in 2021, I was living in Brighton Center for a short period of time. and one particular day, very, very hot in the summer, getting kind of worse and worse, depression. One particular day, you know, I'd sort of run out of food, sort of downward spiral. I just needed to go outside to walk, take one step, the next step. ended up at a very small produce stand called Johnny D's. Wonderful little place, very affordable. And just by chance, walked in, ended up buying some apples, buying some vegetables,

and then talked to the woman at the counter while I was paying for my groceries. She made some kind of friendly jokes. I appreciated it. It was offhand banter. Really nice, but just this sort of upward spiral. And then I had food. And these kind of engagements, talking about food access. Food access is community care. And it's so important to have proximity to food access. So all the things we're talking about. I want to highlight another thing, the Alston Brighton Health Collaborative. Engaging with the planning department has done with the transportation subdivision subcommittee of Alston Burnt Health Cooperative meeting to talk about, for example, things like the ComAv realignment, Thinking about how we can use the carriage road space to have even like temporary kiosks, serving food, these kind of things universally approved by everybody that was, meaning they were really advocating for these kinds of ideas.

But those kinds of engagements, these sort of opportunities to put food closer to people, even things small scale, partnering like we talked about, partnering with libraries, partnering with other institutions, you know, any way we can because there are absolutely places like Oak Square, where you do not have a Johnny D's produce, you do not have other resources generally speaking, so thank you everyone.

Thank you so much. Thank you for your story too.

Dwight here? No? Okay. Any quick brief closing statements from you all?

Okay.

Co-workers and I really aren't the biggest fans of mean testing ourselves. What we really love is making sure that people actually get fed. That's what all of us were thinking about when we were heading into the government shutdown is, are the people still going to get benefits? Are they still going to get food? If we could do away with means testing, we could, but we don't have that power because that's with Congress. Thank you.

Colleagues, closing statements?

Brief?

I just want to thank everyone. I want to thank my legal sponsor here, Councilor Breadon. I think this was a very important start to a conversation. I do think there are several offshoots. I want to thank Aliza for being here because I also think it's really important. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our system writ large is the issue when it comes to creating bureaucracies that then interfere with helping people. So I want to thank all of you because we learn every day in this job, and I've learned from each and every one of you. As complex of a problem as this is, I'm really heartened by the people in front of me and who are on the screen who are helping us solve it. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Of course. Again, thank you all so much for the work that you do. These are some of the topics that are truly meaningful to all the residents of Boston and honestly across the Commonwealth. I hope that this is not the end of this conversation in this chamber and we will continue to work on this all together. Okay, so this hearing on docket number 1791 is adjourned.