On Tuesday, May 8, 2012, as many of the country’s leading health experts gathered at the Weight of the Nation conference in Washington, DC to pour over the latest findings and recommendations from the Institute of Medicine for addressing the obesity epidemic, another group of experts assembled nearby at Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Total Health to discuss how they were already making progress on obesity prevention. The group—representing community development financial institutions, farmers market promotion programs, community planners, and food project coordinators—shared their insights and strategies for empowering communities through improved access to healthy, affordable food under the Healthy Food Financing Initiative.
HFFI is a national effort to attract investment in under-served communities to support the development of fresh food retail services for communities who want and need access to healthier food. Loan and grant funding is provided through a variety of federal agencies, including the U.S. Treasury, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support development and expansion of healthy food retail. Such funding investments have been shown to jump start community economic development, provide much needed jobs, and create opportunities for improved access to healthy food through corner store conversions, the institution of farmers markets, and new or expanded supermarkets and other food retailers. Since its launch in 2011, $77 million has been allocated for the HFFI.
The HFFI gathering was sponsored by PolicyLink, The Food Trust, and The Reinvestment Fund, three organizations working to advance social, economical, and health equity for people living in under-served communities. Notably, The Food Trust and The Reinvestment Fund had achieved previous success when they partnered with the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition nearly 10 years ago to create the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative. The Pennsylvania initiative became a nationwide model for healthy food financing and has since spurred similar state-based efforts across the country. California’s FreshWorks Fund, of which Kaiser Permanente is a sponsor and funder, is one of the more recent incarnations of such public-private partnerships.
At the HFFI gathering in Washington, Kaiser Permanente’s vice president of community health, Loel Solomon, PhD, energized those in the crowd with his encouraging stories of how local food markets bring communities together. His talk was followed by Pennsylvania Congresswoman, Allyson Schwartz, who recounted the steps to success in her state and the need to continue to advocate for these kinds of initiatives across the country. Both speeches are provided below. Following the gathering, many of the attendees split off in taxis and shuttles to meet with their Congressional representatives on Capitol Hill in order to further tell their story about how they are involved in bringing healthy food access to their communities.
