 Over the past year, the Convergence Partnership has supported the joint efforts of PolicyLink, The Reinvestment Fund and The Food Trust to develop a national Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), based on a successful model in Pennsylvania, to improve access to healthy foods in underserved communities across the country. The three groups—PolicyLink, TRF and the Food Trust—generated significant momentum and brought diverse stakeholders together to explore and support policy development, advocacy, and implementation. This included staff from the Obama administration, First Lady Michelle Obama, leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the grocery industry, unions, and a wide array of advocacy groups representing food justice, civil rights, youth, agriculture, rural communities, and community development.
The partnership’s support allowed the three organizations to move quickly and collaboratively, and its efforts have had an incredible policy impact. As a result, the President included $345 million in his proposed 2011 budget for a Healthy Food Financing Initiative spread across three agencies—U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Treasury. These funds would provide loan and grant financing to attract grocery stores and other fresh food retail to underserved urban, uburban, and rural areas; and renovate and expand existing stores so they can provide the healthy foods that communities want and need. In October 2010, the Treasury Department announced a $25 million "Notice of Funds Availability" for a national HFFI. On November 30, 2010, a bipartisan coalition in the House and Senate introduced Healthy Food Financing Initiative bills that will invest $500 million to dramatically reduce the number of low‐income Americans living in so‐called “food deserts” – all while helping combat the childhood obesity crisis nationwide and potentially creating or preserving 44,500 full‐time jobs and 50,000 construction jobs.
HFFI is a viable, effective, and economically sustainable solution to the problem of limited access to healthy foods. It can also reduce health disparities, improve the health of families and children, create jobs, and stimulate local economic development in low-income communities. HFFI has also broken new ground in multi-agency collaboration and as implementation rolls out, there is the opportunity to foster multifield partnerships and showcase economic, neighborhood, and health impacts in communities across the country.
For more background information on the Healthy Food Financing Initative click here. For more details about developments and progress of HFFI, please visit the PolicyLink website.
|
