Improving Food Access for Families in Seattle’s Delridge Community

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A new City of Seattle report published in March 2014 highlights food access priorities for women and families in the Delridge neighborhood.

The report was produced by a partnership between City Council member Mike O’Brien’s office, the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, and the volunteer-run Seattle Women’s Commission. It was created in direct response to the complaints of one Delridge mother, who, in 2011, testified before The Seattle Women’s Commission that she was unable to carry out the most basic household task: grocery shopping in her neighborhood.

An ethnically diverse neighborhood with geographic challenges — including valleys and ridges that make getting around difficult — Delridge has no traditional grocery store. Inaccessibility of healthy food has led to increased instances of adult obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in Delridge compared to the rest of the city, states the report.

The goal of The Seattle Women and Food Access research project is to determine additional barriers and prioritize solutions to food access with low-income women. The project will inform how the City crafts and implements new policies for the Delridge neighborhood, with the potential of impacting other neighborhoods throughout the city.

Some of their recommendations include:

• Developing a local food hub that includes a farmers’ market.
• Support  and explore expansion of the Fresh Bucks Program that encourages Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) food assistance recipients to buy more fresh produce.
• Support the prevention of Metro’s proposed bus cuts that severely impact transportation options in Delridge.
• Support the addition of an affordable grocery store through land-use planning and strategies partnerships with retailers.Read the executive summary.
  Read more about the report in the news.