On Chicago’s South and West Sides, residents often travel miles past shuttered supermarkets and corner stores stacked with packaged food just to find fresh produce. Activists call this “food apartheid”, and community organizations are working to counter it with local food initiatives that aim to reshape health outcomes in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago. 

“The issue has a pattern that is most prevalent amongst select neighborhoods on the West and South Sides that are recovering from the effects of property redlining, effects of civil rights rioting with businesses closing and ‘white flight’ during the post-civil rights era,” said Tiffany Lewis, a resident of the Roseland and Pullman area. 

Lewis has spent her life working in food pantries and food giveaways across Chicago. In 2021, she left her job in clinical research and medical assisting to work full-time in organic urban farming. She joined the non-profit organization Gardeneers and works as a garden instructor, where she teaches kids environmental stewardship. She is also a board member for a newly forming BIPOC-owned and operated co-op grocery store in the South Shore neighborhood. 

“I wanted to help close those unfair gaps in any small way I could,” Lewis said. “I remember being a kid and well into adulthood, not having that many places in walking distance to get affordable fresh produce.” 

Food apartheid describes how systemic policies, economic decisions and historical segregation create unequal access to healthy, affordable food. According to The Greater Chicago Food Depository in 2022, food insecurity remained above pre-pandemic levels in the Chicagoland area at 19% overall, and rose to 29% among Latinos and 37% among African Americans. 

City and state officials have also taken steps to address food access as stores continue to disappear from the South and West Sides. In the last two years, at least six grocery stores have closed in these neighborhoods. 

Illinois recently launched the Illinois Grocery Initiative, which provides grants to help open or upgrade stores in underserved areas. Chicago officials have also explored creating a city-owned grocery store after multiple chains left the South Side, though the proposal has not yet moved forward. These efforts show growing public recognition of the problem, but long-term progress will depend on sustained investment beyond community-led work. 

As families continue to navigate those disparities, local groups are trying to expand access where grocery options remain limited. 

Market Box, a mutual aid group founded in 2020, provides bags of food to a network of families across the city. Based in the South Side of Chicago, the organization crowdsources to bulk-buy produce across the Midwest to give fresh meals to low-income families. 

“We want a world in which people don’t need a project like Market Box to have enough to eat because the government has fulfilled its responsibility to ensure everyone’s survival,” said Mara Heneghan, co-founder and co-organizer of Market Box. “But our grounding in mutual aid encourages us to build the things we know our community needs now, rather than waiting for institutions we’ve seen fail to deliver.”

In the past five years, Market Box has made over 25,000 deliveries and now supports a standing network of over 475 households. 

“This expanded reach would not be possible without dozens of neighbors coming together each month to pack and drive bags across the South Side,” Heneghan said. 

Efforts to increase access are also coming from residents who live in neighborhoods that lack fresh food options in markets or grocery stores. 

One of the oldest is the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, co-founded in 2010 by Asiaha Butler. Food apartheid was one of the first issues Butler tackled through R.A.G.E., as she felt Englewood lacked healthy food options for residents. 

Another organization is The Love Fridge Chicago, which works to ensure every Chicago resident has access to fresh food by maintaining community fridges around the city. The organization began in 2020 and works alongside other like-minded groups to end food apartheid and reduce food waste. 

James Wurm is an organizer for The Love Fridge and a host for a fridge located in Little Village. It is a community movement to self-sustain the fridges and ensure they are restocked. 

“We don’t want to ever pretend that we believe that we’re fighting or solving hunger,” said Wurm. “There will never be enough food available at these locations for the communities, but for the people who are able to come across a community fridge, there is food in there for them, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.” 

Copy edited by Mya DeJesus