It’s hard to believe that parts of West Ashley, home to several supermarkets —two separated by only a parking lot — could become a “food desert,” in the eyes of the federal government.
According to an interactive online map provided by the USDA, there are now two areas in West Ashley that are on the verge of becoming a food desert – an area where low-income residents have little access to healthy fresh food.
The map, located at (www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx#.UnKeqCjPWZ4), shows big green swaths of food deserts trundling up the peninsula and on into North Charleston via the Neck.
On the map, green is the most severe, and brown close to it. Click on a couple of map overlays, and suddenly two brown areas blossom in West Ashley.
Both are roughly bordered by Hwy. 17 to the south and Ashley River Road and St. Andrews Boulevard to the north, creating a corridor of need that stretches from Playground and Wappoo roads in the first segment, and from Wappoo on up the corridor to Savage Road in the second contiguous section.
According to statistics provided on the website, the first section between Playground and Wappoo has a “has a relatively high number of households … without vehicles that are more than one-half mile from a supermarket.” According to the feds, 7.2 percent of those households, 151 of 2,110 total households, don’t have vehicles.
Further, there are close to 900 children aged 0-17 living in that first section whose families can’t just jump in the car and zip over to the gleaming Harris Teeter.
It appears the situation is a little tougher in the second section, located between Wappoo and Savage roads. There, more than 10 percent of households are without vehicles and live more than a half-mile from a grocery store.
Christopher Morgan, the director of the planning division of the City of Charleston, had seen the map, as had Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.
That map pushed the city, Morgan said, to try and work with the Limehouse Produce company to take over its former Wappoo Road vegetable shed, which is in the process of being torn down, despite efforts of local preservationists.
The Limehouse family had decided to destroy the building for insurance and nuisance reasons. They were initially thwarted for proposed historical preservation, but the County has since reissued the demolition permit.
The city, according to Morgan, envisioned a land-swap with the produce company whereby it could turn the shed into a permanent farmer’s market, in exchange for improvements to the remainder of adjoining Limehouse properties.
Distance, poverty, and access can directly affect nutrition and food choices, according to Margaret Grant, the procurement director for the Lowcountry Food Bank.
This week is expected to be a doozy at the food bank, said Grant, because of cutbacks to the federal SNAP program that took effect last week. SNAP, or Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, issues federally subsidized electronic food stipends to needy families.
Last week, the amount of money sent out to a family of four nationally dropped by 5 percent, as part of President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package aged out.
“These are people who aren’t prepared in the first place” to feed themselves and their families due to tough times, said Grant, the former community relations manager at Earth Fare.
This week, Grant and a colleague reached out to partnering agencies in those two sections of West Ashley, mostly church-based food pantries, to find out the most pressing needs. Each of the organizations said access to grocery stores was the key issue.
Because many of the food bank’s recipients rely on walking or biking to get to and from groceries, they have to shop more times because they can’t carry as much back. There is no trunk on a bicycle.
But, Grant said, those two sections of West Ashley have it easier than the section of the former naval base her office is located on. “If anyone from around here wants to go to the grocery store, they have to take the bus or a taxi,” said Grant. Nearby residents can’t walk over the Northbridge and avail themselves of what had been three grocery stores — a Publix and a Piggly Wiggly and a BiLo — because there is no sidewalk on the bridge.
Additionally, those two “deserted” stretches of West Ashley are also lucky to have several public bus transportation routes dissecting and bisecting their neighborhoods, giving an additional level of access to fresh and healthy food.
While many business now offer dry goods, like convenience stores and Dollar Generals, few have fresh vegetables or meats. Most have some fruit and cereal.
It’s hard for Aubry Alexander to think of West Ashley, which he represents on City Council, lacking for food. When he was younger, he was the grocery store representative for Lipton tea, and his territory centered on coastal South Carolina.
Alexander can recount where all the West Ashley grocery stores used to be:
- Consign Charleston, the former Sofa Super Store on Wappoo; used to be a Food Lion.
- Total Wine on Hwy. 61 used to be a Harris Teeter.
- East Shore Athletic Club at 61 and Raoul Wallenberg used to be a Winn-Dixie.
- A smaller Red And White used to call home what is now an alterations shop on Wappoo.
- Rodenburg grocery stores also dotted the landscape, including what is now a thrift store benefitting children cancer charities on Savannah Highway.
And on and on, goes Alexander, who notes that the Piggly Wiggly that used to back up to Publix of Old Towne Road at the Ashley Landing Mall, will not be resurrected as a grocery store. And, he said, no one knows what’s going to go into the old Food Lion his mom frequented at Sycamore and 61.
If West Ashley wants to avoid joining the Upper Peninsula on the food desert map, then ongoing efforts to revitalize this part of town better take some food for thought. And vice versa.
