Hunger in the US has many causes. The Seattle PI had an article a few days back on the lack of accessible grocery stores in much of Seattle. By accessible, they mean within a comfortable walk or 30 minute bus ride. The article was interesting, but the comments on the article are even more interesting. There is everything from telling people with large families to stop having children to calling all of us whiners. Some people just have no ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.

Accessibility has a whole different meaning for me. For a grocery store to be accessible means I must be able to get to it on my scooter, with my basket on the back so I can haul things home. Generally, I can’t do this on a bus, the basket makes my scooter to long for the wheelchair slot. That limits where I can go and/or how much I can buy.

Here’s my comment:

I am one of those rare creatures, a low-income person who lives in Belltown. Yes, there are public housing units here in Belltown. I am too rich, however, for food stamps. I am disabled, and carless, so a trip to the store is on my disability scooter. I have a choice between QFC, Safeway and Metropolitan Market. Part of the problem I see is gentrification. The old Safeway used to be just a grocery, then it moved to a gentrified condo development. Even that wasn’t good enough, and within two years of it’s opening they remodeled and up-gentrified it. This costs money, folks.
One thing I learned when I was on food stamps is that Pike Place Market isn’t an answer for those folks. Most of the stalls and booths don’t take food stamps. Only one green-grocer did, and I heard rumors one fish stall also took food stamps, but they sure as hell didn’t advertise it.
As they are building more million-dollar condos downtown, more people are getting priced out. I hope the grocery store going into the basement of the Kress building is going to be for common folks, and not aimed at the newly gentrified.
Having groceries delivered on my budget is a pipe dream. It is the same price as the co-pay on two of my prescriptions. I’m lucky I have the scooter, which my dad bought me, because in order to haul groceries home on the bus, I’d have to leave my walker home, and that would make my knees kill me. I would have to shop at QFC or Metro because it would kill me to walk up the hill from Safeway to the bus stop. Accessibility is an important consideration as to where I shop. Would love to shop at Freddies or Grocery Outlet, but I can’t fit my scooter and the basket on the bus, and the walking distances from the bus to the stores is too far for me. I definitely can’t afford City Foods, which is right around the corner from me. Might as well shop at Whole Paycheck as there.

The cheap, cheap grocery stores are a long bus ride for me, and since I can’t take my basket, not worth going for what little I can carry home. I might try shopping in the International District, because I hear the Asian grocery stores have better prices. I should also try to use Pike Place Market more often. Usually the fish and vegetables are cheaper there. I just have to remember not to go on the weekends, as the market gets very crowded, and I sometimes panic. But with the rising price of food, I have to find ways to cope.

I have already started making my own bread, because I don’t like the cheap kind, and can’t afford the other. Beans and rice are taking up a larger place in my diet lately, too. None of this is a bad thing, but I have the luxury of time. I am concerned about the people out there working two jobs to make ends meet, who don’t have time to cook. As I have said here and here there is a reason poor people are obese, and it is not necessarily because they are lazy and make poor choices. Often they have little choice of what food is available to them, and the stress of poverty tends to increase the release of cortisol, which increases fat storage.