Food Pantries and Corner Stores Aren’t Enough: Cleveland's Central Neighborhood Deserves a Grocery Store

Originally published by The Land.

I know what it’s like to be poor and pull together a month of meals when there’s no grocery store by me.

It’s keeping track of which food pantries are open when, how to get to them, and what foods that pantry usually has. I have to use my food stamps carefully at the grocery store, figuring out what I need there that I can’t get at a pantry, how to make that perishable food last and, finally – how to get to the store.

I used to walk to the grocery store in Central, but now there’s no store in the neighborhood. I don’t have a car. (That’s common here in Central. Between 45-78% of people in Central don’t have a car, according to census data.) Without a nearby store, shopping means taking the bus (which can be tricky with timing and managing groceries) or getting a ride from someone else (which means waiting until they’re available, which may not be when I run out of milk or butter).

Getting food on the table is always complicated when you don’t have much money, but it’s even harder when there’s no grocery store nearby. In Central, 68% of people live in poverty and are eligible for SNAP (food stamps). When you can’t walk to the grocery store, it’s harder to spend those SNAP dollars. And stopping by food pantries takes time, too. Everybody has busy lives here in Central, and it would be more sustainable to have a store here when piecing together food for our families.

There used to be grocery stores in Central

It wasn’t always like this. Historically, most city grocery stores were smaller than today’s stores and within walking distance of where people lived. In Central, even though it was poor, “numerous bakeries, grocery stores, and other businesses lined Woodland Avenue, East 55th Street, and Central Avenue,” says Case Western’s Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. But that all changed when supermarkets started becoming more common, and more people started driving to fewer stores. “Urban renewal” projects like this one in the Central neighborhood resulted in the demolition of local shopping, too.

Still, we had a grocery store in Longwood Shopping Plaza at Community College Ave. and East 40th St. (now it’s called Arbor Park Place) way back in the late 50s going into the 60s. It lasted until the 90s under the name of Sav-Mor’s. After that closed, we did get a Dave’s supermarket there in 2004 when former Mayor Frank Jackson was our councilman. At that time, people involved in the redevelopment called the plaza “hopeless” and said that after its redevelopment, the new Dave’s and “other quality tenants” replaced “a blighting influence with a center that helps to undergird the community.” That’s when it was renamed Arbor Park to put a brand-new twist on things.

Early in 2019, Dave’s closed its store in Central, and we were back to having no grocery store. Burten Bell Carr, our nonprofit community development corporation, owns the plaza and is trying to get a new grocery store tenant, but so far nothing has happened. It’s been four years now. For a while, Dave’s offered shuttle service to another one of its stores, but that ended.

We still need a wholesome grocery store. All we have now are convenience stores. I like Paul’s Serv-Rite, but it’s a small place and doesn’t have a lot of fresh food. There’s also 28th Street Supermarket and Liquor, another corner store, but it feels super dangerous – over 40+ years, I know a lot of people who have taken a chance and gotten shot or jumped on – and it’s more of a place to get cigarettes, junk food, and bus passes anyway.

Relying on food pantries – and where to find them

While Central waits years for a grocery store, residents still have to eat.

Food pantries are definitely helpful when you’re trying to put together a month of food, but it can be hard to keep track of where they are because they also change and shut down. Also, when you can get to them, you usually don’t get to pick what you want or need, so sometimes I wind up rinsing foods with water to try to remove the salt in them because of my blood pressure. The ladies at my Bible study and I will often trade foods, too, so we can get a little more of what we enjoy or what’s good for our health. When I get my SNAP for the month and I can get to a real grocery store, it’s such a privilege and an honor to shop for myself.

There are a few ways to find food pantries: you can call 211 or the Greater Cleveland Food Bank and talk to someone about where you live, and they will tell you, text you, or email you a list of food pantries near you. The Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland has a pretty good map, too.

But hours and locations change, so you have to keep up with the latest information.

At East 22nd Street, for example, there was a Salvation Army food pantry for many years, but now it’s a drug and alcohol rehab instead. But in that area, the food bank told us that you can now get a hot meal at Trinity Cathedral on Sundays at 12 p.m., or you can visit the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland mobile pantry at 2829 Euclid Ave. every third Wednesday of the month 10 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., but only May – October. (There are hot meals at other churches, like Faith Community Church and Center at 2355 East 55th St., every week.) You really have to keep a good calendar to know when and where these food pantries and meals are available.

A lot of the places that used to have food pantries don’t anymore – like my church, Triedstone Missionary Baptist Church on East 38th and Community College Avenue, which had one for 40+ years. What a beautiful blessing that was, but now the church can’t afford to do it.

The other thing about food pantries in the area is that people working at some of them are not very respectful and friendly to neighbors coming for help, so it’s discouraging and some people avoid going because they don’t want to deal with mean people.

Since the SNAP benefits were lowered this year, there have been a few more food pantry pop-ups in Cleveland, including one on East 59th St. by the Boys and Girls Club.

When will there be a grocery store again?

Convenience stores and food pantries are not enough for our Central neighbors. Like I said, it’s an honor and a privilege to be able to shop for yourself, to pick out your own groceries. It seems like a small thing, but it feels so great.

There’s been talk for a long time about getting a grocery store back here again. Some deals have fallen through. Gwen Garth, a Central resident, artist, and community activist, says she thinks a food co-op might be a good idea. “When people take part in their own lives, it’s a different story as opposed to when a business comes in and just drops stuff down on you,” she said. And that’s true – we don’t want just any store – some grocery stores have health code violations and bad food selection. We want a say in our neighborhood store, and we want it to be clean and well-run.

We reached out to Joy Johnson at Burten Bell Carr for an update on when we’d be getting a grocery store again, but she did not respond immediately to our request for comment. At the Ward 5 community meeting on May 10, Councilman Richard Starr said he was not able to provide any updates on a grocery store returning to Arbor Park Plaza – but that a grocery store would eventually be coming.

We’re on pins and needles waiting. It can’t come soon enough.

For food assistance, you can call 211 or the Greater Cleveland Food Bank at 216-738-2067and talk to someone about where you live, and they will tell you, text you, or email you a list of food pantries near you. The Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland has a food pantry and hot meal locator map. Get help applying for SNAP food benefits here.

La Queta Worley was a participant in The Land’s community journalism program.