Business owners, residents take steps to solve food access hurdles in Fort Worth

Diners lively chat while waiters bring out gourmet burgers and other items from a seasonal menu inside the popular food establishment in Fort Worth’s Near Southside.

It is common to see CEOs sitting at Taste Community Restaurant’s community table having conversations with people experiencing homelessness and families with children, said Jeff Williams, owner of the establishment.

The restaurant works to help the community learn more about food access issues by providing a space for people of all backgrounds to eat together in order for them to learn what the many different faces of food insecurity can look like.

“I think what people realize is that food insecurity is a larger issue than they ever imagined,” Williams, 42, said.

Williams is part of a growing movement of Fort Worth residents and business owners located in food deserts who are taking steps to tackle the many issues involving access in their communities in unique ways.

In 2014, Fort Worth was ranked 185th out of 190 large metropolitan areas in Gallup’s Well-Being Index report. The Blue Zones Project, a national organization focusing on improving a person’s well-being by looking at the surrounding environment, began to work with city officials and Texas Health Resources.

Blue Zones, Texas Health, other groups and city officials have taken steps to help residents, business owners and lawmakers understand the importance of food access and overall healthy life through policy changes, education on urban agriculture and adding more community food pantries in the high-needed areas.

Matt Dufrene, vice president of North Texas Healthy Communities, said the food systems that surround access didn’t happen overnight but have developed over several decades. The organization is one of Texas Health Resources’ community outreach non-profits.

“Not one organization, not one entity and not one solution is going to solve the issues we are dealing with in this community,” Dufrene said.

Why is food access a problem in cities?

Food insecurity is an issue in urban and rural areas across the world, experts say.

In cities, a person may have numerous food choices due to retailers. However, it does not mean those options are affordable, healthy or convenient to their location.

In an Oct. 2020 commentary for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Marie Ruel, the director of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Poverty, Health, and Nutrition division, said abundance doesn’t necessarily mean everyone has equal access to healthy foods and affordable diets.

“Urban areas are most afflicted by profound inequalities stemming from differences between socioeconomic groups, ethnicity, migratory status, location of residence (slums or formal settlements), city size, and a host of other factors,” Ruel stated.

One factor that can lead someone to face food insecurity is having a low paying or unstable job. In 2018, the United Way released a report on people who lived right above the poverty line. The organization calls this group to be Asset-Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) because they are one crisis away from falling into poverty.

It can be a struggle to afford basic necessities and many have to decide between which to pay for each month, including food. Many work in the service and hospitality industry, are child care workers and caretakers, according to the organization.

In the United Way report, 25% of people in Tarrant County were only one crisis away from being in poverty in 2018. The United Way stated a single adult with no children will need at least $259 to spend on food. While a family with two children in child care will need at least $896 a month on food.

People must also keep in mind how much they need to spend on housing, transportation, child care and medical needs which can take more from their salaries than food. Child care can cost $731 a month for one child, according to the United Way report.

Sharing bread in Near Southside

Childhood experience with food insecurity led Williams to create the taste project. He said as a child in California there were times his family experienced food insecurity. Williams became passionate about food and had the dream of owning a restaurant.

“I felt like God was telling me that I would have a restaurant but it would be a little bit different,” he said. “I think he was wanting to use that passion I had with food, experiences that I had with food insecurity to try to do something a little bit different with the way we approach food insecurity as a whole, tackle it from a different perspective.”

Taste Community Restaurant’s was ranked No. 78 on Yelp’s Top Places to Eat in Texas 2021 list. However, it sets itself apart from the other establishments in a major way.

Diners don’t receive a bill at the end of the meal. Instead they are asked to pay what they can. Williams said some people contribute to the price of their meal by volunteering, paying a penny or a lot more. This also allows people who are experiencing homelessness to have a free meal.

“What we try to provide is sort of that experience of not having to feel like it’s a place where you have to go because you are in need, but a place where anybody would want to go,” Williams said.

When looking for a location, the Taste Project wanted to be in an area that was struggling with food access. He said the Near Southside chose him.

“One of the big things that we had to figure out was where the restaurant was going to be located. It had to be close to a population of people who needed the services while still being relatively close to people who could participate in the program and who could give back to the program at the same time,” he said.

The restaurant has helped many residents find help by providing a space for many people of different backgrounds to eat together. Williams said Taste provides a sense of consistency and belonging for those who are experiencing homelessness in the neighborhood.

The Taste Project is also addressing food access issues in other ways besides the restaurant. It has a community garden, a new urban farm and is hoping to expand to provide other types of services to people in need across Fort Worth.

Taste Project, the Tarrant Area Food Bank, the Culinary School of Fort Worth and Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County launched a free and paid workforce development program this year called Fort Worx to address the issue on how education and employment can lead to food insecurity.

The accredited 16-week program provides training and on-the-job learning experience in food preparation. Students will gain enough experience to work in restaurants, food manufacturing and food service operations like hospitals, hotels or corporate cafeterias.

Urban agriculture helping neighborhoods directly

Several fast food restaurants scatter the Nuñez family’s neighborhood of Glencrest, which is in ZIP Code 76119 and southeast of U.S. 287. Convenience stores are plentiful.

Fort Worth’s east and southeast neighborhoods, a 72-square mile area, had only three supermarkers in 2014, according to the 2020 Tarrant County Retail Food Environment Report.

While growing up in Fort Worth, Steven and Ursula Nuñez, both 38, were constantly surrounded by unhealthy comfort food at restaurants and watched family members deal with serious medical issues.

The couple was determined to have a healthy life. They exercised and kept a pescetarian diet, which excludes meat and emphasizes consumption of fish, grains and vegatables. However, social pressures led the couple back to unhealthy eating.

“It was more of a series of events that kind of led to us realizing our health was super important, what we eat is super important and having the access along with the education,” Ursula Nuñez said.

When Steven was in college, his parents bought a house with land in Glencrest. His wife said that is when “the seeds were planted.” Steven took a study abroad trip to Guatemala and learned about urban agriculture.

That sparked a passion.

After finishing service with the Marines, Steven completed a training for veterans called Armed to Farm and it inspired him to attend grad school to learn more. He received a master’s degree in landscape architecture. His thesis focused on how to address food deserts through a community garden in Glencrest. His wife received a master’s in sustainability.

Fast forward to today, the family now runs Mind Your Garden Urban Farm. It is on land once owned by Steven’s parents. They share their products with neighbors and friends, and are planning to sell at a farmers market in the future.

Urban farming allows residents to grow produce at a low cost and have the potential of selling it to make a profit and sharing their products with the community to improve access.

For the Nuñez family, they hope they can make a big impact for their community by eventually providing education and more healthy food.

Steven said it is gratifying to be able to help the neighborhood by growing food on the land his parents owned. Farming has become a generational passion for the family. Ursula said their young daughter likes to raise her arms to show off her muscles after eating vegetables.

Inside their home, there are signs reminding them of the importance of staying healthy: “Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.”

Using policy, community partners to create change

Changing policy and removing barriers are some of the ways advocates are looking to improve food access, safety and overall well-being.

Blue Zones, Tarrant County Food Policy Council and Healthy Tarrant County Collaboration have worked with city staff on amendments to city ordinances that addressed produce sells, urban agriculture and farmers markets.

“We can’t say to people ‘hey eat more fruits and vegetables’ if there is no access to that,” Dufrene said.

This allowed for street vendors in areas with high-need to be able to sell more than just ice cream and unhealthy snacks. Ordinances were also improved to help more people sell at farmers markets.

Urban agriculture has now become a popular trend growing in Fort Worth. Tarrant County Food Policy, a group of volunteers, organizations, business and government leaders, is looking into it being a solution for food access. Susie Marshall, chair of the council, said by introducing residents to the idea of urban agriculture the council is not doing anything new but helping them rediscover how to be connected to their food.

“There’s been a lot of excitement around it,” she said.

Marshall said more churches are starting to put urban farms on their land. Greater Mt. Tabor Christian Center in the Stop 6 neighborhood started Tabor Farms. The church and Mind Your Garden Urban Farm are both a part of a cohort called Grow Southeast Fort Worth.

In the 2019 American Community Survey 5-year estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau, it was reported that 13% of Fort Worth’s population received food stamps. Out of that population, 64% were families with children under 18. The majority of recipients, 84.5%, had at least one person in the family working in the past 12 months.

In May 2020, Blue Zones launched the Double Up Food Bucks program in Fort Worth with the Cowtown Farmers Market and has expanded it to Elrod’s Cost Plus Supermarket and FoodLand. The program allows SNAP participants using a Lone Star Card save while buying produce.

Dufrene said the program incentives people to purchase more produce in order to improve the healthy behavior long-term.

“You can build a grocery store next to an area of high need. That doesn’t change behavior,” he said. “It’s critical to talk about food access from a behavioral change as well.”