The City of Rock Island is hoping to combat its food deserts with new funding.
In Illinois, the recent passing of Governor JB Pritzker’s Grocery Initiative Act aims to combat food deserts in the state.
The bill will provide $20 million in funding to support existing grocery stores and encourage the opening of new ones.
Rock Island is considered a food desert because of limited grocery stores and residents with inadaquate transportation.
Rock Island Mayor Mike Thoms is hopeful the funding can help tackle food deserts in his city — and he’d like to see the change start at the Watch Tower Plaza property along 11th Street.
But the city has struggled with finding a store to fill the empty 23-acre lot.
“The biggest issue we’ve found is the traffic count is not high and the disposable income is not where they would like it to be, so that’s one of the issues we’ve come across,” Thoms said. “The grocery stores have not been growing and building like they’re used to. You see a lot of these fresh pop-ups vs. a full blown grocery store.”
Non-profit organizations are one of the businesses listed in Senate File 850’s $20 million funding.
Project Now Community Service Director Ron Lund says organizations like his see the impact food deserts can have on residents.
“The west end in particular has not had a grocery store and when I say grocery store, I mean a business that is primarily focused on food,” Lund said. “So although it does have Dollar General and it’s got gas stations that have food, those aren’t considered grocery stores when we start looking at food deserts.”
“We see that everyday, just with our pantry downstairs of people having to make those decisions of ‘I can’t take all this food because I’m walking or riding a bike’ or ‘I’m taking a bus,’ so it’s definitely a problem. Even those that have access to transportation — how often can they get to the grocery store if it takes you 40 minutes on a bus one way?”
Thoms believes funding from the state will make a major difference in adding more grocery stores to the area.
“We also get a confirming report from the state in Illinois the DECO that’s managing this they do their surveys and find out that it’s a food desert that helps grocery stores to confirm the situation along with getting some state assistance, but the city is more than willing to offer some tax rebates, some incentives to be able to locate in these spots.”
Representatives from Project Now say there is not a set timeline on when funds will be available, but typically after an application is processed, funds are received within 90 days.
