Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has announced that his administration is looking into opening a city-owned grocery store in the crime-ridden metropolis.
Johnson, whose city is facing a projected half-a-billion-dollar deficit, announced a partnership with the Economic Security Project, a national non-profit dedicated to building economic power for all Americans.
"All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options. We know access to grocery stores is already a challenge for many residents, especially on the South and West sides," Johnson said in a press release on Wednesday.
Those parts of Chicago include former storefronts whose windows were boarded up after private chains moved out due to unprofitability, CBS News Chicago reported. Walmart and Aldi were among the stores that left, WGN 9 reported.
"All of our stores are closing, and so now we have to go outside our neighborhoods to purchase food," South Side native Shelly Williams told CBS News Chicago.
In a recent Gallup poll that asked people to rank 16 top U.S. cities in terms of safety, Chicago came in ahead of only Detroit, in last place.
The crime wave in the city prompted a Chicago Democrat alderwoman last month to ask gang members to limit shooting guns in the city to the overnight hours.
Johnson's grocery-store proposal includes using economic development grants to fund the store.
"So we are not spending any taxpayer dollars," Umi Grigsby, Johnson's policy chief, told CBS News Chicago. "What we're also going to be able to access is the funding that exists at the national level, at the state level."
Grigsby denied that opening a grocery store supersedes battling crime.
"So I don't want to say that this is taking a priority,” she told CBS News Chicago. "I would like to say that overall, it's not also about a grocery store. What it is about is increasing access to healthy options and to food for all Chicagoans."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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