Residents call Detroit neighborhood a "food desert"
(CBS DETROIT) - Residents living in Detroit's Rivertown District say grocery shopping is just a few steps away from home.
"It's a God send," said Adam Kelly, a Rivertown resident.
"Really, this is absolutely what the area needed and this quite frankly is part of what made me move over to this part of town."
But three miles northeast, it's a different experience.
"I want a food, clean, decent grocery store to go to," said Mack Alive Community Resource Center director Artina Hardman.
"I want people to understand that people on Mack and Fischer Street count."
Neighbors near Mack and Van Dyke avenues say they feel forgotten.
"It started to get difficult when the stores left the area," said Xylia Hall, an east side resident.
"It meant you had to have a car and the act of getting something simple was no longer simple."
Hall says she's been living in the neighborhood for more than 70 years and witnessed groceries stores shut down over time.
"We have been fight for the act of stores," Hall said.
"Stores doesn't seem to be coming back too fast in our area. They are taking care of the new comers, the whites or so that's coming back, but the Legacy Detroiters who have been here for 70 and 80 years plus, we're not getting any attention."
She says her disability makes it hard for her to catch a bus to East Jefferson to shop, so once a month she walks to Mack Alive's food distribution a few blocks from her home.
She says it's the convenient way for her to access fresh meat and produce.
"I am existing on a very low income," Hall said.
"So, this helps in the community where I might have to spend four dollars on for a bag of apples, I get them free. So its nice to have fresh vegetables, fresh fruit to be able to get that. So, I'm thankful for Mack Alive being within our community so that we can have this food distribution."
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a food desert is defined as a low-income area where a substantial number of residents lack access to supermarkets within one mile.
Residents in the Islandview neighborhood off of Mack and Van Dyke avenues live 1 1/2 miles from the Indian Village Market, 2.8 miles from Harbortown and 3.4 miles from the Meijer Rivertown Market.
All three stores are located along East Jefferson.
"We have to catch a bus from Van Dyke down to Jefferson," Hall explained.
"Well, I am a disabled individual. There's no bus to run from you might as well say from this area, that street down to this street and that's about the distance that you may have to walk in order to catch the Jefferson bus because you would still have to catch two buses to go there to Meijer."
Rafi Kada owns Janes Market, a liquor store on Van Dyke and Charlevoix Street.
He says he expanded his inventory with fresh produce, frozen food options and non-perishables to fulfill the need.
"They need bananas, they need onions, you know," Kada said.
"Yeah, a lot of people they're older. They're living alone. And actually sometimes we help them. You know if they call me we take groceries to them. Yeah, we do that. Like, whatever my people here, my workers, we send it to them you know."
