San Francisco, a city known for homelessness, retail theft and other crimes, is opening taxpayer-funded Food Empowerment Community Markets to provide free food to customers, officials announced.
The new community market officially opened on Wednesday, providing “free, healthy, multicultural groceries” to “food insecure” residents of the city’s 10th Ward. according to In a press release, the city government proposed 2021 By Jeffrey Morris, co-director of Black Women Revolt Domestic Violence, Free Market Project picked up June 22, 2022, according to city records. (Related: San Francisco spends millions on public toilets but can’t seem to solve its waste problem)
“The opening of the 10th District Community Market marks a major step toward improving food access in parts of our city that have historically been food deserts,” said Mayor London Breed. “Equitable access to fresh, healthy food is essential for communities to thrive and to ensure our city’s most vulnerable residents are cared for.”
Today, we proudly opened the Food Empowerment Community Market at Bayview Hunters Point. This new market is an important step toward addressing food insecurity in District 10, providing free, healthy groceries to those in need. pic.twitter.com/Y1LHdGb0pd
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) June 4, 2024
Officials said the 4,000-square-foot stores will serve low-income residents in certain ZIP codes who receive public assistance (including programs like CalFresh, Medi-Cal and CalWORKs), have children in the home, have diet-related illnesses or are referred by community organizations in the Market’s referral network. The stores are reportedly intended to be a supplemental, rather than a primary, source of groceries for customers.
The opening of the Community Market comes in contrast to another taxpayer-funded program the city has come under fire for. Fox News reports that the “Alcohol Management Program,” funded with $5 million from taxpayers, provides free alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine and vodka shots, to homeless people with alcohol addiction. The goal of the Public Health Department program is to relieve the city’s emergency services by providing small amounts of alcohol that are believed to avoid withdrawal side effects, but some have spoken out about the taxpayer-funded program.
“This is not a good idea when you consider the fact that San Francisco has spent $20 million over the last four years essentially giving free vodka and beer to hundreds of people when they could have provided 60 drug treatment beds instead,” Tom Wolf, founder of the Pacific Alliance for Prevention and Recovery, said on “Fox & Friends First.”
