WHIN Food Council is focused on increasing green spaces for food growing and improving access to high-quality, fresh food in predominately BIPOC and food insecure neighborhoods of upper Manhattan.
Leader
Eman Faris
Location
3703 10th Ave New York, NY 10033
Since 2016, the Washington Heights/Inwood (WHIN) Food Council has been organizing community members around food justice in Uptown Manhattan. We create a space for residents to come together to identify and determine community-oriented solutions to the food justice issues we see in our neighborhood. We aim to empower community members to make positive changes in WHIN around food and land.
We launched three successful and still very active programs in 2021 as a response to the pandemic. We recognized that we quickly needed to re-strategize to address the growing food insecurity and social isolation our members were experiencing. We launched:
In addition, during the growing season we maintain several garden beds at the Riley Levin Children’s Garden in partnership with the New York Restoration Program. We grow and harvest a range of produce from cantaloupe, squashes, strawberries, tomato, cucumbers, peppers, potatoes, ginger, and so much more. Everything from the garden is given to community members for FREE. We host 4-5 Community Garden Day events to invite the neighborhood during the growing season to tour our garden space, support with planting and harvesting, and engage in fun health and wellness activities such as cooking demos, yoga, zumba, and arts and crafts to help build community and improve social cohesion. In the past, we’ve also hosted educational panels, fermentation workshops, documentary screenings, and community potlucks during the colder months.
We strongly prioritize building partnerships with other local organizations and groups whose missions align with our goals and activities. We know we can not do this work alone. When you support our work, you’re supporting a grassroots, community-led initiative made up of volunteers who have committed to making a positive impact to the neighborhood. Every dollar matters! Thank YOU for fueling our food justice mission!
We do this to serve our community and address systemic inequities we see. According to the Department of Environmental Conservation, WHIN is a designated environmental justice area. According to the Community Health Profile published in 2018 by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), a majority of WHIN residents identify as members of minority groups (72% Hispanic, 7% Black, 3% Asian). Access to affordable housing and employment opportunities with fair wages and benefits are closely associated with good health. However, nearly 20% of residents live in poverty, while another 12% are unemployed, which is higher than the city’s 7% unemployment rate. Over half (53%) of WHIN residents are also rent burdened, which means that households pay more than 30% of their income for housing and may have difficulty affording food, clothing, transportation, and health care. Another way to consider the effect of socioeconomic status on health is looking at death rates across neighborhoods. According to the DOHMH, if the death rates from five of the richest NYC neighborhoods were achievable in WHIN, it is estimated that 12% of deaths could have been averted in our community.
In studying the food environment, bodegas are generally less likely to have as many healthy options compared to supermarkets. The lowest supermarket to bodega ratio in NYC is one supermarket for every three bodegas. In WHIN, for every one supermarket, there are 13 bodegas. Additionally, the food retail environment can also be measured by the number of supermarket square footage (per 100 people). In NYC’s best ranking neighborhood, there is 450 supermarket square footage, compared to only 119 in WHIN, ranking it 43rd out of NYC’s 59 community districts.
So, how do all these social determinants affect WHIN residents’ health outcomes? A little over a quarter (26%) of residents are obese, which is significantly higher than Manhattan’s 15% overall average. Similarly, WHIN residents experience higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. This data indicates that members of the WHIN community bear a disproportionate burden of negative health outcomes compared to other neighborhoods in NYC. There is a close correlation between health and the environment. It is the WHIN Food Council’s mission to improve the food landscape and green spaces in upper Manhattan to make it easier for residents to make healthier choices and thus enjoy a higher quality of life.