On Tuesday, North Seattle discovered that the Fred Meyer on Lake Metropolis Means Northeast at Northeast one hundred and thirtieth Avenue is slated for closure by its dad or mum firm, Kroger.
At first look, this will likely seem like simply one other enterprise resolution in a shifting retail panorama. However for these of us on the entrance traces of human companies, and for the 1000’s of Seattle residents we function one of many solely meals banks open on Saturdays, this closure is not only inconvenient. It’s catastrophic.
It’s possible you’ll marvel why a meals financial institution is anxious in regards to the closure of a grocery retailer. North Helpline serves over 13,600 distinctive people yearly at two meals banks in North Seattle’s Lake Metropolis and Bitter Lake neighborhoods. We work every single day to help people going through meals insecurity, seniors residing on mounted incomes and dealing mother and father attempting to supply nutritious meals on restricted budgets. When our neighbors go to us, they steadily cease into the Fred Meyer to select up extra staples that we had been unable to supply that day. The closure of the Lake Metropolis Fred Meyer threatens to make all of this tougher.
As soon as this retailer closes, there’ll not be a full-service grocery retailer inside strolling distance or an affordable bus journey for a lot of residents of our group. This can have an effect on households with out entry to a automobile and people whose money and time are already stretched skinny. The closure will successfully remodel Lake Metropolis right into a meals desert, a time period utilized by the U.S. Division of Agriculture to explain areas with restricted entry to inexpensive and nutritious meals.
The implications should not summary. When recent fruits, greens, lean meats and dairy are not accessible, households are compelled to depend on comfort shops or fast-food choices. These are sometimes greater in sodium, sugar and fats, contributing to an increase in power circumstances akin to diabetes, hypertension and weight problems, circumstances we already see far too steadily in our shopper base. Past bodily well being impacts, a 2024 University of Washington study discovered that stress, anxiousness and melancholy had been extra frequent amongst food-insecure households, with 84% of such households reporting excessive stress.
The closure of the Lake Metropolis Fred Meyer represents way over the lack of a grocery retailer. It is going to deepen inequities and create lasting hurt by leaving households with out entry to recent meals and family necessities, and by eliminating one of many final remaining pharmacies within the neighborhood. As a group service supplier, we see firsthand how fragile entry to primary requirements might be for our neighbors. With out this anchor retailer, the well-being of 1000’s of residents shall be in jeopardy.
