Emily Schiffer

Securing Food in Chicagoland

In June 2011, I began a project about food security and the urban agriculture movement on Chicago's South Side.

Approximately 384,000 Chicagoans live over 1 mile from the nearest supermarket, and have limited access to healthy affordable food in their neighborhoods. Well over 100,000 children live without access to healthy food.

Redlining, a prevalent real estate-investment practice in the U.S. from the 1930s to the 1970s, discouraged investment in minority and low income neighborhoods. This was compounded by deindustrialization and the resulting loss of jobs. Large areas in the South Side of Chicago remain to this date, under-developed and neglected.

The South Side has experienced a surge in urban farming and community gardening. I seek to photograph the intersection between neglect and self sufficency on Chicago's South Side.

Carmen, a young community gardener, walks through the streets of Aburn Gresham, a neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago.
  
Child toys with the door of a boarded up building in Auburn Gresham. Blight is a common visual reminder of the city’s economic neglect.
   
Child watches adults outside a store window on E. 79th St.
     
  
Uncommon Ground's rooftop garden raises bees and vegetables. Bees are essential to our ecosystem, approximately one third of what we eat is pollinated by bees.
  
Gregory Bratton in “The Garden of Eden.” Mr. Bratton is a master gardener and has 48 gardens throughout Chicago. In addition to providing food for hundreds of community members, Mr. Bratton believes that community gardens reduce stress, and prevent destructive activity.
   
76 and Woodlawn Community Garden.
     
  
An intern carries harvested vegetables to the processing room at Growing Home Inc. Growing home is a job readiness program that teaches practical and metaphorical skills through organic agriculture.
   
Bags that are used to wash lettuce hang in Growing Home's proccessing facillity.
   
Miriah in Mr. Harris' garden.
     
  
Master gardener Gregory Bratton reaches for greenbeans growing in his front yard garden.
  
Children find and harvest mulberries in Eddie Harris' garden. Harris, a local artist, has converted his lawn into a unique garden in which he paints on trees, creates art with found materials, and grows fruit, vegetables and flowers.
   
The recent mortgage crisis worsened the already prevalent problem of blight, forcing many to loose their homes.
     
  
Retraining the World Veterans Center on the South Side uses vegetables from their garden to provide over a hundred free organic meals to community members each day.
   
Melissa King, a volunteer at the Retraining the World Veterans Center, prepares vegetables from the garden for the center’s free meal program, which provides organic meals to over 100 people a day. According to Ms. King, “Going out there, picking it from the garden, and putting it in the pot is a different experience. It tastes different, you can taste the freshness.”
   
Dr. Checks a patient’s blood pressure during a routine exam. This man’s health is normal. However, according to the CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, 2001, the life expectancy for Black men at birth in Chicago is eight years less than the National average. Black men have a 20% higher incidence and a 40% higher death rate from all cancer combined than white men. Black men have the highest death rate of all racial/ethnic groups, male or female.
     
  
A men’s health group at Project Brotherhood discusses Black men’s physical, spiritual, and social health, examining how that affects their community. Project Brotherhood is a clinic with a holistic approach to Black men’s health. In addition to traditional medical services, they offer Chi Gong meditation, support groups, job readiness programming, free haircuts, and a health centric radio show.
  
Participant in a Chi Gong class at Project Brotherhood, a Black men’s health clinic with a holistic approach physical, social, and emotional health.
  
Reiki treatment at a fundraiser to reopen the 24/7 Coffee Shop, which provides healthy food, live music, and a positive space for community members to relax. In addition to sampling healthy organic food, community members received Reiki stress reduction treatments. 24/7 believes that stress reduction is a key aspect of a community’s physical and emotional health.
     
  
Reflection of an abandoned home in the greater Englewood neighborhood.
   
Children work with farmers from We Farm America to install a community vegetable garden for foster children and their families at SOS Children's Village in Aburn Gresham.
   
Orrin Williams, founder and director of The Center for Urban Transformation, inside “The Garden of Eden.”
     
  
Community gardners seen through a garden hose at SOS Childrens' Village community garden.
   
This small structure sits on Gregory Bratton’s front lawn and functions as a greenhouse so vegetation can be grown year round.