By: Aniya Ingram, Southern University Student & Louisiana Progress College Fellow

I spent the first 18 years of my life living in the small suburb of Zachary, Louisiana. My family and I lived on 9 acres of land in a house that was designed and built by my dad and my grandfather. We shopped at Walmart and Whole Foods. I played club soccer, got a car when I was 16, and I spent my first three years in high school at a private school. I grew up significantly above the poverty line and I had what I needed and more. 

As a kid, stores like Family Dollar and Dollar General were places I may have only stopped to pick up a few snacks, but there are households and entire communities that rely on these stores to fill their pantries and fridges. These stores lack fresh produce and healthy food selections, and the packaged goods tend to cost more for less, and they are usually located in areas where people are living at or below the poverty line. These small box stores deter bigger grocery stores from building in these areas, which helps exacerbate the problem of food deserts, or quasi-food deserts, in already neglected communities. 

When I started attending Southern University, located in Scotlandville, a traditionally neglected community in Baton Rouge, my perspective changed immensely, even though it is only 12 minutes away from my childhood home. Scotlandville is a predominantly black, historically red-lined area that is greatly impacted by environmental racism and a lack of resources that would enhance basic living quality. What really excited me when I started as a College Fellow with Louisiana Progress was the opportunity to highlight the cultural richness of this community, but also to dive into how this community continuously receives the short end of the stick.

This community lacks adequate grocery stores and healthy food options. Scenic Highway is the main thoroughfare and it has numerous fast food restaurants, but very few dine-in restaurants that offer healthy food options. The area has been monopolized by national-chain, small-box stores that are severely understaffed, so the store is more prone to system outages and crime, which often forces them to close at sunset. 

In my community, we don’t have many options when it comes to local grocers or restaurants. The people in this area are already combating environmental concerns because they live in the vicinity of a chemical plant, and the lack of healthy food options adds extra layers to the health risks facing the people who live in this area. Many children never grow up with the opportunity to eat home-cooked meals made with fresh ingredients, even when their families are making an effort to provide them with a balanced diet. Small box stores offer less healthy alternatives, often packed with preservatives.  

These chains claim to have a positive impact on the communities they serve, but they are actually taking advantage of those communities. They overwork their staff and pay them the bare minimum. They offer most of the same kind of items you would find in a fully stocked grocery store, but they sell them in smaller quantities for higher prices per unit. And since these stores are smaller than your typical grocery store, they usually lack fresh produce, clothes, pharmacies, a butcher, and health and hygiene products. 

The biggest issue I’ve noticed living in an area riddled with small-box stores is that you feel like you don’t have any decent alternatives. You are constantly forced to travel 15 to 20 minutes to find a good restaurant or grocery store. 

As with many similar neighborhoods in the U.S., that lack of healthy, fresh food options reflects other problems in the area. There's a police station nearby, but drug abuse is still prevalent and little is done to prevent or stop it. At my apartment complex, there have been several shootings, and you can always rely on hearing sirens or gunshots a few times throughout the week. Sadly, it always feels as if the only people who care are those who live in the community and who have to overcome living in a food desert, traveling long distances for a healthy meal, and watching themselves and their neighbors try to make ends meet by working for inadequate pay at a chain store owned by a multi-billion-dollar corporation. 

As of the beginning of 2024, Dollar Tree announced that it is closing nearly 1000 of its Family Dollar store locations. If the one in my community, Scotlandville, closes, the citizens won’t have any grocery stores to buy food, which has its pros and cons. The good thing is that new stores would then be able to take the place of the local small box stores and perhaps the stores could be locally owned. The con is that this area is so neglected that there’s a chance the community will go without a grocery store at all. The company claims that due to Covid, inflation, and product theft they are being forced to close down many of their stores. 

Unfortunately, the reason they are going out of business is largely based on the fact that people can no longer afford to feed themselves, which speaks to even bigger problems, like high poverty rates, obesity and other health problems, environmental degradation, and systemic racism through persistent underinvestment in predominantly Black communities.