In early October, Just Harvest and members of the Pittsburgh Food Justice Fund committee submitted a letter with hundreds of signatures from local organizations and individuals to Mayor Gainey and the City Council. The letter urged them to support the creation of a $10 million annual Food Justice Fund that would support grassroots efforts to address rampant food apartheid in Pittsburgh.
As the Mayor’s office and City Council begin their work on next year’s budget, now is the time to make sure city leaders get the message: We need a Food Justice Fund in the city budget to address rampant food apartheid in Pittsburgh! Pittsburghers who are struggling to get healthy food shouldn’t have to wait another year.
The Fund should invest, through a community-led process, a total of $10 million dollars in over multiple years. This would amount to only around 3% of the $355 million the city received in 2001 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. (Learn more about why Pittsburgh needs a Food Justice Fund, this potential funding source, and how the Fund would work.)
On October 21, we and our allies held a press conference at the City-County Building downtown along with Councilwoman Deb Gross and State. Rep. Dan Frankel to call on Council to add a Food Justice Fund to the upcoming budget. Immediately afterwards, some 25 folks provided testimony urging the same at a city council hearing on food equity.
Unfortunately, only three city council people in addition to Deb Gross (Ricky Burgess, Erika Strassburger, and Bobby Wilson) attended the hearing. In addition, press coverage of these events quoted the Mayor’s office as saying the city’s ARPA funds had already been allocated.
Now is the time to use your voice for food justice and food sovereignty!
What You Can Do
Pittsburghers in under-resourced Black neighborhoods have been struggling for years to get healthy food. They shouldn’t have to wait any longer.
We must make sure city leaders prioritize food justice in the 2023 budget. It’s long past time for the city to invest in under-resourced neighborhoods’ food systems. Doing so would improve those residents’ health and well-being as well as the entire city’s economy.
Head to our Food Justice Fund Action page on the website of a leading partner in this campaign, the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council. You’ll find contact info there for Mayor Gainey’s office, and your city council member. (Not sure who your council rep is? Look that up here: electedgovernment.org)
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