Whole Foods and Starbucks are opening locations in Chicago’s crime-ridden Englewood neighborhood as part of a $20-million project to bring better services and products to the area.
“The typically upscale Whole Foods will occupy an 18,000-square-foot store in the newly constructed Englewood Square shopping complex during a notably violent year in the neighborhood, one of the city’s poorest — it served as the setting for Spike Lee’s controversial “Chiraq” movie, and median household income is under $20,000, according to Census data,” says MarketWatch.
The grocery store hired 85 of its 100 new employees for the location from Chicago’s south side, with 35 of those coming from Englewood.
Starbucks is opening just a few doors down from Whole Foods. The coffee company pledged last year to set up shop in 15 low- and medium-income neighborhoods by 2018.
“In Englewood, 89 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds and 72 percent of 20- to 24-year-olds did not have jobs in 2014, according to the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute,” reports MarketWatch. Englewood Square, which is financed by federal tax credits, city land subsidies and crowdsourcing, says MarketWatch wants to show that local residents deserve and desire the same access to goods and services as wealthier Americans.
In 2014, Whole Foods opened a store in Detroit with similar goals of bringing quality food to underserved areas. FERN teamed with reporter Tracie McMillan and Slate to cover the story, “Can Whole Foods Change the Way Poor People Eat?”