‘Healthy people are happier people’: DeKalb community members address food security, or lack thereof, in Annie Glidden North neighborhood

DeKALB – Hannah Bosch, a resident of the Annie Glidden North neighborhood in DeKalb, said her life pretty much revolves around the three children in her household.

Bosch, who lives in the Suburban Apartments complex, said she is a single mom to her two children and single guardian to her niece. That means she is usually strapped for time and cash when she works 9-to-5 Monday through Friday, has the three kids to feed, has to pick them up from school and otherwise take care of them, she said.

“I don’t have time to go grocery shopping,” Bosch said. “I don’t have the time to do that. I really don’t. And I prefer not to go in the grocery store with my kids because ... my son wants to go run and grab something. My other daughter wants to follow after him and the other one’s screaming, crying, because she wants a bottle. So ... I just don’t want to do all that.”

Bosch said that’s why something like the DeKalb County Community Gardens’ Grow Mobile is useful to her. She said she’ll happily take whatever community support that is offered to her, including a food box from the organization, if it means her kids will eat better.

Elijah Saucedo, Grow Mobile coordinator for DeKalb County Community Gardens, said the vehicle hauls food to the Suburban Apartments complex sporadically as of now. Just as the organization does for University Village from 3 to 5 p.m. every third Tuesday and first Friday of each month, “we’re working on establishing a regular date for this location,” Saucedo said, referring to the Suburban Apartments complex.

Saucedo said he believes there is a larger need for fresh produce in the Annie Glidden North neighborhood.

“I think it gives them a healthy alternative to what they otherwise might have consumed for dinner, lunch, or breakfast or whatever it may be,” Saucedo said. “Instead of going through the McDonald’s drive-thru, we’re able to supply them with things like fresh onions, fresh potatoes, milk and things like that.”

Annie Glidden North development, or lack thereof

Trinity Alexander, chief operating officer for Sir Donald Foundation, said she used to live in a poorer area of Oklahoma. Though Alexander lives in the Annie Glidden North neighborhood now in DeKalb, which she called a better area than that part of Oklahoma, she said she sees a lot of the same issues in how to get fresh foods between the two communities.

“We want people to be healthy because healthy people are happier people,” Alexander said. “And there’s not that much there when it comes to fresh produce.”

A call for a larger grocery store in the neighborhood isn’t new, and calls for such an option were renewed last summer as part of a list of demands by the local Black Lives Matter chapter, who eyed the now-demolished lot which once held Campus Cinemas at the corner of West Hillcrest Drive and Blackhawk Road for a potential store.

There is one grocery store within the Annie Glidden North neighborhood on Hillcrest Drive called Northern Fresh Market, a smaller store stocked with convenience items along with dairy, meat and produce. Casey’s General Store and 7-Eleven are both located within the 1000 block of North Annie Glidden Road and two liquor stores, Huskies Discount Liquor and Thirsty Discount Liquor, reside on DeKalb’s north side.

Northern Illinois University has Huskie Food Pantry, available to anyone currently enrolled at the university who has an NIUOne Card and is not on a meal plan.

Those options offer a juxtaposition to the other side of town, where a wide variety of stocked grocers, including brand new Meijer just west in Sycamore, and newly remodeled ALDI, combine to provide a selection of fresh produce, pantry items and homegoods.

Schnucks is on South Annie Glidden Road, while Jewel-Osco, Hy-Vee, a newly remodeled ALDI, Walmart and Target sit along Illinois Route 23. And Michigan-based Meijer opened its doors during the summer of 2020 on Puri Parkway in Sycamore, just down the road.

Those shops are all within minutes of each other and accessible to others via DeKalb’s public transit system.

Back in the north side, Alexander said another issue is that a lot residents in that area don’t have the Spot app, which tracks busses in the city’s transit system in real time, or they don’t have access to an internet connection (although a plan approved by the DeKalb City Council for improved WiFi is nearly complete) or a device to use the app – issues that Sir Donald Foundation tries to address in an effort to reduce recidivism. She said there was one instance where a woman had asked her where the 18 bus was because the woman was waiting for it for an hour, and she had to tell the woman that bus was running hourly that day.

“That makes people not want to go out, it makes people want to go to the corner store, grab some ramen, grab some chips, grab whatever they can and do it that way,” Alexander said. “And I think that’s the biggest problem there. And that’s another part of why we need a lot of fresh food and a lot more food security in that area.”

Community leaders previously have vocalized a desire for the city to consider putting in a tax increment financing district within the Annie Glidden North neighborhood to help spur more economic development in that area. Surplus pooled together from a TIF district in the area – which uses property tax increment built up over time to create a fund which, by law, is meant to be put back into the community for economic development – could then go toward projects which residents identify as much-needed.

The topic was also discussed briefly during the DeKalb mayoral campaign season, with now Mayor-Elect Cohen Barnes and 1st Ward Alderman Carolyn Morris discussing the option.

[ Video: A Q&A with DeKalb mayoral candidates Carolyn Morris and Cohen Barnes ]

However, some city officials have said taxing bodies are not eager to add another TIF district in the mix after approving an agreement to establish a new TIF district within the city.

In a recent meeting of the city’s Joint Review Board, a panel made up of representatives from various taxing bodies to help oversee the city’s use of TIF, DeKalb City Manager Bill Nicklas said his take is that the city is TIF-ed out.

“I think we need a break,” Nicklas said in the board meeting April 23. “My sense is we’re TIF weary and maybe as more time goes along and we have some opportunity to discuss this, we’ll come back to that topic.”

Other attempts to bring development projects to the area such as the Irongate subdivision – a project by developer Shodeen nearly a decade ago meant to bring in single-family houses, townhomes and senior units to land adjacent to DeKalb High School – fell through as well. That followed a 2013 vote from the DeKalb City Council to approve annexation, zoning and preliminary plans for the proposed project.

“There was no additional action taken after the approval of the annexation, zoning and preliminary plans for Irongate in 2013,” Dan Olson, principal planner for the city of DeKalb, wrote in a Wednesday email.

Joe Mitchell, head pastor for New Hope Baptist Church, said access to land isn’t an issue in getting development to the Annie Glidden North neighborhood. He added there’s a large concentration of people in that area who are on public assistance and, in turn, have children on free and reduced lunch.

“And it’s anchored by two gas stations and two liquor stores,” Mitchell said. “There’s nowhere in North Annie Glidden to get fresh food.”

And that’s a problem that needs to be better addressed, Mitchell said. He said he hopes it will be addressed by DeKalb Mayor-elect Cohen Barnes, who previously mentioned wanting to improve quality of life in the Annie Glidden North neighborhood.

“I hope he’s looking at how to bring a grocery store to North Annie Glidden, to make sure that, where you have this very large population of people, they can get fresh groceries and not just Takis and potato chips or liquor,” Mitchell said. “You’ve got two gas stations and two liquor stores, but you don’t have anywhere to get fresh food. So I hope that’s on his agenda as Mr. Businessman, that he looks to bring a grocery store to that community.”

On the horizon

Dan Kenney, founder and executive director for DeKalb County Community Gardens, told the Daily Chronicle this week the organization is working on a Community Food and Education Center project set to be located in the Annie Glidden North neighborhood. He said that project is meant to increase access to fresh local nutritious food, job training, entrepreneurial opportunities, jobs and economic development in that area.

In an email, Kenney said the project also will include three commercial sized heated greenhouses for year-round food production.

“The timeline is to break ground by September 2022 and open by November 2023,” Kenney said.

Lisa Miner, spokeswoman for NIU, said this week the university is ready to move forward on the center.

“We have completed our planning, identified and recruited faculty affiliates, initiated research projects and sponsored internal research presentations, as well as a lecture series,” Miner said. “We’re pleased that the state of Illinois, despite a very challenging financial year, has released funds to roughly half of the Illinois Innovation Network research hubs, and we fully expect they’ll be releasing funds to all the hubs in due time, including for construction of NIU’s center.”

Meanwhile, residents such as Bosch said they do what they can to get healthy meals in their kids’ mouths, such as frequenting the community gardens’ Grow Mobile when able.

“I try to feed my children fairly healthy, you know what I mean? A lot of things nowadays don’t come fresh,” Bosch said. " ... It doesn’t. I oftentimes feed my children as close to organic as I can. A lot of this stuff that they include in here is basic for meals and stuff that you can feed your kids – and quick meals too, you know? It’s just something ... to fill their stomachs.”

• This story was updated 1:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 24, 2021 to clarify the DeKalb County Community Gardens’ plan to build a Community Food and Education Center is not affiliated with plans by NIU for a $23 million Northern Illinois Center for Community Sustainability. The Food and Education Center is a development plan headed up by DeKalb County Community Gardens.