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Community impact of grocery store closures
The closure of another Milwaukee grocery store, the second already this year, is impacting the city's most vulnerable communities, a nonprofit said.
MILWAUKEE - The closure of another Milwaukee grocery store, the second already this year, is impacting the city's most vulnerable communities, a nonprofit organization said.
Grocery stores closing
What they're saying:
At least seven full-service grocery stores have closed across Milwaukee County over the past year, including three on Milwaukee's north side.
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"It's really sad, because this is really the only local place that we can shop," Yvette Willis said of an Aldi near Sherman and Custer.
Locations of Milwaukee County grocery store closures
It's a sentiment felt in Milwaukee's north side neighborhoods following news that first the Aldi and then a Sentry, near 64th and Silver Spring, would close.
"I was a bit shocked, and I'm also saddened because what are we going to do? How are we going to feed the people in this community?" said Love. "I just wish they could come up with a better plan to sustain the communities that are suffering."
Search for solutions
Local perspective:
How to feed communities is the million-dollar question that Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, a local nonprofit, hopes to answer through community-led efforts.
"Six months ago, we really tried to warn people that this was gonna happen," said Metcalfe Park's Melody McCurtis. "We had no grocery stores 20 years ago, but you saw people coming to add grocery stores in these different neighborhoods. What we're seeing now is just complete extraction of grocery stores at alarming, alarming rates."
Sentry Foods closure; Milwaukee north side grocery access in question
A Sentry Foods on Milwaukee’s north side is closing less than two years after opening, prompting concerns about food access as neighbors react to another grocery store shutdown.
It's a concern Kali Murray, a Marquette University law professor, said she has been closely watching.
"Maybe we should start subsidizing delivery of groceries to specific communities. I think so many times we see it as a food problem, or a transportation problem, and what we don't see is that it's actually a food and transportation problem," Murray said. "I think food access is becoming a national problem."
FOX6 News reached out to city and county leaders but did not hear back by the deadline for this story.
The Source: FOX6 News interviewed the subjects of this story, reached out to local leaders and referenced prior coverage related to the store closures.