Providing healthy food to Baltimore’s poor residents has been given a face, and a salary

• Baltimore recently became one of the first U.S. cities to hire a “food czar” – someone who works to make healthy food more accessible to the city’s poor residents.
• But Holly Freishat, Baltimore’s food czar, lacks a budget for major food programs and so spends most of her time raising grant money.
• Despite these challenges, Ms. Freishtat’s paid position signifies a hefty improvement in the effort to provide healthy food to a city’s residents. Though many cities have food-policy councils, few of them have managed to implement lasting changes.

Facts & Figures

• Ms. Freishat is paid for 30 hours of work per week
• New York, Boston, and Kansas City have also hired food policy directors

Tags: food policy, Health, Poverty, public health