The Government Spends Millions To Open Grocery Stores in Food Deserts. The Real Test is Their Survival. (Illinois)
Cairo, once a food desert, welcomed its new market last year with balloons and cheers. But the store is struggling — exposing problems with the programs set up to help.
Cairo, she said, had set the stage for what was to come as Illinois embarked on its new grocery store initiative — a $30 million endeavor to build and sustain new food businesses in distressed small towns and urban neighborhoods. Stratton had assisted Cairo leaders in securing state funds from another source because Rise came before the launch of the grocery program, and she told the crowd it would serve as a beacon: “I want you to know, Cairo, Illinois, this is only the beginning, and you are leading the way.”
Within months, however, the store fell on hard times. Rise struggled to compete with national chains on pricing and then faced additional challenges when a walk-in cooler broke a few months later, making it impossible to keep perishables on the shelves between orders. Although sales were initially strong, they slumped as residents fell back into old shopping patterns, patronizing the two nearby Dollar General stores or traveling to Walmart and other supermarkets at least 30 miles outside of town. As fewer customers came in, the store had less money to restock its most popular items. Shelves grew emptier.
Clarissa Dossie, a cashier at Rise since its opening, said that during the worst months, people would come in, look around and say, “Dang, where the groceries at?”
By December, six months after it opened, Rise was in peril.
BJ -
Without fail immigrants from failed societys come here and are amazed at how well Captialism works.
And yet -
