Coalition Building and Food Insecurity: How an Equity and Justice Framework Guided a Viable Food Assistance Network

Abstract

Food insecurity is widespread in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the need for food assistance and created opportunities for collaboration among historically-siloed organizations. Research has demonstrated the importance of coalition building and community organizing in Policy, Systems, and Environmental (PSE) change and its potential to address equitable access to food, ultimately improving population health outcomes. In New Haven, community partners formed a coalition to address systems-level issues in the local food assistance system through the Greater New Haven Coordinated Food Assistance Network (CFAN). Organizing the development of CFAN within the framework of Collaborating for Equity and Justice (CEJ) reveals a new way of collaborating with communities for social change with an explicit focus on equity and justice. A document review exploring the initiation and growth of the network found that 165 individuals, representing 63 organizations, participated in CFAN since its inception and collaborated on 50 actions that promote food access and overall health. Eighty-one percent of these actions advanced equitable resource distribution across the food system, with forty-five percent focused on coordinating food programs to meet the needs of underserved communities. With the goal of improving access to food while addressing overall equity within the system, the authors describe CFAN as a potential community organizing model in food assistance systems.

A coalition-driven examination of organization capacity to address food insecurity in Greater Houston: a qualitative research study

“…Similarly, nationwide and regional reports have projected increases in the national food insecurity rate, with disproportionate burden on households with children and in racial-ethnic minority groups ( 8 ). There is much to learn from organizations who regrouped and retooled their efforts to address these challenges ( 14 , 15 , 48 ). In particular, South Carolina's Office of Rural Health and First Nations Health Authority documented their own experiences, and available toolkits serve as a collective blueprint for those seeking direction on how to adequately prepare for service delivery during public health emergencies ( 14 , 15 ).…”

“…Of equal importance, it should be the goal of coalition work -exercised through coalition members efforts- to gradually steer the current landscape from one that addresses food insecurity through short-term, immediate assistance to one that embraces an impact-driven systems-level perspective to problem solving ( 48 ). This intentional transitioning will require the integration of key organizational players at the intersection of community-voice, advocacy, healthcare, and community social services to (i) capture threats to food security within the ecosystem, and (ii) engage policy experts and the wider system to develop and ultimately adopt culturally-sensitive policies that minimize inequities around access, cost, and eligibility.…”

“…However, clear insights from the Greater New Haven Coordinated Food Assistance Network (CFAN) demonstrate universal examples of how food systems can adopt processes that have far-reaching impact. This includes collaborations between organizations and local city government to support summer meal programs, elevating the roles of resident leaders in municipal decision-making processes to provide insights on lived experiences, and elevating the voices of those who are under-represented to help formulate and implement actionable strategies that provide sustained relief to those facing food insecurity ( 48 ).…”