When Nancy Gonzalez walked into the D10 Community Market in San Francisco on a recent afternoon, her refrigerator at home was empty.
“Right now, I’m out of food stamps and Wic,” said Gonzalez, 25, referring to the USDA supplemental food program for women, infants and children. She pushed her one-month-old daughter in a stroller as her sister-in-law and two-year-old niece followed with a shopping cart choosing the necessities: milk, eggs, bread, cornmeal, fresh pasta and organic fruits and vegetables such as strawberries, red onions and sweet potatoes – all for free, with no line.
“Without this, some of us won’t make it,” Gonzalez said.
The market, which sits within a few blocks of seven transportation lines in the historically Black Bayview neighborhood, is the brainchild of local lawmakers and community advocates. During the second world war, the Bayview was “a larger, more connected community, saturated with Blackness”, said Shamann Walton, supervisor for the district, which includes the Bayview and nearby Hunters Point, among other neighborhoods. A naval shipyard attracted Black workers, and the south-east corner of the city flourished with an economic center. When the shipyard closed after the war ended, racist hiring and housing policies drove families out of work, and out of the city.
Now, just under a third of residents here live at or below the poverty line, and a quarter of residents are children. San Francisco’s citywide Black population is only 6.3%, while Bayview-Hunters Point is home to 25.8% Black people, according to the most recent US census data from 2020 – a decrease of nearly half since 2000, as more and more Black families have been forced to leave the city. Grocery stores here have opened and closed, and with limited options the neighborhood has remained a food desert.
Inspired by similar markets in Nashville and Santa Barbara, city and community leaders set out to transform a former Italian grocery that served ravioli and tagliarini before closing in the 1980s. They fixed the sidewalk, repaired the electricity and brightened the 4,000 sq ft space with white paint and preserved the white hexagonal penny-tile floor.
“I’m in heaven,” said Jessica P, 58, who walked along a cooler of vegetables as she picked cans from shelves. “[With] a lot of free stuff, they give you some BS that you don’t want, and you’re not going to eat. This is totally different. It’s enjoyable.”
That’s what Maggie Shugerman likes to hear. Shugerman, the director of the market, thinks through how best to serve her clients, from store hours to the foods she stocks and how they might be prepared at home. There’s a cornbread mix clients can make in the microwave, and canned soups and frozen meals for those without a working stove, plus granola bars and fruit cups for families who pack lunches for kids.
“I just want there to be equality across lunchboxes,” Shugerman said. “The granola bars are more processed, but sometimes, what you don’t serve can be paternalistic. We want to keep people healthy, but these are working families.”
The market freezes their meats so they last longer, buys bananas at their greenest and takes the tops off beets and celery to extend their freshness. Scraps are used to feed the chickens and sheep of a volunteer, so nothing goes to waste. Clients are polled on their way out, too, so Shugerman can continue to be culturally responsive – say, making sure they always have coconut milk or Maseca, a popular instant corn masa flour, or the right kinds of noodles, from cellophane and egg to spaghetti.
The market is a first in two ways: it’s funded by the city, through the San Francisco Human Services Agency, rather than charitable organizations. And it lets clients choose, instead of handing them a box with foods they may or may not like or know how to cook – reducing food waste, and increasing a sense of dignity.
“I’m a single parent,” said Adelina Contreras, 43, who was shopping with her two children and a cousin. “I already did the groceries for the month. And now here we are, mid-month, and things are really running low. Today’s a time where we really need it.”
Contreras – like many of the other shoppers – likes the produce the best, and she enjoys the meat selections, while her children love the snacks.
Shugerman sourced the produce from a farm in Watsonville, 100 miles south of San Francisco, where she’d worked previously and noticed a pile “10ft high” of produce they couldn’t sell at farmers’ markets or didn’t have the time to harvest. She connected the socially minded family with the market, and now, once every couple of weeks, the farmers offload that produce here – to the delight of 500 clients.
The market will be open twice a week as it ramps up to serve 1,500 people, who must live in a nearby zip code, receive public assistance and have a child in the home. Shoppers receive a membership card similar to Costco’s, and signs in English, Spanish, Samoan and simplified Chinese direct the diverse clientele. Referral partners are on hand to check in about clients’ needs.
“It provides a kind of informal space for people to touch base with their care providers,” said Shugerman. “We want these services to go hand in hand.”
It’s the latest in a series of investments San Francisco has made in Bayview-Hunters Point. In the last few years, the neighborhood has welcomed a brand-new, multistory community center, a refurbished local pool and playground, and an extensive, ongoing waterfront renovation, including a new park alongside a decommissioned power plant with a playground that won an award from Unicef. The local shopping center has a new coat of paint, and the main corridor has seen a resurgence of Black-owned businesses, from a coffee shop and an ice cream store to a gumbo restaurant and a nail and hair salon.
“We are still the last place [in the city] where we have a good concentration of Black people,” Walton said. “The Bayview has the best weather, and we are the most affordable place in San Francisco, if you can call anything affordable. And we are one of the last communities where kids still play on the street.”
• This article was amended on 22 July 2024 because an earlier version used census data from 2000. Demographic data for the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco, California has been corrected to use 2020 figures, including number of residents who live at or below the poverty line; who are children; and who are Black, as well as San Francisco’s citywide Black population.
