Carving out Food Insecurity in La Pequeña Habana: A Powerbuilding Approach

The availability of fresh, nutritious food is essential to a healthy lifestyle. Healthy Little Havana is proud to promote efforts to improve access to food in the Little Havana neighborhood, which currently ranks at the highest level of the Conduent Healthy Communities Institute’s Food Insecurity Index.

Our organization is a trusted food-related partner in the community. Between 2020 and 2022, HLH assisted in distributing over 11,000 meals—many to individual homes. Because the greatest number of households without a car in Miami were residing in the neighborhood, HLH successfully advocated for walk-up food distributions. 

The Carving out Food Insecurity in La Pequeña Habana: A Powerbuilding Approach project will afford Healthy Little Havana the opportunity to engage and empower Little Havana residents and non-resident stakeholders in the process of tackling pressing issues in the food system. HLH will mobilize our efforts around four opportunities: Community Garden, Food Pantry, Community Fridge, and Urban Farming Container. HLH will depend on residents and partners for support in each of these areas to help co-create solutions to the problem of food insecurity.

HLH has taken part in community discussions for its food access community action plan that allows us to craft, in communication with partners that work on nutritious food availability, a sustainable project that can work with individuals and provide them with what they need.  Community discussions have been led in partnership with the American Heart Association and identified the habits that the Little Havana community has taken with nutrition. In the coming months, the Healthy Little Havana office will be the home of Little Havana’s first food pantry and community fridge!