D.C. has a food access problem. Advocates say Bowser’s budget would make it worse.

When Mariah Francis heard that the work she was doing on grocery store access in D.C. was in jeopardy, she jumped into action.

A Ward 1 resident and SNAP recipient, Francis has been helping research the barriers low-income families in D.C. and Baltimore face accessing grocery stores since last summer. The project, led by researchers at George Washington University, came to life with help from the DC Food Policy Council. This volunteer coalition of leaders, led by a small staff housed in D.C.’s Office of Planning, was established a decade ago to focus on creating a more equitable and sustainable local food system.

Over the years, the Food Policy Council has worked on a range of issues, like leading the effort to get low-income students who rely on school lunches extra food over the summer, shaping legislation that made it easier to start farmers markets in neighborhoods that lack fresh produce, and helping coordinate emergency food distribution at the beginning of the pandemic. This year, however, may be the council’s last as Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed budget would eliminate it.“A budget is a moral document,” said Francis. “What you budget in the government sets a priority, not only for policy decisions, but also it tells the public, ‘This is what we care about.’”

As the city grapples with the economic impacts of federal workforce  layoffs and slowed revenue, the Food Policy Council is far from the only part of the government facing cuts. Following her report of a $1 billion dollar budget gap, Bowser’s proposed cuts include nearly eliminating a fund that helps boost the pay of child care workers, reducing funds for universal paid leave by $95 million dollars, and freezing pay increases for D.C. government workers. 

However, after the D.C. Chief Financial Officer freed up $400 million in additional funds, the mayor requested last week that Chairman Phil Mendelson put money towards some of these cuts, including future collective bargaining agreements, childcare family subsidy programs, universal paid leave, and the Housing Trust Production Fund. But the Food Policy Council wasn’t on that list of priorities.

When asked about this decision, the Bowser administration said that “FY27 is a challenging budget year.” 

However, advocates say this work is vital in a city where the ease of getting healthy food depends on where you live. While Ward 3 is home to 17 full-service grocery stores, according to a 2025 report from DC Hunger Solutions, Ward 7 has just 3 (and in Ward 8, it’s only 4). Capital Area Food Bank found that in 2025, 40% of Washingtonians experienced food insecurity, an increase from 38% the previous year. The problem may continue to worsen due to federal workforce layoffs and major changes to public benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), experts say. 

“Why would you get rid of something that's needed for an essential service for the city?” said Patricia Stamper, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in Ward 7, about the Food Policy Council. “Everybody has to eat everyday.”

Stamper works on the same project as Francis, which for her is motivated by the long commutes she and her Ward 7 neighbors often make to put food on the table.

“I shouldn't have to go an hour and 30 minutes out of my way on public transportation, just to get quality food to feed my two children,” she said.

But the Bowser administration said these challenging economic times require tough decisions.

“We delivered a balanced budget that met residents’ most pressing needs, focusing on education, public safety, core services like trash and roads, protecting healthcare for residents, and growing the District’s economy,” said a spokesperson from the Office of the City Administrator (OCA). 

There also doesn’t seem to be an appetite from the Office of Planning (OP) to keep the Food Policy Council and its staff in their department. During a May budget hearing, OP Director Anita Cozart said the direction of the Food Policy Council shifted after the pandemic, when they started focusing on expanding federal food assistance and supporting values-based procurement  — which is outside of OP’s work on land use regulation.

“Those are important to District residents,” said Cozart. “They are also substantially the function of other agencies, and not core to our functions at OP,” adding that it was difficult for OP to justify the operational support. 

Still, the elimination concerned councilmembers, and Chairman Phil Mendelson questioned Cozart why the office wasn’t just moved to a different agency.

Councilmember Christina Henderson, who chairs the Committee on Health, was particularly surprised by the cut, given recent efforts to increase the office’s work. In March, the D.C. Council held a hearing on legislation that would expand the authority of the Food Policy Council to ensure that all government agencies who buy food are meeting certain nutritional, economic, and environmental standards.

“We thought that this would be really good work,” said Henderson, who co-sponsored the legislation. “And then to have the proposal to cut the office … it was definitely very surprising.” 

To the average person, the work of the Food Policy Council might seem a little wonky, but Henderson said it’s had real consequences. 

That includes helping bring SUN Bucks to D.C., a federal program that provides $120 for qualifying students to get food during the summer months, when they can’t rely on school lunches for a nutritious meal. This resulted in the District receiving over $7 million federal dollars for 58,000 kids in 2024. The council was also central to the Farmers Market Support Act, which helps bring farmers markets to low-access food areas through grants and discounted permitting fees.“If you use a farmers market, regardless of where you are in D.C., then you also care about the DC Food Policy Council,” she said.

At multiple budget hearing meetings in April and May, a wide range of groups urged the D.C. Council to restore the Food Policy Council’s funding. 

Local farming network 4PFoods called the Food Policy Council “instrumental” in passing the Healthy Students Amendment Act, which incentivized schools to ensure more kids from high-need schools were eating breakfast. Health equity nonprofit DC Greens wrote that the Food Policy Council’s leadership in health equity, food access, and interagency coordination helped their Produce Rx program succeed, which supplies Medicaid enrollees with monthly funds to buy fresh produce.

One resident testified that her small food business wouldn’t exist without the Food Policy Council.

“They were kind of instrumental in answering our questions and encouraging us from the get-go,” said Nina Hamedani, a Ward 4 resident and owner of baklava pop-up, The Persian Table. 

Hamedani also told The 51st that the Food Policy Council’s monthly meetings are where she received information on important policy updates, like a recent law change that expanded the types of markets that food producers like Hamedani can sell to. She added that another big boost to starting her business was when Caroline Howe, the director of the Food Policy Council, helped get her connected to a food business mentor.

But last month, Howe was let go from her position, a move that Councilmember Henderson suspects was related to Howe’s advocacy to restore the Food Policy Council’s funding.

“You can't say it was because of the work product, because they were doing what they were supposed to do, they were competent in terms of the expertise, they had brought together agencies to move the ball forward,” said Henderson. 

When asked about Howe’s removal, the OCA spokesperson said the city does not comment on personnel matters.

They added that food policy “remains important to the District and will continue across multiple agencies,” citing two ongoing initiatives: Nourish DC, a public-private partnership that has distributed over $1.5 million dollars in grants to help fund local-owned food businesses, and the Office of Urban Agriculture, which has multiple programs to help residents get funding for their urban farms.  

But years of advocacy by the Food Policy Council was the origin story of Nourish DC, wrote Alison Powers, the director of economic opportunities at the Nourish DC Collaborative, in her testimony to a Committee of the Whole’s budget hearing. “Nourish DC has relied on the FPC’s deep expertise in local food systems,” Powers added in her testimony. “It was devastating to hear the FPC would be cut.”

Advocates are also worried about cutting the Food Policy Council right as new changes to SNAP take place. Starting this month, some SNAP recipients in D.C. are now required to prove that they’re working or volunteering at least 80 hours a month (such work requirements have historically been used to reduce the amount of people on public assistance programs). The Food Policy Council had been working with D.C.’s Department of Human Services to reach out to job training providers, in order to help SNAP recipients meet the new requirements and keep their benefits.

At a May council budget hearing on the Office of Planning (OP), Councilmember Henderson asked OP Director Cozart if she knew which agency would take on the work of communicating SNAP eligibility requirements and organizing on-the-ground food distribution efforts, if the Food Policy Council were to be dissolved. “At the moment, I do not,” said Cozart, but added that there are staff who can take on that work in the interim. 

In her newsletter, Henderson wrote that Bower’s budget is cutting “critical health programs, including for behavioral health services, maternal and child health, healthy food access, and more. 

Under her leadership, the Committee on Health is advocating to restore funding for the Food Policy Council and to move it under DC Health, which Henderson said is mission-aligned because “food policy is essential to public health.” 

The next steps are up to the D.C. Council, which will take its first vote on the budget on June 9.

Ultimately, advocates like Francis say that the Food Policy Council is doing work the city needs more of, not less. “This is actually about food access across the District for everyone,” she said. “We all honestly have something to lose here, and it's important that people know that.”