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Asset Mapping
Asset mapping is a technique used to identify the strengths and gaps in a community. By visually illustrating characteristics and services of a community, we can determine a community's needs and direct program planning accordingly.
Community Mapping is an excellent tool to celebrate a community's resources, and provide keen insight for directed program planning.
In cooperation with the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) Geography Department, several Food Access Maps were produced in 2002, and were updated in 2005. The first map shows a number of things including socioeconomic data, population of children under 6, and the locations of grocery stores and food initiatives. The second map shows the proportion of income required to provide healthy food for a family in our city.
Cost of Nutrition Food Basket in Prince George as a Proportion of Annual Income
Average Household Income, Population of Children 0-6 years,
and Locations of Grocery Stores and Food Initiatives
The map also shows the location of Food Initiatives, which include community gardens, community kitchens, food box depots, and food banks. These are all programs or projects that support families to access foods outside of grocery stores.
To meet the needs of families best, food initiatives should be operated in the most accessible locations to allow all families to easily access the food they need.
This map can be used by different community groups or concerned individuals to evaluate and plan food access projects. For example, a 2002 version of this map was used by Children First, Prince George Native Friendship Centre, Carney Hill Neighbourhood Centre, and Community Gardens Prince George to plan and implement a second community garden in the city. Based on the income data, the population of 0 – 6 year olds, and the location of other food initiatives, a location was chosen to meet the needs of the community.
- This map compares by Enumeration Area or EA, a small area composed of one or more neighbouring blocks, used by Statistics Canada for distributing questionnaires to households and dwellings (census collection). It compares the annual household income, the number of children under 6 years and the location of grocery stores and food initiatives (which includes food banks, community gardens, weekly food basket depots, monthly good food box depots, community kitchens, and farmers’ markets)
- This map focuses on the bowl area of Prince George, since most of our children and resources are there.
- The different shades of green illustrate a range of average annual household income for that EA (census data 1996)
- The black dots show the population of children under 6 years. The larger the dot, the more kids there are in that EA.
- The grocery stores (including Save-On Foods, Superstore, Extra Foods, and Shoppers Wholesale) are shown by a yellow triangle.
- The food initiatives are shown with a red star. Note that there are several stars in the downtown core - these are mostly food banks and program based community kitchens. The one star in the upper left hand corner of the downtown area actually represents 5 initiatives - they are all offered in the same building.
- School Meal Programs are differentiated by a blue flag.
Cost of Nutrition Food Basket in Prince George as a Proportion of Annual Income
The map below shows how much of their income families in each area would need to spend to eat a diet of healthy foods everyday. One of the challenges of this map is that it was necessary to use information about income from 2001 National Census data, and match it with more recent local information on the cost of food in Prince George. This might not give us a very accurate picture of what is actually going on, but it's a great start!
Research shows that most families have expenses they need to pay for before food - things like rent or mortgage payments, utility payments, transportation and clothing. Often, food is bought only after these expenses are paid for, and sometimes that means not being able to buy all the foods, or the kinds of foods that are needed for good health. This is especially important for women who are pregnant, and young children.
This map shows that there are some areas where families might need to spend between 13 and 20 percent of their income on food to meet their health needs. These are areas where we might need to think about providing programs or initiatives that increase access to healthy, affordable foods.
- This map shows the approximate proportion of income that WOULD be spent on food IF a family of 3 in each EA purchased a nutritious food basket, as well as the locations of our food initiatives to see if we are matching the resources to the need.
- A nutritious food basket contains enough food to a ‘representative family’ of 3 based on census demographics from 2001. The cost of the food basket is an average of all family types.
- The cost of nutritious food is determined annually in several cities in B.C., and prices are averaged from three local stores. After all the math is done, there is a dollar amount for each gender for each age range, so that we can “create” a family of 3 and add up their weekly nutritious food costs and get a family food cost. These values are reported in a publication called “The Cost of Eating in B.C.”.
- According the Cost of Eating in B.C. report, families with low income may spend as much as 35% of their income on food. This is significant when you recognize that the average Canadian spends less than 10% of their take home income on food.
- This map shows that some families in Prince George would have to spend nearly 20% of their income each year to access healthy food – certainly an issue for concern.
- As can be seen, however, Prince George has made an effort to match food initiatives with greatest need. In fact, food access maps from 2002 directly influenced the development of a food initiative in the dark green area on the map – the Queensway Community Garden!
