Miniard Culpepper holds a sign at a protest opposing the pending closure of the Walgreens Pharmacy on Warren Street in January 2024. Now District 7 City Councilor, Culpepper filed an ordinance April 1 that would create a new city fund would provide financial support to new and existing independent pharmacies.

It’s a hard time to be a local pharmacy. It’s something that Uche Egesionu, manager at the independent Nubian Square pharmacy Kornfield, knows all too well: an unforgiving reimbursement system through insurance companies, rising commercial rent prices and thefts have left many stores like his struggling or shuttered.

Owners often must pay out of their own pockets to keep stores open. To make sure that other staff like the business’ pharmacist gets paid, Egesionu said he hasn’t been paid for his work in the store “for a very long while.”

Now, as communities face gaps left by local as well as chain pharmacies, a proposed city fund might bring a glimmer of hope for local providers like Egesionu.

“These are people that love to stay within the community, and they love to provide this service,” Egesionu said of local, independent pharmacists. “Us having backup is an acknowledgement of the hardship and the dedication to the communities that we serve.”

Pharmacies, chain and local alike, have faced challenges and closures in recent years. According to data from the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission (MHPC), a state agency focused on health care costs and health disparities, 42 stores have closed in Boston since 2018, while 26 have opened in that time. In that time, the number of local pharmacies stayed about level — 15 stores closed while 14 opened — while chain pharmacies closed at twice the rate they opened.

Many of those closures impacted communities of color in particular. Almost 20 of the chain and local store closures were in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park and East Boston.

The Pharmacy Stabilization and Access Fund was introduced by District 7 City Councilor Miniard Culpepper through a proposed ordinance at the April 1 Boston City Council hearing.

“This legislation will breathe new life into those mom-and-pop pharmacies that are being challenged right now, especially when it comes to expanding and building their capacity,” Culpepper said in an interview.

In addition to providing financial assistance to existing independent pharmacies, the fund would also foster the start-up of new ones. The fund would also support nonprofit operators and pharmacies that work in partnership with hospitals and community-based health care providers.

Exactly what the proposed city fund, which would be managed by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), would support isn’t yet defined. But Culpepper said he envisions the dollars going to operational costs like paying for rent or staff salaries.

“Just the cost of doing business as a pharmacy is challenging, and so I think my goal is to support the needs of a pharmacy,” Culpepper said. “I think part of this would allow the [BPHC] to talk to the pharmacies so that they can help ascertain what they need to increase their capacity and stay afloat.”

Egesionu said the funds could also be useful for costs supporting services like deliveries to patients and to close gaps in reimbursement for medications, though Culpepper said he imagines the fund probably would not support those costs.

Financial support for the pharmacies would mean bolstering businesses that Culpepper said are an important tool for increasing equitable access to health care.

“Pharmacies are a lot more than just a place where you pick up your medication,” Culpepper said.

“Pharmacies are a place where you get your vaccinations, a place where you get health care advice and guidance from a pharmacist.”

Egesionu said that pharmacists tend to have enough medical knowledge to properly connect patients with needed treatments. And he said local pharmacies often are well trusted in the community. At Kornfield Drug, for instance, he said they not only know many customers by name, but have known what their parents and grandparents used to take.

“Being a Black or African American male, the community doesn’t really trust doctors; they don’t have that same issue with pharmacists. Immigrants can’t always find their way to a doctor; they don’t have an issue finding a pharmacist,” Egesionu said. “The accessibility is just on a different level.”

In a statement, a BPHC spokesperson said pharmacies are “key to protecting health and promoting health equity,” and that “Pharmacy closures are a serious public health issue and we look forward to continued conversations about policy and approaches to ensure that residents have equitable access to everything pharmacies provide.”

For Culpepper, the proposed ordinance is the latest in a series of efforts to support pharmacy access in Boston’s communities of color. In 2024, when a Walgreens store on Warren Street just outside Nubian Square was slated to close, Culpepper helped lead a community response that delayed the store’s closure and raised awareness of the local concerns.

It also builds on previous city efforts to support local pharmacies. In 2024, in response to the Warren Street Walgreens closure, the city launched a partnership with the civil rights nonprofit Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts and Lyft to provide up to five $25 credits for Lyft rides to connect seniors to health services, including trips to the pharmacy.

In December 2025 the City Council passed a petition asking the state regulators to increase the amount of public notice pharmacies have to give when permanently closing a store from two weeks to four months.

The trend in local pharmacies shuttering has also opened discussion of pharmacy deserts — and what counts as one. In urban contexts, the BPHC defines a pharmacy desert as a census block group where 5% or less of its area has a pharmacy within one mile. According to an October report from the commission, about 5.3% of census block groups in Suffolk County were pharmacy deserts and another 8.5% were vulnerable to becoming pharmacy deserts. When the Warren Street Walgreens closed, city officials identified six stores, many of them local independent pharmacies within about a mile of the shuttered location.

But Culpepper said that, for him, the use of the term “pharmacy desert” is less about specific distances and more about capturing the challenges faced by a community.

The now-closed Warren Street Walgreens has left residents, especially elderly residents and those without access to a vehicle, facing challenges about accessing health care.

“The fact of the matter is, there’s nothing within the area [a] person can walk to that has a full-service pharmacy,” Culpepper said.

He hopes his proposed ordinance will change that, especially for communities of color.

“This is about equity, public health and making sure our neighborhoods have the resources they need in order to thrive,” Culpepper said.