With the changes in state funding to housing and the movement of impoverished groups in the 1930s, East Oakland became an area where poorer people lived which also resulted in a major loss of industry as businesses and markets started to close down and relocate to more financially sustainable areas. As time went on, supermarkets and other businesses saw East Oakland as an “undesirable place for residential and commercial investment” so few new stores opened up in place of the ones that left. The smaller commercial stores that did stick around were forced to raise the prices of their food and focus more on selling alcohol and tobacco products to stay afloat. In the flatlands of East Oakland there are only four supermarkets and over 40 liquor stores. Alcohol was easy to sell and made the stores more money, but the number of liquor stores is proportional to the levels of crime in violence in the area. Additionally, the majority of the population of East Oakland are Latinos and African Americans, both groups who have higher predisposition to alcohol-related diseases.