With the cost of food, rent, and other necessities going up, families sometimes can’t afford to spend on health care, the mayor said.

Mayor Michelle Wu and Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the city’s public health commissioner, said the funding will go toward housing, nutrition programs, financial literacy, and job training.

The City of Boston will give $5 million in grant funding to four community coalitions to address racial and ethnic health care disparities in Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury, officials said Monday.

“It means making sure that a mom can afford to feed her kids, access the doctor for those kids, make it to work on time and pay her rent without feeling like she’s one [medical] visit away from being underwater,” Wu said, speaking at a press conference at the Great Hall at the Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester.

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The grant money, provided by the Atrius Health Equity Foundation, will also be used to address disparities such as the gap in life expectancy among residents of the three neighborhoods, officials said.

“If you zoom out and look at our city as a whole, we have concerning disparities by race. Life expectancy amongst Black people as a whole is seven years lower than other Bostonians,” Ojikutu said. “ We believe that how long you live should not depend upon your race or ethnicity or your zip code.”

And, when it comes to health in Boston, two miles makes a big difference.

Some residents in Back Bay have a life expectancy of 92 years, but just two miles away, residents near Nubian Square in Roxbury have a life expectancy of 69 years, according to a 2023 report by the city’s public health commission.

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The 23-year gap is just one of several issues identified by the commission facing residents, research shows.

The main causes for premature death in Boston are cardiometabolic diseases, cancer, and unintentional drug overdoses, according to the public health commission. Of these, diabetes, heart disease, and related disorders affect Bostonians of color at a higher rate. Heart disease mortality was 37 percent higher for Black residents compared to white residents in 2021, according to city data.

Wu noted that the city was prioritizing spending to address health, as President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” will cut Medicaid coverage and reduce funding for community health centers.

“We are doubling down in the face of a federal administration that is clawing back access to critical life-changing resources, that’s canceling research that will save lives, and who passed a bill that is certainly not beautiful,” Wu said.

Each coalition is made up of three nonprofits that will team up to address critical issues underlying the disparities in health care.

For example, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, Link Health, and the Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center will collaborate on a project where Boys and Girls Club alumni will be trained to meet Dorchester residents at health centers to help them access financial assistance benefits.

“Every single night in my emergency room, I see patients living on less than $20,000 a year making decisions between medications and food,” said Dr. Alister Martin of Link Health. “Young folks from Boys and Girls Club … will meet people where they’re at, in the waiting rooms, and enroll them in these cash assistance programs.”

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Wu said that the city wanted to give out the funding to coalitions so that the work of different nonprofits could be better coordinated.

“I think the way that a lot of cities would have done this, even with the same amount of resources … is to put 15 different grants out the door and hope that it adds up,” Wu said. “But this is about launching new and needed coalitions.”

The coalitions each received $200,000 to fund the first year of their projects. They will each be awarded the remaining $1,050,000 over the next two years.

For Christine Sinclair, a registered dietitian who works at Stop and Shop in Grove Hall, the collaboration among the Boys & Girls Club, the Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center, and Link Health means that more patients will get access to healthy food.

Sinclair currently runs a program funded by the city’s public health commission where she provides education to roughly 35 patients with diabetes and helps them make healthier choices while buying groceries.

“We track their A1C levels and we’ve definitely seen progress,” Sinclair said, referring to blood sugar levels.

In other projects, Upham’s Community Care will deploy mobile health vans in the community, the Dorchester Food Co-op will give residents access to healthy food, and the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation will provide financial literacy courses.

“We’ll be able to meet community members where they live, where they go to school, where they congregate and try to bring the services to them,” said Jagdeep “Jay” Trivedi, chief executive officer of Upham’s Corner Health Center.

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Immigrant Family Services Institute, the True Care Alliance Center, and the Massachusetts Association of Haitian Parents will collaborate to provide job training for 50 community health workers and for 500 immigrants hoping to enter the health care, biotechnology, early childhood education, and hospitality industries.

“We will be providing access, because in Mattapan this is something that we do not have,” said Dr. Geralde Gabeau, founder and executive director of the institute. “We’re going to provide English classes, computer classes, and … help our young people think of jobs of the future.”

The Community Builders, Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation, and Talbot Norfolk Triangle Neighbors United will team up to help eligible Dorchester residents build credit and find stable housing. The money will also be used to expand The Community Builders’ food pantry.

Angela Mathew can be reached at angela.mathew@globe.com.