Recap of LA Foodscapes convening on Feeding Our Housing Insecure Angelenos
Feeding Our Housing Insecure Angelenos
The Los Angeles Food Policy Council (LAFPC) hosted it’s third LA Foodscapes event in the 5-part series on Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at the Huffington Center. Together we explored ways to create a more equitable food system for community members dealing with different intersections of housing insecurity.
We hosted 11 speakers whose expertise on the topic ranged from personal lived experience to long-time advocacy and service of the homeless community in Los Angeles. The direction of the important conversation was supported by our advisory group including LA Community Action Network, Hunger Action LA, Polo’s Pantry, Everytable, and Vesta Food Service. The event also included organizations who serve unhoused community members who tabled to share resources and build connections.
The event started with a welcome from LAFPC’s Executive Director, Alba Velasquez, encouraging those in attendance to help continue this conversation to collectively find impactful solutions to the issues Angelenos face in not only accessing healthy food when dealing with housing insecurity, but also finding sustainable ways to cook and store food.
Mini Documentary Screeining
To kickoff the event, we featured a short documentary that included the stories and lived experience of Shameka Foster, Lacy Sponsler and BJ Nowlin in dealing with the barriers to healthy food access while navigating through precarious situations ranging from living on the street to the city’s Inside Safe program that provides access to a temporary living space but no access to cooking areas. The documentary also highlights Todd Cunningham of LA Community Action Network and Frank Tamborello of Hunger Action LA who provide critical services for housing insecure angelenos seeking healthy food options.
Storytelling Session
Following the mini documentary screening, we heard from Suzette Shaw whose lived experience dealing with homelesses and dietary related health issues brought on by the lack of an adequate healthy diet helped bring more light to what many angelenos face daily when navigating housing insecurity. Suzette shared her experiences in Skid Row, from a woman’s perspective. Living off of $221 per year, on general relief for 5 years and surviving with EBT.
“We’re a food dessert, we’re a water dessert. People prey on the fact that they know most of us are living off of limited income and that we also have EBT cards. So they jack up the prices really high and then the food is expired.” -Suzzette Shaw
Fireside Chat
Todd Cunninham of LA Community Action Network hosted a fireside chat with Nathanie Etinoffe who shared her lived experience living on the streets of Los Angeles to eventually finding support through the Hollywood Food Coalition. She also expressed her concerns related to the types of foods served throughout soup kitchens that included rotten, greasy and processed foods that didn’t support her health and well-being while navigating homelessness. Todd Cunningham also shared on the layers and nuances of housing insecurity of people experiencing homelessness, interim housing, and permanent supportive housing.
“I'm constantly having to dab, use the napkin in my kitchen cutlery, to dab off the amount of oil the hashbrowns are drenched with when they are served. There just comes a point where I can’t continue to eat hash browns, because that is where the oil stays on my chest and it makes it uncomfortable for me.” -Nathanie Etinoffe
Nathanie leading a sing along at the end of the fireside chat of the chorus of Fight Song by Rachel Platten.
"This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
Starting right now, I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care if nobody else believes
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me"
Panel Discussion
The panel discussion moderated by Eric Ares who serves as the Housing and Homelessness Director of Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez opened up the conversation by sharing about his work serving the homeless community of Los Angeles and then went on to introduce each of the panelists before diving into the questions.
Panelists were asked about the intersections of housing instability and food security along with systemic changes they believe are critical to address the issues at hand. The also expresses how art and storytelling serve as a means of expression of community culture along with communicating the real lived experience of our community members dealing with extreme challenges.
“I would like to point something that has changed, have made a very major tectonic shift and that is with the passage of the Supreme Court ruling the Grants Pass. For those that don’t know what the Grants Pass is, it is the legalized way of justifying the erasure and the extermination of unhoused people and giving the license to authority figures such as law enforcement, city council members to let loose and to target unhoused people.” -Theo Henderson
The event panelists from left to right: Eric Ares, Housing and Homelessness Director of Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez; Alba Velasquez, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council; Ashley Bennett, Director of Homelessness at the LA City Controller’s Office; Theo Henderson Host of We The Unhoused podcast; Kayo Anderson, Development/Artistic Director of The Creating Justice Artivist Village; Danny Park, Founder and current market director of Skid Row People’s Market.
“Every phase of being unhoused, and then working through the re housing process, food instability is an issue. When people fall into homelessness and are living on the streets, it is a day to day battle to gain access to basic survival needs. And that ranges from finding a place to shelter yourself from the elements, to finding a place to use the restroom, to finding a place to get food. And that is not necessarily nutritious food, it’s whatever food that you can get your hands on to sustain yourself and hopefully survive. And it’s a day to day battle. Then the next subside of the journey, which is interim housing, people move in and there is an expectation that that burden of having to find food will be alleviated, at least in part, because most programs are required to serve 3 meals per day. When they actually move into these programs, they are finding that these meals are inadequate. I’ve known so many people, over the years, who aren’t able to actually partake in those meals because of dietary restrictions or food related illnesses.” -Ashley Bennett
Closing Conversation
Melissa Acedera of Polo’s Pantry and Home-y Made Meals closed out the event with an introduction to her work to serve housing insecure angelenos through community building and healthy food access. She opened up the floor to hear from grassroots organizers and mutual aid organizations on the efforts they are making to create lasting change. They shared stories of lived experience along with community based paths to healing through food, art, gardening, and storytelling.
“There is still a real lack of place to get fresh food in Skid Row. So you think about what that looks like, and if you go up and down (i’ll just use) 5th Avenue, for example. There is one restaurant in Skid Row, that serves non fast food, sort of. That takes EBT, right. And it is important that it takes EBT because there is a hot meal program on EBT that a lot of houseless folks use all the time. And the restaurants that they generally give is Jack n the Box, but you cannot go to another restaurant down in Skid Row where you want to have fresh food and get food.” -Kayo Anderson
The series is designed to catalyze transformative action within LA's diverse food ecosystem. As a backbone organization, LAFPC collaborates with a multitude of sector organizations on various topics that contribute to food equity. We aim to bridge community-based organizations with elected offices, fostering meaningful conversations that not only provoke thought but also lead to actionable next steps.
“It is not that we are trying to be difficult. Unhoused people have a right to have a choice in different foods. Some days I want a steak, some days I want some ribs too. Sometimes I get pushback saying, “beggars can’t be choosers, you just take what you got.” Well, if I take what I got I'm gonna go into a diabetic coma. So, I cannot always eat what you offer us.” -Theo Henderson
By bringing together leaders and the community at the various intersections of food, the series emphasizes equity, stewardship, and innovation. Each event is an opportunity to engage in discourses that not only enlighten but also empower attendees to enact change, ensuring that every discussion translates into practical and impactful outcomes for our food systems.
“The government still has so much resources, but really we’re kind of not in the light of what’s happening abroad. The government and the military are going abroad in different countries, in the name of the United States of America. And we’re all just trying to scrap and survive here.” -Danny Park
Thank you to our sponsors for making this event possible:
Special thank you to Cedars-Sinai for seed funding the inaugural 2024 series.
