I tend to hear interesting tidbits about food and agriculture on a daily basis. You know, things that make me think, “Wow! That is really cool/weird/interesting/sad/exciting.” Never prepared enough to whip out my pen and tiny notebook, I try to flag them in my mind, promising myself I’ll remember to post about it later.
It’s a flawed system.
Anyway, in a freak turn of events I’m posting about one of these interesting tidbits. Running our donation program here out of our organic produce company, I work with a lot of food shelters and missions here in downtown LA. Obviously, L.A has a pretty massive homeless population -something to the tune of 73,000- 82,000 people are homeless on a given night. 41% of the people on the street have only become homeless in the last year- is that surprising to anyone besides me?!
So that got me to thinking, if 41% of homeless people in LA are homeless only in the last year, and we’re seeing great shifts in job losses over the course of the last 4-5 months with the economic crisis, how many more people are hitting the streets and depending on shelters for food?
The Downtown Womens Shelter serves between 100-150 meals per day- their increase in the last 4-5 months of folks trying to access their services for meals has grown by 13%. A similar stress has been placed on other feeding centers like the L.A Mission (who serve close close to a thousand meals a day). The budgets for both of these organizations have been dramatically cut and groups like the LA Mission are having to halve their ability to make pickups for donation (unable to pay drivers, etc.).
This is all complicated by the fact that these centers are being asked to do more with less. As produce companies and grocers tighten their belts, trying to curb overspending and mitigate excess product waste, less and less fresh produce is being donated to these centers each week.
What kills me is that a lot of these centers want to serve more fresh produce (and many have a priority on organic because they know it’s healthier for folks who have a history of substance abuse and are trying to detoxify) - not less fruits and vegetables. What was a bad cycle has turned even worse.
Say it!