It’s no secret that shelter and sustenance are essential to everyone’s lives. Unfortunately, in Los Angeles County, hundreds of thousands of individuals have to choose between the two. Fortunately, there are resources like the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and its Partner Agency Network to help provide food assistance, and with some agencies, both.
Hollywood Community Housing is among the hundreds of nonprofit organizations that partner with the Food Bank to provide food assistance to its community. Additionally, neighbors who qualify to live in one of their buildings also qualify to receive food assistance, receiving the same amount of food their community receives.
Weekly, Rylee Page and Deborah de la Fuente, staff at Hollywood Community Housing, prepare bags of groceries to distribute to the community and its tenants. With 97% of the food coming out of the Food Bank rated as nutritious, the dozens of neighbors that visit the Hollywood Community Housing can rest assured that they are receiving nutritious food. Each food recipient can expect to receive meat, chicken, rice, beans, and almonds at each distribution.
“Just being able to see the impact that this food pantry has on the community is very positive,” said de la Fuente.
“Being able to give out the food that the Food Bank provides is great because oftentimes we have families with little kids that come, and the fact that we can give them that food is a great thing to do,” she added.
While items at the grocery store and rent continue to increase in price, the senior community is forced to continuously reconsider their monthly budget to fit into their fixed income.
Maria de Jesus is among those seniors who are looking at stretching their budget the most that they can. By attending the distribution at Hollywood Community Housing, she’s getting essential items that she can make the most of. For example, if Maria receives almonds, she can use them as snacks, but she can also make almond milk at home that otherwise she would have to purchase at the grocery store.
“This helps me because things are getting really expensive, so this helps us more, that way, we don’t have to spend a lot at the grocery store,” said Maria.