Amy Colton stands in line, holding a tag numbered 78, along with 130 other older people in West Hollywood waiting for a bag of vegetables and fruit that will last her for a week. With money tight, this food distribution is one of the ways Colton can get healthy foods on her table.

Colton is 71 years old and lives alone in a studio apartment in West Hollywood. She is a retired preschool teacher for special ed students for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Colton retired at 60 in 2012 and now Colton lives independently with no children or family, but has the company of friends. Colton relies on Medicare and Social Security for support, and with no one to rely on, she has to do what she can for her health.

“I’m having a gum graft surgery next year and my goal is to save up for that. I restricted my spending each week,” Colton said. “The food distribution helps not having to worry too much about my spending on meals and focus on my rent and such.”

Paying over $900 a month on rent, Colton has lived in her apartment building for 13 years. Since she has helped around in the complex, Colton hasn’t received an increase in rent for those years. Though with the added benefit of not paying the average price of a West Hollywood studio, Colton still has to budget.

Lined up in front of the nonprofit Seed of Hope’s distribution site where volunteers pass out fresh tomatoes, onions, spinach and other greens, Colton is one of the millions of individuals from Los Angeles who face food insecurity due to limited funding.

Hunger in numbers

Food insecurity is defined by USC Dornsife, as the lack of access to enough food to live an active, healthy life because of limited money or other resources. A household facing food insecurity has seen a 6 percent increase within Los Angeles County, according to a recent study by the Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research. In 2022, 24% of households faced food insecurity, now it is 30% meaning 3 in 10 households experience food insecurity.

The USC finding, Sept. 2023, found that 1 million L.A. County households are food insecure, almost doubled from Dec. 2021 which had 553,000 households.

A researcher at USC Dorsnife, Kayla de la Haye, began working on the issue in 2020, a couple of months into the pandemic. She found that not a lot of information or data has been collected regarding food insecurity within Los Angeles County, De la Haye said.

“We’ve been tracking food insecurity really frequently in L.A. County to understand the rates, who is most impacted, what is working to address the issue and the gaps in the data,” De la Hayes said, adding that individuals between 18 to 40-year-olds are hit the hardest, due to a possible lack of savings and dependents to care for. “We’ve seen a spike in food insecurity in L.A., especially when the pandemic first hit, but we’ve seen things actually get a lot worse in the last couple of years.”

38 percent of Latine/Hispanic and Black/African American households face food insecurity, the study shows, compared to white households.

“We worked pretty closely with L.A. Regional Food Bank and they were telling us there's way more folks lining up right now,” De la Hayes said. “Looking at low-income folks in the county, food insecurity is now at its worst, we thought things were getting bad, but we didn’t think it would be worse than they were in 2020, during the pandemic.”

Areas of Los Angeles such as East and South L.A., with majority Black and Latinx populations, have significantly higher rates of food insecurity. De la Hayes said that factors that contribute to food insecurity include under-supported neighborhoods, limited public and private transportation, and neighborhoods where stores are closing and don’t have access to healthy food.

De la Hayes helped with the 10-year strategic plan to address food insecurity, one way being to collect data and the impact of current food programs and see where to develop more or relocate. De la Hayes worked with the County of Los Angeles’s Food Equity Roundtable, a coalition of organizations aiming to address food inequities.

The strategic plan aims to help by educating communities on nutrition, helping folks get enrolled in Cal Fresh programs, and supporting urban farmers and local neighborhoods to have better healthy food accessibility.

One program in Los Angeles aiming to remedy food insecurity is the Healthy Neighborhood Market Network, which works with local independent food stores like bodegas and corner store markets. Their goal is to help business owners earn grants and resources and be able to accept CalFresh and EBT cards.

The program works with a dozen liquor stores and small markets within low-income communities and focuses on helping store owners become healthy food advocates and community leaders. Work done also includes marketing and renovations.

The Los Angeles City Council moved to expand the program to Watts and Harbor City on Aug. 19.

“We admire the Healthy Neighborhood Market network’s focus on working within communities,” said Nkemdilim Nwosu, director of communications for Food Forward, a nonprofit organization that distributes food received from California-based farmers markets and local farms.

Even with programs such as Healthy Neighborhood Market Network, individuals who benefit from CalFresh saw a decline in support. At the end of 2020, the average CalFresh user saw a $200 per month decrease. Today the average family receives less than $300 for food, according to De la Haye. This means recipients have about $75 a week for groceries, a steep reduction at a time when the prices of food steadily increase.

“Other big drivers we're seeing is all of the action and help that was being handed out from the pandemic that's now stopped has really impacted folks,” De la Haye said. “In this climate where inflation is high, food prices are high, gas prices are high, there's still a bit of volatility with workers and folks who are on strike. So all those things happening together has pushed food insecurity so much worse than it was pre-pandemic.”

Even with benefits decreasing in programs like CalFresh, outside organizations work with the county to help with food insecurity, such as Seed of Hope.

Steve Trapasso, program manager for Seed of Hope, said when they first started, the organization only did educational work like hosting nutritional classes.“But we took it upon ourselves to do community assessments to see what the real needs were of the community and food access was the biggest need in a lot of these communities.”

Working with fellow organization Food Forward, Trapasso said they get thousands of pounds of food a week to people in Los Angeles, along with putting on nutrition and cooking classes for the community.

Liz Sommer, the senior coordinator at Food Forward, said three programs provide his organization with fresh food. The Backyard Harvest Program’s volunteers gather fruit from Southern California backyards and orchards, while the Farmers Market Recovery Program recovers unsold fruits and vegetables from vendors. Food Forwards Wholesale Recovery Program sources produce from shippers across the country.

“Food Forward is working to prioritize partnerships with communities that are experiencing high rates of chronic food insecurity,” Sommer said. “With food insecurity continuing to rise, we would like to see the city invest in long-term resources dedicated to ensuring that people can afford and have consistent access to healthy food.”

Lending a hand to the community

Andrew Mendez, the distribution coordinator for Seed of Hope, began working for food sites thanks to his mother.

“I was actually unemployed during the pandemic and I had an opportunity where I volunteered at Pico Union Project,” Mendez said, as he handed out bags of vegetables and other goods “My mom would go and pick up produce and she would tell me about these distribution sites, so one day I volunteered for them and I liked it. Now I’m here.”

Helping alongside Mendez is 78-year-old Mark Simmons, a volunteer and resident of Hollywood who got involved through a distribution site in his senior center.

“A food bank happens in the building I live in, which is the Gay and Lesbian Senior Center and I thought it would be a good thing to volunteer and distribute food for people,” Simmons said.

Volunteering for six months, Simmons was driven by one thing to help those in need: empathy.

“Just in Hollywood, all you can see is people laying on the sidewalk and I try to give a few bucks, but here I can do more,” Simmons said.

Packing up the Seed of Hope location in West Hollywood, after distributing to over 100 people, Mendez sets out to the next location.

“Overall helping the community the best we can is the best model. Food insecurity is at a high with homelessness,” Mendez said. “So we just have to take care of our people and provide the resources that individuals may not be aware of. I think it could be a big contribution in the right direction.”