Leo Del Rosario was renting house in a buddy’s Panorama Metropolis condo for $900 a month. However since recovering from coronary heart valve surgical procedure final yr, he’s solely labored sporadically as a nurse’s aide.
So every part is tight, together with the meals funds.
“To not be overly dramatic,” he mentioned — however he has realized the right way to stretch a jar of peanut butter. “You do what you need to do, proper?”
Del Rosario thanks driver Esthela Lopez for a latest field of meals. “It’s not only a meal supply; it’s a relationship,” says Councilwoman Heather Hutt. “To people who are shut in, that’s essential.”
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
On July 1, Del Rosario, 60, got here up with one other method to minimize prices. He moved out of the condo and started renting a room in a close-by four-bedroom home. “This was $100 cheaper,” he mentioned exterior his new dwelling on a latest morning.
His funds continues to be tight, although, so the weekly supply of free meals via L.A.’s Fast Response Senior Meals Program has been a lifeline.
California is about to be hit by an getting old inhabitants wave, and Steve Lopez is using it. His column focuses on the blessings and burdens of advancing age — and the way some people are difficult the stigma related to older adults.
However now that program — which has delivered frozen meals to as many as 5,800 homebound individuals 60 and older every week since late final yr, with 1,400 extra on a ready checklist — is scheduled to get chopped on the finish of August.
As if on cue, the meals supply van’s battery died after pulling as much as Del Rosario’s dwelling the morning I met him.
So what’s he going to do?
There’s all the time peanut butter, he mentioned. He additionally is aware of from rising up within the Philippines the right way to take some rice, add a little bit of fish or brisket, and make it final, though escalating meals costs don’t assist. He’ll name on family and friends, too, however strive to not develop into a burden.
Del Rosario checks out a part of a latest supply. “How we deal with our aged is a mirrored image of ourselves and our society,” he says.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
“I’ll pray God’s grace, work exhausting, and implore Metropolis Corridor” to rethink, Del Rosario mentioned. “How we deal with our aged is a mirrored image of ourselves and our society.”
Councilmember Heather Hutt agrees, and mentioned she isn’t prepared to surrender on extending this system, regardless that it’s already winding down and a proposal to maintain it alive is all however useless in a Metropolis Council funds committee.
“I’m on the lookout for it to be rescheduled for a extra sturdy dialog, so I can combat for it,” Hutt advised me. “I’m not giving up.”
This system has price about $11 million at a time when metropolis leaders have needed to make robust funds selections. A model of this system started throughout the pandemic, however “it was by no means meant to proceed in perpetuity,” a spokesman for Metropolis Councilmember Bob Blumenfield advised The Instances earlier this yr.
One argument for its discontinuation is that a number of different meals applications exist, together with each day meals at senior facilities. However that doesn’t work for Hutt, whose district consists of components of Koreatown, Mid-Metropolis and South L.A.
“There are loads of seniors that may’t get to senior facilities,” mentioned Hutt, who has extra program recipients (634) in her district than every other besides Councilmember Kevin de Leon’s 14th District (which has 659). “And it’s not only a meal supply; it’s a relationship” with the driving force who drops off the meals, she mentioned. “To people who are shut in, that’s essential.”
In a report back to the Metropolis Council on June 24, the L.A. Division of Growing older mentioned it deliberate to refer meal recipients to different applications or to meals pantries, however acknowledged that these choices could possibly be problematic for these with transportation points, and for senior facilities that may’t take up the brand new demand.
“Some applications are fee-based, with a sliding scale relying on the senior’s means to pay, some could have restricted home-delivery choices, and a few could present solely pick-up choices,” Jaime H. Pacheco-Orozco, common supervisor of the town Division of Growing older, mentioned in his report.
He famous that “almost 1 / 4 of older adults in Los Angeles subsist on incomes which might be at or beneath 150% of poverty degree,” and mentioned that “over time, malnutrition results in poor well being outcomes, longer hospital stays, and better well being prices for seniors.” That’s notably true in neighborhoods with excessive concentrations of Black and Latino residents.
“What I fear about is that we’re pulling the rug out from beneath a program with out different issues in place,” mentioned Kayla de la Haye, a USC affiliate professor and director of the college’s Dornsife Institute for Meals System Fairness. “As rich individuals particularly transition to meals supply and simpler entry to meals, we see shops closing” in lower-income L.A. neighborhoods.
The meals van that conked out at Del Rosario’s home was from Revolution Meals, one of many distributors within the metropolis’s supply program. Chief Government Dominic Engels advised me that if this system dies, it should at the least have helped “heighten the extent of consciousness for what the true want is” in a metropolis with excessive charges of poverty and meals insecurity amongst older adults.
Del Rosario’s supply today included a turkey burger with candy potatoes and peas, pork lo mein, a beef burrito bowl, hen Alfredo with pasta and zucchini, hen with brown rice and inexperienced beans, and contemporary fruit and milk.
David Greenwald, 68, counts on the weekly field of meals, delivered right here by Revolution Meals’ Esthela Lopez. “We don’t surrender. We don’t complain,” says Greenwald, a former New Yorker.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Whereas Del Rosario peeked into the field, an AAA service truck arrived to leap the supply wagon’s battery. The subsequent cease was the Mid-Metropolis dwelling of David Greenwald, 68, a advertising and marketing communications specialist who lives in an adjunct dwelling unit.
“The large problem for me is admittedly in meals preparation,” says Greenwald, seen taking a supply to his kitchen. He struggles to make his personal meals resulting from a stroke three years in the past.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Greenwald has had left-side paralysis since he suffered a stroke three years in the past. He advised me in his kitchen that as a former New Yorker, his perspective is to neither give up nor complain. However attending to the grocery retailer, hauling meals dwelling in his backpack, and cooking are huge challenges.
“The large problem for me is admittedly in meals preparation, as a result of clearly, if you happen to solely have management over one hand, it’s very exhausting,” he mentioned.
The weekly supply of 5 meals enormously simplifies his life.
“You set it within the microwave, and in 5 minutes, it’s prepared,” Greenwald mentioned.
In June, quite a lot of meal recipients despatched pleas to the Metropolis Council asking for this system to be continued.
“I’m a bodily disabled senior aged 75. I can’t drive and public transportation is harmful,” one recipient wrote. “If these dwelling deliveries are stopped, I’ll certainly starve.”
One other remark got here from Harvard Heights resident Susan Richey, 76, who wrote that she prioritizes her hire to keep away from turning into homeless. However that squeezes her meals funds, so “it was a godsend” to find the meal supply program.
“I by no means anticipated outdated age to … be a battle between paying hire and shopping for meals,” Susan Richey, 76, wrote to the Metropolis Council. She eagerly awaits the meal deliveries to the boarding home the place lives in a tiny shared unit.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
I visited Richey on the 30-unit rooming home the place she pays $925 a month for a mattress in a tiny shared unit. She mentioned she’d must stroll a mile and a half to get to a senior heart, however that may be harmful in a neighborhood with lots of people residing on the road. There’s a market close by, however meals is dear, Richey added.
“I can’t get meals stamps as a result of my revenue is greater than $2,000 a month” from a small pension and Social Safety, she advised me. So she depends upon the meals supply, particularly as a result of it all the time consists of fruit and veggies. “It’s sufficient to maintain me.”
“My challenges in outdated age are getting harder, and the nervousness and stress this causes me is sapping my power and will-power,” Richey wrote in her public feedback for the Metropolis Council. “I by no means anticipated outdated age to … be a battle between paying hire and shopping for meals.”
steve.lopez@latimes.com
