As Federal Budget Cuts Shred the Social Safety Net, St. Joseph Center Ramps Up Support
In a cheery cafe in Venice, Melissa Iles comes off the streets weary and hungry after another night trying to find somewhere safe to lay her head. She is greeted by smiling servers, hot coffee and a meal of pancakes, eggs, home fries and watermelon – a “soothing” experience, she says.
A few blocks away, April Jackson learns the art of “mise en place” – a French culinary practice to gather, measure and organize all recipe ingredients before cooking – as she prepares a quiche. She has fought through depression, alcoholism, unemployment and homelessness to get to this culinary training program – and hopes to transform her life by starting her own cafe based on her mother’s Southern cooking.
Across the courtyard, Rana Kim gratefully receives two bags filled with rice, canned beans, red peppers, pears, apples and other staples from the largest food pantry in the Los Angeles Westside. She is a UCLA graduate in economics, but she hasn’t been able to find a job for the past five years – and said she would be hard-pressed to survive without this weekly food supplement.
“This place is incredible,” Kim said. “It’s heaven sent.”
The Bread and Roses cafe, food pantry and culinary training program are all operated by the same nonprofit: St. Joseph Center in Venice. The center began as a small program providing food and clothing launched 50 years ago by two Catholic nuns, Sister Marilyn Therese Rudy and Sister Louise Bernstein. Over time, the nonprofit has helped more than 400,000 people lift themselves up through its many services, which also include housing, homeless outreach, mental health services and youth and family programs.
Every year, the center helps place nearly 2,500 people into safe, permanent housing; serves 41,500 hot and nutritious meals; graduates 170 people in job training programs and provides more than 29,000 mental health services, according to its data.
The multifaceted work is supported by the California Community Foundation’s newly launched Impact Fund, which provides timely grants for urgent needs as part of its mission to help Angelenos build a good life with access to food, housing, jobs, education, safety, self-advocacy and community wellness and healing.
But St. Joseph is sounding the alarm about major federal and state budget cuts, along with policy changes, that are ripping apart the social safety net and throwing scores of Angelenos off food assistance and potentially housing support this year.
Congressional legislation signed into law last July – H.R. 1, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill” – enacted the largest cuts ever to the federal food assistance program known as CalFresh in California. The federal law eliminated access to CalFresh for some who previously received it, including some refugees, asylum recipients, trafficking survivors and other legal immigrants. It also imposed new requirements for most adults ages 18-64 without a dependent child under 14 to document at least 20 hours a week working, training or volunteering. Exemptions include pregnancy, disability and caretaking for those who are incapacitated.
In Los Angeles County, officials estimate that more than 108,000 residents have already lost CalFresh. And the crisis could deepen this fall, when nearly 260,000 more could lose benefits if they don’t qualify for an exemption or meet the work requirements, which took effect in June but provided a three-month grace period.
Statewide, more than 900,000 CalFresh recipients will be affected, according to the California State Association of Counties.
“We’re in an unprecedented moment as we see resources diminishing from federal and local dollars, while we see needs really increasing,” said Ryan J. Smith, St. Joseph Center president and CEO. “We are at the moment where people are really choosing whether there is a roof over their head or food on their tables. It’s a challenging moment for all of us who are supporting those who are most marginalized.”
Smith said lines at the center’s food pantry have gotten significantly longer, with more seniors on fixed incomes and some people coming in on public transportation from as far away as Lancaster, 70 miles away.
He said St. Joseph will need to launch a “massive education effort” to help people understand the new and complex federal regulations around the tightened eligibility requirements for CalFresh access and other services. The CCF grant will be used to help launch the educational and awareness campaign, support immigrant families and backfill some of the resources Angelenos will lose due to the changes.
“This grant from the California Community Foundation couldn’t have come at a better time,” he said. “It’s going to provide the resources, manpower and tools really needed to get folks educated about this moment and…meet the demand around food, shelter and other vital resources folks need.”
The center also supports nearly 20 permanent housing sites across L.A. County with services and owns and operates La Ramona Community for Families, which provides 17 interim housing units for families in crisis in South L.A. The center opened the site last October, transforming a dilapidated motel into a safe space featuring fresh flower pots, a kitchen equipped with snacks, a laundromat and an activity room with games and a table for family fun or confidential sessions with therapists and other support staff. Three meals are provided daily.
People fleeing from domestic violence, living on the streets, recovering from substance abuse or starting fresh after incarceration have found support at the St. Joseph Center. Not every client succeeds. Some relapse, fall back into drugs or alcohol, return to the streets. Those who have experienced chronic homelessness in particular can find it difficult to reintegrate into society – but that underscores the need for adequate funding for mental health, substance abuse, affordable housing and other resources to help them, center staff say. Overall, however, 90% of the nonprofit’s clients remain housed at least 12 months.
And many are actively rebuilding their lives – including Ricardo Ordaz, one of several student chefs in the culinary training program.
Ordaz said he once had good jobs in construction, dentistry and automotive services but lost them all – along with his marriage – because he was “young and immature.” He ended up on the streets after his parents died and the house was sold. Then he started abusing drugs, he said, as he cycled through several homeless shelters, where he saw one person killed and others die of overdoses.
“That scared me straight,” said Ordaz, who currently lives in low-income housing near Skid Row.
He heard about the culinary training program from a workforce development agency and applied for admission because he always loved cooking Mexican stews and other dishes he learned from his mother. As he chopped cooked chicken and threw the pieces into a bin of rice for a meal of stuffed bell peppers, Ordaz said he finds cooking “fun and therapeutic.”
And after the eight-week training and four-week internship, he hopes to have mastered the lessons on knife skills, food safety, teamwork, menu planning, restaurant operations and cooking methods so well that he’ll land a job and a new career.
Reginald Howard also got a new start through the culinary program after serving 10 years in prison for robbery. He went through the program, continued to volunteer and eventually landed a job with the nonprofit supporting students during their training.
“They gave me a shot,” Howard said of St. Joseph Center staff. “They really care. They make you win and succeed.”
The nonprofit also offers technology training, with plans to expand in South Los Angeles, focusing on young people ages 18 to 30 and pivoting from coding to AI fluency, said Sharon Plunkett, senior director of social innovation. An expanded workforce development program can also help more people retain eligibility for CalFresh benefits, she added.
The nonprofit’s work is grounded in three promises – nourish, house and empower – with an emphasis on dignity for all. That spirit is apparent in the cafe, which offers a restaurant setting with fresh flowers atop tables, live music on Thursdays and volunteers who greet, hug and serve nearly 200 guests a day.
Lisa Shaw has volunteered since the pandemic five days a week in the cafe, food pantry and at the farmers market to pick up produce. The self-described “big hugger” said she loves to help her guests start their day with a smile, hot food and cheerful conversation. In recent months, she said, she has seen a worrisome influx of new guests, underscoring the growing needs.
But that only motivates the St. Joseph crew to work harder, think bigger and reach more broadly across nonprofit silos to come together for those the center’s Catholic founders would call, as Jesus did, “the least of these.”
“It’s all pretty heartbreaking,” Smith said. “But it’s also a call to action that we have to do everything possible to ensure that folks are fed and they keep their roofs over their heads.”
– Teresa Watanabe
