Over the past month, we checked in with our 2024 grantees to learn how their funded programs, projects, and initiatives are progressing – and to better understand the impact they’re making across Los Angeles. Now, we are excited to share these interviews, with stories of growth, challenges, and community transformation.

Creating Justice LA received funding through the LA2050 Grants Challenge from the Goldhirsh Foundation to support its Peace and Healing Center, a third space in Skid Row offering resources, programming, and community healing. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation with their team.

LA2050: How does Creating Justice LA and the Peace & Healing Center model alternative economies of care, creativity, and community wealth? Why is this significant?

Creating Justice LA: We use the Peace and Healing Center as a what we call a love access point. When folks come in the door we meet them where they are, and offer them a space of peace and a place to sit down for a cup of coffee. As people begin to relax, think, and listen to music, they begin to talk to each other and synergy starts to develop between them. They’ll bring up ideas for the Center, or share how they can contribute their talents over time.

What we're seeing develop is a radical community, a living organism that has many different tentacles to help the economy. We really want to create a space where we respond to the community’s needs, and become a place of economic empowerment. We are really looking to uplift the community by recycling dollars here.

In the Skid Row community particularly, a lot of folks experience systemic barriers to traditional employment. However, we don't really come across that because we're just accepting people as they are, and finding people who match with the culture of love. This is the center of our work, and it is more than just productive capitalistic output. Having a place where people can belong is really key for building community, and we think of community wealth in terms of healthy people, not just dollars. Our model is informed by lived experience, and there is much creativity involved as we try not operate in the same ways that continue to marginalize folks.

LA2050: What surprises have you encountered as you have sought to deepen the Center’s offerings to the Skid Row community?

Creating Justice LA: The biggest surprise was that the community did not want another space focused around organizing. Coming from an organizing background, it was really interesting to learn that, but during the opening of the Center, we realized that the empowerment that came from our warmth and love made some of those organizing steps obsolete. We are experiencing individuals being empowered as a part of a collective, and we have a beautiful way of dealing with conflict. We don’t let conflict fester, we talk, we love, we hurt – we do whatever it is that needs to happen. Our authenticity is what allows us to heal ourselves and others. So really delivering that message as it unfolds has been a profoundly beautiful challenge.

Another surprising thing is that many of our team members regularly encounter community members asking for a job, or contributing ideas for the Center. This is interesting because it totally dispels this narrative that people don't want to work, or that they don't wanna do better.

It is also interesting to see the power of a third space, especially in densely populated urban communities like Skid Row. We're not just serving unhoused community members, but folks who live in interim and permanent housing like the local shelters and SROs. It's great that these residents can escape the conditions they are enduring in those buildings, and enjoy a place that is actively built to be safe, culturally relevant, and loving. This really speaks to the importance of publicly accessible third spaces.

LA2050: What do you hope to achieve in the last six months of the grant, and how can the broader LA2050 community support?

Creating Justice LA: The LA2050 community can support by coming to our two-year anniversary event, and the Skid Row People's Market grand re-opening, happening Sunday, May 18th. If you are interested in supporting something innovative, we are always trying to increase our donations from individuals and companies.

During these last six months, we also want to get help solidifying our permit, since we have conditional approval at the moment. We also want to develop the social enterprise aspect of our work and hone in the idea of community belonging and empowerment, which is one of the deliverables for the grant.

Another part of the synergy happening right now is the fact that there's a relationship between The Church Without Walls (also known as The Row Church), the Peace and Healing Center, and the Skid Row People’s market. The Church Without Walls has been on Skid Row for the past 18 years, but there’s a natural synergy because there are no barriers for people. It doesn't matter who you are, all those spaces are welcoming for folks, and it's exciting to be able to do that. Looking at it from a broader perspective, we’ve created an ethos in the community where we almost have a whole block right off the Peace and Healing Center. It almost seems like as we grow, we can continue to actually reverse gentrification. The whole philosophy of The Church Without Walls is that we build people and do not worry about buildings. The buildings come only when we need them to serve the people.

To the people interested in our work, we want you to come and set your heart on fire here. What we are witnessing from the Center is that synergy has to be organic, and that it has to come from the people.

Interview Participants:

Pastor Stephen “Cue” JnMarie, Founder and Executive Director

Kayo Anderson, Creative/Development Director

Alex Yoon, Development Coordinator