We received 66 submissions in the LIVE goal category for this year's My LA2050 Grants Challenge. At LA2050, the LIVE goal category represents our vision for a happy, healthy, and sustainable region in which residents have the economic means and cultural capital to lead active lives and benefit from a thriving environment. You can see a summary of every single LIVE proposal categorized by issue area here.

Here are four trends we noticed in submissions to the LIVE goal category:

1. Unsurprisingly, a common theme among the proposals was COVID-19: its impact on our region and how we might best approach recovery. Having our grants challenge amid the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, we anticipated at least a few proposals aimed at helping those impacted by job loss, the inadequacies of our social safety nets, and other complications resulting from the “Safer at Home" orders. We are glad to see organizations being responsive to this need and adapting their current offerings and services to benefit Angelenos that are particularly vulnerable. Some of the organizations that focused their proposals on responding to COVID-19 include LIFT, The Dream Center Foundation, LA Forward, Valley InterCommunity Council, and LAist.
2. Not surprisingly then, the #1 metric targeted by submissions in the LIVE category was 'resilient communities.' The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed inequities and vulnerabilities that exist in our ability to respond to poverty and crisis. More than 25 proposals are seeking to build community resilience through the provision of trauma-informed mental health services, improving food systems and sustainability, and innovating to house people experiencing homelessness.
3. 65% of the LIVE submissions intended to impact either the 'food insecurity' metric or the 'access to healthy food' metric.Organizations like The Hollywood Food Coalition, United Parents And Students, Meals on Wheels of San Pedro, Sprouts of Promise Foundation, and many more proposed providing healthy, fresh groceries and meals to thousands of vulnerable families, students, and older adults.
4. We also noticed a trend in repurposing existing space in creative, new ways to be used for housing. For example, Los Angeles Room & Board's Open Spaces project fosters partnerships with college student housing programs to reimagine the use of their vacant dorm rooms to provide stability to community college students experiencing housing insecurity. Safe Place For Youth's Safe Pods for Youth proposes working with PodShare to use its pods as a temporary housing solution for people experiencing homelessness, and Renovation Planners' Urban $marts LA will help local residents build additional dwelling units.