Expanding Food Production for Community Care in Hollywood

Affordable housing and homelessness

Central LA

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

In Hollywood, food insecurity and homelessness are deeply interconnected, with many unhoused and low-income residents lacking consistent access to nutritious, hot meals. At the same time, limited infrastructure and staffing prevent local organizations from meeting the full scale of this need. We understand that addressing food insecurity requires not only expanding meal production, but doing so in a way that uplifts dignity, builds workforce skills, and strengthens collaboration across the local care network.

This grant will support a collaborative initiative between The Center in Hollywood and Hollywood Food Coalition to expand hot meal production for unhoused and food-insecure residents in Hollywood. The project will activate The Center’s underutilized commercial kitchen and staff capacity to prepare nutritious meals for distribution to local partners, including The Hollywood Refresh Spot, Food on Foot, and SELAH. Hollywood Food Coalition’s chef will use the space for meal prep and will provide hands-on culinary training to The Center’s Kitchen Coordinator, building workforce skills while increasing overall food output. This partnership not only addresses immediate hunger, but also strengthens the local food security infrastructure by sharing resources, reducing redundancy, and creating a scalable model for community-based meal production.

If our work is successful, more unhoused and food-insecure Angelenos—particularly in Hollywood—will have consistent access to hot, nutritious meals served with dignity. Local organizations will be better connected and equipped to meet food insecurity through shared infrastructure, not siloed efforts. Our kitchen collaboration will serve as a model for how nonprofits can work together to maximize impact, reduce waste, and create workforce opportunities, even with limited resources. In a city as resource-rich as Los Angeles, no one should go hungry. This project moves us closer to that goal.