How Food on Foot Helps People Rebuild Their Lives in Los Angeles
An Essay By Food on Foot’s Youth Volunteer, Philip Shin
Food on Foot prides itself on giving people a hand up, not just a handout. Food on Foot accomplishes this through a comprehensive process that rebuilds and reinforces every aspect of an unhoused individual’s life. The system is designed to ensure that when participants are ready to take on the world once more, they will have all of the necessary tools, safeguards and encouragement to keep from falling back into homelessness. This process, time-tested and true, is known as the Jobs and Housing Program.
On the surface, the Jobs and Housing Program sounds simple, but dig a little deeper and it is anything but. The Program has very literally transformed lives. Program participants progress through three phases: the GO Team, the CREW Team, and the alumni community. The GO Team phase is designed to address an unhoused individual’s most immediate needs – stable employment/income and housing. A series of weekly workshops educate participants on financial literacy and resume-building, as well as social skills like public speaking and boundary-setting. Once 16 weeks have passed and the participant’s immediate needs have been met, Food on Foot helps the participant receive permanent housing, and provides financial support including the rent deposit, apartment furnishings, and transportation costs like gas cards or bus passes.
At this point, the participant moves from The Go Team phase and into the CREW phase. This phase builds on the foundation established in the previous phase, as participants work towards saving $5,000 in paycheck earnings. They help out at Sunday Servings and other such Food on Foot events, receiving rent subsidies for their efforts. Long-term goals are set and attained, such as completing a degree or securing a promotion, and participants become eligible to mentor GO Team members. Food on Foot continues to support participants wherever possible, covering the costs of work equipment or certification and formally recognizing successful individuals.
After further workshop education and a healthy dose of determination, participants finally graduate from the program. Once they have accumulated $5,000 in earned savings from their employment, they become full-fledged alumni, equipped with the tools and resources necessary to comfortably support themselves. Many continue to work with Food on Foot, becoming workshop instructors or assistants and working at Sunday Servings for continued rent compensation. Once those subsidies are no longer needed and the alumni are fully self-sufficient, they are free to pursue whatever dreams they desire, their difficult past behind them.
Programs such as this are vital in Los Angeles, which has over 70,000 unhoused citizens. Food on Foot currently has 20 unhoused participants in the GO Team along with 8-12 CREW Members at any given week. Between 2023 and 2025, nearly 70 people have graduated the Jobs & Housing program as self-sufficient members of society. And location aside, most organizations do not provide such thorough or long-lasting help, opting instead to simply distribute as many essential resources as possible. Certainly helpful, and Food on Foot does so as well, but the fleeting nature of that kind of aid often leaves struggling individuals right back where they started. Food on Foot attacks the problem at its source and gives participants the tools they need to ensure their own continued security with an astounding 90% success rate!
Many program alumni speak highly of their experiences, such as Jovan (last name omitted for privacy). Not only has he graduated from the program and secured housing to call his own, but he is on a path to an advanced career as a behavioral therapist specializing in substance abuse. He intends to start his own mental help business, working on his startup in his free time. From living life on the streets to creating a bright future of his own making, he is a prime example of the power of Food on Foot’s teaching and assistance to help rebuild lives.
It takes a village to raise a child, and perhaps more to wrest someone from the jaws of poverty. Food on Foot is proof that equipping someone with the right tools and providing encouragement and structure along the way can quite literally change a person’s life. Food on Foot has never relied on government funding so that it can focus on high quality care without restrictions. Because of this, every private donor and supporter of the Jobs and Housing program can walk away knowing that they have helped someone in need pull themselves up and develop the skills, confidence and self-reliance to not only survive but to thrive.