August 31, 2021 • 33 mins
What did you do today before 9am? For Leanne Martinez, the chef at the Downtown Women’s Center, putting out 1,000 meals before 9am for women experiencing homelessness, is just her average Tuesday. During the pandemic, Leanne went into work every day to cook healthy and hot meals for the women she serves. Roundtable guests: Amy Turk, the CEO of the Downtown Women’s Center, and restaurateurs Jon Shook & Vinny Dotolo.
Learn more about the Downtown Women’s Center: https://downtownwomenscenter.org/
Episode Transcript: https://app.trint.com/public/d5cc9b5c-edab-4b31-a7e6-1a5ab6e9f233
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hold on everyone, and Wilmer Valderrama and I'm Mr. Welcome
back to Essential Voices. So, Mr, you know, we talk
with a lot of folks in the culinary industry on
this show, and usually those folks work in restaurants, So
this week we're doing something a little different. Right, oh yeah,
before we get started, m R. You were telling me
(00:21):
earlier than you were a line cook for a long time,
what did you love about working in that industry. I'm
not sure I can distill it down, but for me,
sharing food and cooking is the truest expression of love.
Stories become cooked into the food that I share with
my friends and my family, and in turn, I feel
like I'm receiving stories when I eat someone else's cooking.
(00:43):
Recipes contain family history, they contain wisdom, and they help
us maintain connections to our ancestors once they're gone. So
for me, that's that's what I love about cooking. And Wilmer,
you worked as a dishwasher when you were a teenager, right, yes, yes,
I did you know. You know, working on the back
of the house, especially as a dishwasher, I realized how
invisible you are, Like things just magically happened to people's tables,
(01:05):
and no one even knows who did it. No one
realizes there is a person carrying fifty five pounds of
dishes to the dish pit. But I did become incredibly
good at washing my own dishes and becoming part of
the restaurant family. Yeah, I totally know what you mean.
Unraveling that invisibility is powerful, and so is finding family
(01:26):
in the restaurant community. That really resonates with me. I'll
always be a line cook. So I'm really excited to
hear from our essential voice, Leanne today. So this week
we're going to hear from Leanne or le Martinez. Leanne
runs the kitchen at the Downtown Women's Center in Los Angeles,
which is an organization that works to empower and serve
(01:48):
women who are formally and currently experiencing homelessness. She'll take
us through the joys and the stresses of working with
the skid Row community, especially during the pandemic. After we
speak with LeAnn, will have a roundtable conversation with Amy Turk,
who's the CEO of the Downtown Women's Center where Leanne works,
along with l A restaurateurs John Shook and Vinny Detlo
(02:12):
Behind Animal and Son of a Gun to discuss serving
the needs of folks who are experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles.
Amy has been the field for twenty years now, and
John and Vinnie worked throughout the pandemic to provide food
to various nonprofits around southern California. I can't wait to
share Leanne's incredible story with you, so let's do it.
(02:32):
LeAnn story starts right now. Just a heads up to listeners.
You may hear some sound quality issues from Leles audio.
Tell us a little bit about who you are and
like what's important to you. My name is Leonne Martinez.
Basically my whole kind of outlook on life is everybody
has something that they're really good at and they should
(02:52):
be able to kind of use that to give back
to the community. I love to cook. That's kind of
my thing. I love to make people have a good food.
I don't really see it as a job, and that's
kind of why I'm really happy because I'm able to
get paid to do what I love to do. People
kind of gather around food, and it's universal language. So
my siblings are fighting all the time. You just give
(03:13):
them food and everyone kind of cheels out for a minute,
and you know, using the power of food. You know,
it's almost like we're able to see insting gratification because
I go, well, you made that. You know, it's a connection.
How long have you been cooking and how did you
get into it? I've been looking for about twelve years.
I started in two thousand nine, like, read out of
high school, I needed a job. I moved out. I'm like,
(03:36):
I need to do something with my life, and I
don't have any skills yet. So I worked as a
dishwasher a small little cafe by the way. Yeah. Yeah,
it's just like everyone kind of bonds about like here
a ditchwatching, yes, ditch watcher. Oh yeah. I kind of
started off in that way, and I was very lucky
to have a really good mentor who kind of took
me under their wing. And I've learned a lot. I've
(03:58):
possibly done every stupid thing you can do in a kitchen.
I've probably done it so that way I can teach
others not to do it. So can you des grab
a day in your shoes? Definitely. We're basically smackab right
in the middle of skid rowh California, and it's very
interesting because you can roll into work, roll into the
(04:18):
parking lot, and you're instantly with the population you're feeding
or the people that you're gonna be serving that day.
We're feeding primarily women because our mission is focused on
ending women told in this in l A, because it
is a huge, huge issue. My job is pretty much
make sure that our team is able to put out
a thousand meals before nine am, a thousand meals before
(04:40):
nine am, not in the morning, every single day. And
so then after nine am you have house successfully a
thousand and then after that, what's the next phase of that.
Basically we're just prepping up for the next day, so
everything we do is in house, so we're really just
trying to produce product that you would get anywhere else.
Is there something that you love about your work that
(05:02):
you know, perhaps some of us wouldn't even think about. Yeah,
the women that we're serving. We were able to have
the participants actually in our center, our kitchens open, so
it's kind of like they can run up and ask
us what's going on, and you know, at some point
you're kind of sitting there chopping lettuce and listening to
them talks. And this was an opportunity for them to
kind of use the kitchen as an outlet to kind
of forget about anything that's going on, Like, Hey, you
(05:24):
want to help me prep some tomatoes for our sad Yeah?
Do you want to help me serve a course? And
that's kind of something that I've really miss sometimes those
conversations that you're having with somebody, for you is just
a conversation, but to be able to be more of
a listener, it really really makes a difference. And you say,
you're meeting people in their lives at certain places where
you don't have no idea what's going on. So for
(05:46):
them to be like, oh, I had a bad day,
this happened to me. This happened to me, And then
you know, you have a conversation, they eat lunch, they're like,
you know what, I really appreciate it, thank you, you know,
And you're giving them something to look forward to, right.
That's the other incredible thing that you're doing, and that
you're giving them an opportunity to look forward to waking
up the next day. You know. I mean I've always said, um,
(06:07):
if you woke up this morning, you're already winning. How
much more winning do you want to do today now
that you have your first win, and then sharing that
moment with you could be the small reason and why
they keep going. And I think there's something incredible about
that that it goes beyond the food and having that community,
which you had it before the pandemic, Which leads me
to the next sobering conversation, right, which is, then you
(06:30):
learned that there's a pandemic. Where were you when you
heard about the pandemic? And what were those conversations with
your friends or your coworkers, you know, what did that
sound like? I love to hear a little bit about that. Realistically.
I just I remember the day it was March. You
get a call at three in the morning and it says, hey,
center's closed, we're shut down. Figure it out. You gotta
(06:51):
go to work and figure it out. And I'm just
like cool. So, you know, from then on it became
a huge logistical scramble. So at the time, we're like,
you know what we gotta do these fourteen fifteen hour days,
we gotta figure it out. We're gonna do it together,
and what we can't get accomplished now, we're going to
figure it out as we go. That's kind of how
it went. It was rough. I'm on the younger side.
(07:13):
I work in skid Row. I mean, I'm around so
many things. I live in downtown. I literally did not
see my family for about eight nine months. It was rough.
It was really rough, you know. I speaking to my
co workers, we were all really like, whoa this is?
This is happening. We come into work at three thirty
in the morning and be like, so, this is what's
going on and we we gotta adapt to it. You know.
(07:35):
It was just like who And at that point, in
terms of the leadership, like we were all we were
all driving that boat together. Because one of us, yeah,
one of us cracked. It was we were done. Failure
wasn't an option at that point. So it was definitely
we kept going. And in terms of the participants that
we were serving in the center, it was a huge
hit to them because you come in one day and
(07:56):
then you learned the next day that we're not even open,
and how are you gonna of meals out? You know?
How they get services? What does it feel like when
people start using the term essential for you? It's very
interesting because I feel like I've kind of always in
terms of when I went down to work where I
work now, I feel like I've kind of always been essential,
(08:18):
But I've never really boasted about it because in my eyes,
like what I do, it humbles me a lot. But
I say it's always been something essential because we are
in skin roal. What we do has always been essential
because there's people who need food. They're always gonna need
food and there always isn't an outlet where someone can
get it, something that nourishes them physically and you know,
(08:40):
to keep them going. So in my mind, I've always
been an essential employee. My hope is that with these
conversations that we continue to remind everyone that this is
not a trend, that the word essential and the people
that embody it and have embody it forever, that we
should never let anyone forget the many people that have
shown up like you really change life for so many people.
(09:02):
And even when you think about Scared Bro, I mean,
people probably assume it's only homeless people and you know,
and all of that stuff there's I mean, can you
talk a little bit about, you know, the other aspect
of it, because people this tegmatizing of the actual subject
I think is super important. It's the community there's always
all these different opinions, but what I find is it's
always generalized into one big group. There are people struggling,
(09:24):
there's people going through many, many different things. Everybody has
an individual story, and I think sometimes you know, you
gotta go down there and listen. People say, oh, it's
dangerous to go down there, you know, not understanding or
maybe you know, taking the time to research what's going
on down there, And I think there is the bad,
but I want to say ten times more good. It's
(09:45):
just one big community. There's so many there's so many,
so many resources down there, and you just gotta go
down there and get them, you know. I think about
when you do jobs like this, you oftentimes carry the weight, right,
I mean, you carry the way to all the stories,
and you know, how do you find the balance for yourself.
In the beginning, when I first worked down there, it
(10:07):
was a lot mentally, I became very overwhelmed. What I
find is that the company that I work for, and
generally the people I work with, we'll find that we're
definitely all pretty empathetic and we generally take on the
emotion of it all. For me, personally, it was a
lot of realizing that I'm very fortunate to know a
lot of these individuals that were helping and I've seen
(10:28):
them be successful, and I've seen them get into housing.
Sometimes I'll see him walking down the street. It's just
remembering that what you do and everything that comes with
the job, there's always a positive outcome to it. And
see how your work has i mean a long lasting
effect on the community. And do you have a message
(10:49):
um for future essential workers you know that specifically may
want to be working in your field or just in general.
I think the biggest thing is, let's say, for instance,
you come down to skin roll and you want to
be in essential worker and it not just be food,
but anything case management or helping anybody. It's just there's
gonna be a time where you feel like, am I
really making a difference with what I'm doing? And just
(11:11):
realize that there's gonna be an instance in your work
where you see something and you see somebody, or you
see somebody get housed, or you see someone get food,
and just to know that you're a part of that,
it just changes your dynamic and it just wants to
push you further. Right. That's awesome. Literally, thank you so
much for for this conversation. Thank you so much for
the opportunity. I really appreciate it. I still can't get
(11:34):
over that number. A thousand meals before nine am. Think
of how little we get done before nine am in comparison. Yeah,
I know, like I normally do like a thousand corncies
before nine I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I just
do five hundred. But seriously, though, Lean is an impressive
person and she creates joy in such a hard role,
(11:56):
we wanted to dig a little deeper and learn more
about how community organizations and restaurants stepped up during the
pandemic to in short, folks experiencing homelessness. We're still getting
hot meals. So when we get back from the break,
Amy Turk and John and Vinnie we're here today speaking
(12:20):
with Amy Turk, the CEO of the Downtown Women's Center
and Los Angeles restaurateurs Behind Animal and Son of a Gun,
John Shook, and Vinnie Titlo, Amy, John Finny, Hey, it's
great to have you here, Hey, John, have Vinny? How
are you hi? Amy? How are you guys doing good? Good? Thanks?
So happy to be with you guys here today. So
(12:41):
I am were to start us off. Could everyone share
a couple of thoughts that you have after listening to
Leanne's story, Amy, could you start us off. I have
the pleasure of working with Leanne, and I just love
how she takes such a great skill of hers and
builds community out of it, both for the women that
are served a downtown women's center, for her staff that
(13:03):
she supports, and for the many volunteers that support our
work as well. Vinny, her story in particularly resonated with me.
John and I each started as dishwashers, have seen the
full gamut of dews and don'ts and kitchens. Um, so
I related on that level. And it's already grueling work
working in a kitchen. It's tough, it's hard, and obviously
(13:26):
with the pandemic this made it so much harder. But yeah,
you know, I think the people that are doing this
work for the community in the houses, this is the
most essential work that there could be done in the community.
Because you're constantly looking for solutions to a problem that
has existed for a long time, it seems to constantly
(13:46):
be overlooked and underfunded. You know, I didn't grow up
in a place where I was faced with this sort
of situation at hand. So, you know, moving to Los
Angeles and in your nineteen years with John and have
seen it grow and know that there's so many more
people just on that edge, you know, where they're almost
(14:08):
in this situation where it's somebody that might just not
be able to make ends meet. But knowing that there's
so many people faced with the situation life is obviously
truly heartbreaking and something that, like I said, you always
want to do more for it. John, anything you'd like
to add, I think the part that resonated with me
the most about what she said is just about how
(14:30):
everyone has a different story, you know, and I think
just taking a little bit of time to hear them out,
and you know, I think that part really resonated with me. Amy.
Can you discuss some of these changes at the Downtown
Women's Center during the pandemic and can you expand a
little bit on those changes and the changes that happened
behind the scenes that go beyond the kitchen during the
(14:53):
pandemic down to Women's center likely Anne had mentioned just
really had to shift everything we did. Were very much
an in person in service for women experiencing homelessness, and
you know, we provide on site housing, healthcare clinic, all
the meals, the mental health services, everything is just so
in person. We even run our own businesses too. We
(15:14):
have a cafe and re cell boutique, and we employ
women who come through our programs, so you know, we
are a business owner to some degree. And so everything
just had to change, you know, so quickly, and everything
just kind of stripped down to the most essential while
we helped gear people up to using technology in a
(15:35):
different way to do the kind of like higher level engagement.
So our meals program expanded by more than fifty We
the previous year served about a hundred thousand meals. During
served two hundred and sixty thousand meals. And one reason
that increased is that we house women in two buildings
(15:55):
permanently house. They sign a lease with us, and we
wanted to make it really easy for them to shelter
in place and not have to come and go since
been their little income, you know, in grocery stores and one.
So we were hand delivering meals, hot meals and providing
three meals a day starting at the beginning of the
day for the women that were coming to our day centers.
(16:16):
These are women who are mostly unhoused in the skid
row community. We wanted them to have access to enough
food for the rest of the day, so certainly the
meals was a huge shift. We were getting donations of
cell phones and helping the women learn how to use
that so that they could communicate to their staff that
help them find housing that support them with their mental
(16:36):
health needs. You know, tons of new HR policies to
make sure that the staff were safe and able to
work from home to the degree that was possible. Our
Reseell boutique just relaunched, so we now have shoppers back
inside being outfitted by our fantastic staff that are good stylists. Thankfully,
our online sales of fantastic through this time. The women
(16:59):
that through our programs are employed to make handmade items
like candles and soaps, and those products did really well
when we had more time to really focus on the
online business. And we look forward in the next few
weeks as we're bringing back more volunteers and people who
come to our buildings to reopen our cafe as well.
(17:21):
Um which is a coffee addict. That is something I
certainly have missed for this time. Yeah, thank you for
sharing that, Amy, so Leanne spoke to us about the
folks that you serve on skid Row and creating relationships
with these folks who are experiencing homelessness. Can you tell
us what you wish people knew about the residents of
skid Row And as a follow up to that, how
(17:44):
would we reframe the conversation about caring for folks who
live in our community and are experiencing homelessness. You know,
what I've really appreciated about this conversation is already understanding
the humanity and these are people's ms, brothers, kids, grandparents.
You know, these are people with tremendous stories, just like
(18:07):
anyone else. And seeing anyone who's experiencing homelessness through the
lens of what we use as a practice called trauma
informed care, which is kind of a lens of understanding
when you see someone try not to see like what's
wrong with that person, but understand that something has happened
to this person, and something quite fine, very traumatic. And
(18:27):
of course any night without a house, without your basic
needs adds to that trauma, which then leads to a
lot of complexity as people seek to get out of
those situations. So you know, if you've been to this
skid Row community. Unfortunately, there's about on any given night,
probably about four thousand people experiencing homelessness, you know, right
(18:49):
in front of you and in just fifty square city blocks.
And because skid Row was intentionally designed as the place
to send people who are experiencing a lessness or had
some struggles, it became the place where many social services
exist today. Which that's not a bad thing, but it
really was an intentional policy to try to contain our poorest,
(19:13):
in our unhoused individuals into one area. So the need
is just so obvious when you are in that community.
But what I think people don't always feel and see
is how much of a community it really is. I mean,
I've seen people literally give the shirt off their back
to someone who didn't have that, or you know, sharing
food sharing advice. At Downtown Women Center, we don't have
(19:35):
to do all that much outreach really because a lot
of community members, including the unhoused, refer women directly to us.
I feel protected when I'm in that community. People kind
of know like, hey, she's here to do good. Um.
There's more beautiful aspects, but there's a lot of predatory
behavior to a lot of people bring in and kind
(19:57):
of prey on the vulnerabilities of people. Of course, women
are more susceptible to gender based violence. In my view,
the people that are experiencing homelessness are more likely to
be victims of crime than to perpetuate crimes. So, you know,
it's both. I think Leanne kind of mentioned there's kind
of a tension between both the beauty and the obvious
hardship in that community. That tension you're bringing up is
really powerful and poignant. Thank you for sharing that, And
(20:22):
given that all three of you what you do professionally,
John and Vinnie and Amy, you're all in the caring profession,
albeit in different ways, because food is care and providing
access to resources as care and providing jobs for people's care.
So could all three of you speak about how you
took care of not just the folks that you serve,
(20:42):
but your employees and yourselves throughout the pandemic. Let's start
with you, Vinnie, I was gonna say that, you know,
that was our first incinct, was to check with everyone
that worked with us and just see where they weren't um.
You know, they had to let go of so many people,
which was the most heartbreaking thing that we could possibly
have to do, John, You know, as a business owner
(21:04):
and an operator, everybody was kind of the blind. I mean,
nobody had planned for pandemic, studied it, knew what we
were supposed to do, so there wasn't a handbook or
guidance to it. But as we were going through this process,
Benny and I made sure that, hey, if somebody was
out on the streets, that we made sure to take
care of them. We wouldn't let anybody really kind of
(21:25):
go by the wayside for us. As we kind of
made this decision that we had to focus on making
sure that they had a place to come back to
work for we also kind of focused on where can
we help. How do we help, you know, whether if
it was giving money or giving groceries or whatever might
be we tried to do because Benny and I also
(21:46):
felt like, hey, you know, it's our responsibility. We'll be
right back after this break, Welcome back to Essential Voices.
Can you describe a moment where you were especially proud
you know this last year, John, why don't you go
first for me? There were so many moments even in
your industry. I mean we worked a lot of work
(22:07):
alongside with motion Picture Television Academy, which you know, typically
we were their caterer for Oscars and Emmy's and now
it was like reversing and like what was you know,
somebody who was a set designer or a stylist or
something that worked in television or in a movie and
like you know, had a family like getting in a
(22:28):
line to pick up a box of food that we prepared,
you know, because they didn't know when they were going
to get their next check. And like you know, all
these experiences being down in skid Row, like seeing that
like really in person and connecting with you know, the
team at at the mission and talking with them about
you know, what their needs were, just like basic things
(22:50):
like hey, can you got a line on plastic forks?
Were like totally all out, like you know, we can't
send the food out without forks. And it's like, you know,
calling twenty different people that we know until we can
find somebody that's willing to give us enough plastic forks
for a week for just skid Row, you know, and
like using those relationships or you know, we have corporate
(23:11):
partnerships and just seeing how like they stepped up, you know,
and uh, you know, Delta airlines who were worked very
closely with, you know, they called us, are you we
have this list of a ton of product that was
going to go bad or was sitting in storage. How
can we distribute it? And just like connecting them whether
it was a blanket or pillow from an airplane that
would just be sitting in storage that they wanted to
(23:33):
pump out into the world to help, or you know,
I think just the feeling and connecting dots. And what
about you, Amy, what were some of your prodest moments
from the past year. It's just so many flashbacts now
that we're kind of living in a more safe environment,
just like going back to those moments of like we
had a donation of toilet paper from Westfield Malls. We
(23:56):
were just like, oh my god, thank you so much.
You've really made a world of difference. And all those
people that handmade masks for us, like you know, them
sitting in their homes out of desperation, wanting to do
something to help. But that was so helpful. And then
we've been a part of a larger nationwide effort through
FEMA reimversed dollars to house people in hotels and I've
been really impressed with our sector how quickly we came together.
(24:19):
At its peak, we had six thousand hotel rooms supported
by people who do work like Downtown whim and Center,
and then now transitioning those through new federal and state
dollars into permanent developments. There's been so much innovation and
creativity out of this crisis, and that's what I hope continues.
That an urgency too, is it It's still not enough. Obviously,
(24:42):
as you're driving around and walking through Los Angeles, you
see the depth of the need. And at the same time,
I've never seen our sector work harder and faster to
bring about really important solutions that are appreciated by the
people that we serve. I'm glad that you said the
word solution, because I was going to ask you what
collective action the Downtown Women Center is taking. We've heard
(25:03):
a little bit about your every Woman Housed action plan,
but we'd love to know a little more about what
that plan is. Since Amy, you mentioned solutions, can you
start us off just a few weeks ago? Um, maybe
some listeners have heard about the hearings that Judge Carter's
presiding over put out of mandate that every woman unhoused
(25:25):
in the skid Row community was to be offered housing.
Yet in that mandate there was no how to do that,
and I was like, Oh, that's that's what we do.
Will tell the community how to do that. So we
put forward and every Woman Housed plan that has been
well received by our City council member, our Board of Supervisors. Thankfully.
In the plan, of course, is how to get people
to permanent housing resources, and that part of the plan
(25:48):
has come forward our City Council and our in the
Mayor of Los Angeles has supported an initiative that we're
calling Housing Justice Program that will provide permanent housing for
women who are currently unhoused in the skid Row community.
Where we're still working to come together is that we
do need more interim shelter options while we're looking for
(26:10):
those willing landlords. And that's what we really need to
is those willing landlords who will we'll work with our
staff who provide the supports that someone needs once they've
been rehoused. Um and thankfully, due to the Cares Act
and a lot of recovery dollars, right now, we do
have funding to pay for people's rent while we're helping
(26:31):
them get back into employment and see get the care
that they need. But what we really do need is
the landlords. How about you, John. You know, it's a
tricky balance, all of it. I could just think about
people that work in the restaurant industry that might be
making you know, eighteen twenty now are working forty hours
(26:52):
a week, and what they could actually afford and where
they can afford it. And I think you kind of
have this double edged sword because you want developers and developed,
but in order for them to develop that he did
invest money, and then that investment needs to be equated.
And real estate costs in every major city pretty much
in the United States has gone bonkers and there's no
(27:13):
real win on this right. L A has a lot
of downtown development that's happened, and like very little bit
is for those that are in need. Most of them
are expensive condos and uh, apartments that have been developed.
And it's you know, building costs have gone through the roof.
I mean, just in the last month that sheet applied,
(27:35):
what has gone up twenty bucks. It's hard, it's gonna
be hard to kind of repair this. Uh. You know,
I was reading article the other day on America and
it's climbed back and that it's never gonna really return
to where it was. You know, I've been having a
deep talk with a guy who's worked for us for
over ten years, and he's like trying to talk about, like,
(27:58):
you know, where is he gonna be in another tenure.
It's like, well, I don't even know where I'm going
to be in another ten years. You know, at this
point right now, maybe in two thousand nineteen I might
have had a different thought, but right now it's hard
to even give him the guidance any anything to add.
I think that for the in housed community here in
Los Angeles and in the United States at large, I mean,
(28:18):
I think that these things need to be bills that
get presented to voters, and I think that there needs
to be some regulations put in place. I mean as
far as buildings go, and how do you do it,
like John was saying, in costs and who's investing the
money and how it's actually done. I don't know if
I've come up with any sort of great ideas myself,
but I would love to in a perfect world, like
(28:40):
imagine that there's an opportunity for everyone that gets faced
with these situations in life that there's a place for
them to go. I think that Amy could speak to
this much better than I could. But the on housed
community that's near where I live, it's like you're dealing
with everyone from that like is literally working and in
(29:01):
a job that just can't afford an apartment, to someone
that's mentally ill that needs nical attention. Well, I could
definitely go down the rabbit hole of the policing and
all that stuff. I think it's ridiculous how much money
we spend on policing, and we could allocate funds to
help these communities. And I would love to think that
(29:22):
a lot of people think that way in Los Angeles.
I believe that there is a large community of us
that do. They're obviously big hurdles to jump, but these
are people, these are humans, you know. Treat them with
some respect, some dignity. They have a story, they've had
a life, They've run into a tough situation, and I
think ultimately, if we can get people to look at
(29:43):
it like that, I think we would be moving in
the right direction. No, I'm so grateful for every single
one of the Guess's perspectives. I mean, I think if
one thing is loud and clear from this conversation, as
this discussion saying specifically for us, you know, as we've
been doing this show, and what I would say is
that we don't have to wait for your local leaders
or your national leaders to react. We've seen enough humanity
(30:06):
and enough of us to wake up to be able
to reach out to one another and say, hey, we
got to create a signal we can all share. We
all got to get behind the message and the people,
you know, And I think that what you guys have done,
you know, an example is that you know, sometimes you
have to roll up your sleeves and get it done,
you know, and you can't wait, and lobbying takes months,
(30:26):
and calling you congressmen is almost seasonal sometimes, you know,
and sometimes the networking of your your community of just
talking to one another and leveraging each other's strengths. So
I'm proud of every single one of you guys's efforts.
And you know, Amy, honestly, it's nothing short of heroic
what you and your team are able to do for
(30:46):
women and in general. Just to put a dance on
the on the big conversation, there has to be you know,
louder than it is you know, out there. But I'm
just proud. I'm proud to have this conversation with you guys.
And as you see, you know there there's for us
as a conversation of you know, solution and a lot
of this like in the Perfect World conversation actually is
the visualization of hopefully an intentional move. You know, we
(31:08):
gotta move with intens just to try to find a
solution for this in moments of crisis. Oh, we have
is each other and the work that Amy and the
Downtown Women's Center are doing, along with the contributions from
local restaurants like John and Venie's spots. Uh. You know,
it really demonstrates that even during a time when we
(31:29):
were isolated by the pandemic, folks were still out fighting
for their communities to survive. Any stories like Leans that
reminds us to find the unique ways, uh, that intersecting
communities can help sustain one another. You're absolutely right, Wilmer.
And this also makes me think back to our very
first episode and first Essential Voice, Jenny and her initiative
(31:51):
feed e Er in Oakland, And so we're seeing how
different sectors of various communities can leverage their skills to
band together providing for a common goal, and in both
these cases that goal is feeding their communities. Yeah so proudly.
And to learn more about how to support the work
that Leanne and the Downtown Women's Center does, visit Downtown
(32:12):
Women's Center dot org or if you happen to be nearby,
Leanne would be happy to show you around and there's
always something for volunteers to help out with. Thank you
for joining us. I can't wait for next week when
we'll talk with Amina Ashraff and entrepreneur and a race
share driver, followed by a round table conversation with entrepreneurs
and author Lewis House and Alyssa Walker from New York Magazine,
(32:36):
anchored about the gig economy and the future of the
rice share industry in the US. Essential Voices with Wilmer
val Drama is produced by me M r Riquel, Alison Shano,
and Kevin Retkowski, with production support from Associate producer Lillian Holman.
Executive producers Wilmer Val Drama, Adam Reynolds, Leo Clem, and
(32:56):
Aaron Hilliard. This episode was edited by Sean tray C
and Luigi Villen Nueva and features original music by Will Risotti.
Special thanks to this week's Essential Voice, Leanne Martinez and
Too our Thought leaders Amy Turk from the Downtown Women's Center,
and restaurateurs John Shook and Vinnie de Tolo. Additional thanks
to Lodena Sanchezzeez, Anna Lee Wilson, the U t A Foundation,
(33:22):
and Brian Chan. This is a Clamor and w V
Entertainment production in partnership with I Heart Radio's Michael Dura
podcast Network. For more podcasts from I Heart, visit the
i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows,
Hold on everyone, and Wilmer Valderrama and I'm Mr. Welcome
back to Essential Voices. So, Mr, you know, we talk
with a lot of folks in the culinary industry on
this show, and usually those folks work in restaurants, So
this week we're doing something a little different. Right, oh yeah,
before we get started, m R. You were telling me
(00:21):
earlier than you were a line cook for a long time,
what did you love about working in that industry. I'm
not sure I can distill it down, but for me,
sharing food and cooking is the truest expression of love.
Stories become cooked into the food that I share with
my friends and my family, and in turn, I feel
like I'm receiving stories when I eat someone else's cooking.
(00:43):
Recipes contain family history, they contain wisdom, and they help
us maintain connections to our ancestors once they're gone. So
for me, that's that's what I love about cooking. And Wilmer,
you worked as a dishwasher when you were a teenager, right, yes, yes,
I did you know. You know, working on the back
of the house, especially as a dishwasher, I realized how
invisible you are, Like things just magically happened to people's tables,
(01:05):
and no one even knows who did it. No one
realizes there is a person carrying fifty five pounds of
dishes to the dish pit. But I did become incredibly
good at washing my own dishes and becoming part of
the restaurant family. Yeah, I totally know what you mean.
Unraveling that invisibility is powerful, and so is finding family
(01:26):
in the restaurant community. That really resonates with me. I'll
always be a line cook. So I'm really excited to
hear from our essential voice, Leanne today. So this week
we're going to hear from Leanne or le Martinez. Leanne
runs the kitchen at the Downtown Women's Center in Los Angeles,
which is an organization that works to empower and serve
(01:48):
women who are formally and currently experiencing homelessness. She'll take
us through the joys and the stresses of working with
the skid Row community, especially during the pandemic. After we
speak with LeAnn, will have a roundtable conversation with Amy Turk,
who's the CEO of the Downtown Women's Center where Leanne works,
along with l A restaurateurs John Shook and Vinny Detlo
(02:12):
Behind Animal and Son of a Gun to discuss serving
the needs of folks who are experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles.
Amy has been the field for twenty years now, and
John and Vinnie worked throughout the pandemic to provide food
to various nonprofits around southern California. I can't wait to
share Leanne's incredible story with you, so let's do it.
(02:32):
LeAnn story starts right now. Just a heads up to listeners.
You may hear some sound quality issues from Leles audio.
Tell us a little bit about who you are and
like what's important to you. My name is Leonne Martinez.
Basically my whole kind of outlook on life is everybody
has something that they're really good at and they should
(02:52):
be able to kind of use that to give back
to the community. I love to cook. That's kind of
my thing. I love to make people have a good food.
I don't really see it as a job, and that's
kind of why I'm really happy because I'm able to
get paid to do what I love to do. People
kind of gather around food, and it's universal language. So
my siblings are fighting all the time. You just give
(03:13):
them food and everyone kind of cheels out for a minute,
and you know, using the power of food. You know,
it's almost like we're able to see insting gratification because
I go, well, you made that. You know, it's a connection.
How long have you been cooking and how did you
get into it? I've been looking for about twelve years.
I started in two thousand nine, like, read out of
high school, I needed a job. I moved out. I'm like,
(03:36):
I need to do something with my life, and I
don't have any skills yet. So I worked as a
dishwasher a small little cafe by the way. Yeah. Yeah,
it's just like everyone kind of bonds about like here
a ditchwatching, yes, ditch watcher. Oh yeah. I kind of
started off in that way, and I was very lucky
to have a really good mentor who kind of took
me under their wing. And I've learned a lot. I've
(03:58):
possibly done every stupid thing you can do in a kitchen.
I've probably done it so that way I can teach
others not to do it. So can you des grab
a day in your shoes? Definitely. We're basically smackab right
in the middle of skid rowh California, and it's very
interesting because you can roll into work, roll into the
(04:18):
parking lot, and you're instantly with the population you're feeding
or the people that you're gonna be serving that day.
We're feeding primarily women because our mission is focused on
ending women told in this in l A, because it
is a huge, huge issue. My job is pretty much
make sure that our team is able to put out
a thousand meals before nine am, a thousand meals before
(04:40):
nine am, not in the morning, every single day. And
so then after nine am you have house successfully a
thousand and then after that, what's the next phase of that.
Basically we're just prepping up for the next day, so
everything we do is in house, so we're really just
trying to produce product that you would get anywhere else.
Is there something that you love about your work that
(05:02):
you know, perhaps some of us wouldn't even think about. Yeah,
the women that we're serving. We were able to have
the participants actually in our center, our kitchens open, so
it's kind of like they can run up and ask
us what's going on, and you know, at some point
you're kind of sitting there chopping lettuce and listening to
them talks. And this was an opportunity for them to
kind of use the kitchen as an outlet to kind
of forget about anything that's going on, Like, Hey, you
(05:24):
want to help me prep some tomatoes for our sad Yeah?
Do you want to help me serve a course? And
that's kind of something that I've really miss sometimes those
conversations that you're having with somebody, for you is just
a conversation, but to be able to be more of
a listener, it really really makes a difference. And you say,
you're meeting people in their lives at certain places where
you don't have no idea what's going on. So for
(05:46):
them to be like, oh, I had a bad day,
this happened to me. This happened to me, And then
you know, you have a conversation, they eat lunch, they're like,
you know what, I really appreciate it, thank you, you know,
And you're giving them something to look forward to, right.
That's the other incredible thing that you're doing, and that
you're giving them an opportunity to look forward to waking
up the next day. You know. I mean I've always said, um,
(06:07):
if you woke up this morning, you're already winning. How
much more winning do you want to do today now
that you have your first win, and then sharing that
moment with you could be the small reason and why
they keep going. And I think there's something incredible about
that that it goes beyond the food and having that community,
which you had it before the pandemic, Which leads me
to the next sobering conversation, right, which is, then you
(06:30):
learned that there's a pandemic. Where were you when you
heard about the pandemic? And what were those conversations with
your friends or your coworkers, you know, what did that
sound like? I love to hear a little bit about that. Realistically.
I just I remember the day it was March. You
get a call at three in the morning and it says, hey,
center's closed, we're shut down. Figure it out. You gotta
(06:51):
go to work and figure it out. And I'm just
like cool. So, you know, from then on it became
a huge logistical scramble. So at the time, we're like,
you know what we gotta do these fourteen fifteen hour days,
we gotta figure it out. We're gonna do it together,
and what we can't get accomplished now, we're going to
figure it out as we go. That's kind of how
it went. It was rough. I'm on the younger side.
(07:13):
I work in skid Row. I mean, I'm around so
many things. I live in downtown. I literally did not
see my family for about eight nine months. It was rough.
It was really rough, you know. I speaking to my
co workers, we were all really like, whoa this is?
This is happening. We come into work at three thirty
in the morning and be like, so, this is what's
going on and we we gotta adapt to it. You know.
(07:35):
It was just like who And at that point, in
terms of the leadership, like we were all we were
all driving that boat together. Because one of us, yeah,
one of us cracked. It was we were done. Failure
wasn't an option at that point. So it was definitely
we kept going. And in terms of the participants that
we were serving in the center, it was a huge
hit to them because you come in one day and
(07:56):
then you learned the next day that we're not even open,
and how are you gonna of meals out? You know?
How they get services? What does it feel like when
people start using the term essential for you? It's very
interesting because I feel like I've kind of always in
terms of when I went down to work where I
work now, I feel like I've kind of always been essential,
(08:18):
But I've never really boasted about it because in my eyes,
like what I do, it humbles me a lot. But
I say it's always been something essential because we are
in skin roal. What we do has always been essential
because there's people who need food. They're always gonna need
food and there always isn't an outlet where someone can
get it, something that nourishes them physically and you know,
(08:40):
to keep them going. So in my mind, I've always
been an essential employee. My hope is that with these
conversations that we continue to remind everyone that this is
not a trend, that the word essential and the people
that embody it and have embody it forever, that we
should never let anyone forget the many people that have
shown up like you really change life for so many people.
(09:02):
And even when you think about Scared Bro, I mean,
people probably assume it's only homeless people and you know,
and all of that stuff there's I mean, can you
talk a little bit about, you know, the other aspect
of it, because people this tegmatizing of the actual subject
I think is super important. It's the community there's always
all these different opinions, but what I find is it's
always generalized into one big group. There are people struggling,
(09:24):
there's people going through many, many different things. Everybody has
an individual story, and I think sometimes you know, you
gotta go down there and listen. People say, oh, it's
dangerous to go down there, you know, not understanding or
maybe you know, taking the time to research what's going
on down there, And I think there is the bad,
but I want to say ten times more good. It's
(09:45):
just one big community. There's so many there's so many,
so many resources down there, and you just gotta go
down there and get them, you know. I think about
when you do jobs like this, you oftentimes carry the weight, right,
I mean, you carry the way to all the stories,
and you know, how do you find the balance for yourself.
In the beginning, when I first worked down there, it
(10:07):
was a lot mentally, I became very overwhelmed. What I
find is that the company that I work for, and
generally the people I work with, we'll find that we're
definitely all pretty empathetic and we generally take on the
emotion of it all. For me, personally, it was a
lot of realizing that I'm very fortunate to know a
lot of these individuals that were helping and I've seen
(10:28):
them be successful, and I've seen them get into housing.
Sometimes I'll see him walking down the street. It's just
remembering that what you do and everything that comes with
the job, there's always a positive outcome to it. And
see how your work has i mean a long lasting
effect on the community. And do you have a message
(10:49):
um for future essential workers you know that specifically may
want to be working in your field or just in general.
I think the biggest thing is, let's say, for instance,
you come down to skin roll and you want to
be in essential worker and it not just be food,
but anything case management or helping anybody. It's just there's
gonna be a time where you feel like, am I
really making a difference with what I'm doing? And just
(11:11):
realize that there's gonna be an instance in your work
where you see something and you see somebody, or you
see somebody get housed, or you see someone get food,
and just to know that you're a part of that,
it just changes your dynamic and it just wants to
push you further. Right. That's awesome. Literally, thank you so
much for for this conversation. Thank you so much for
the opportunity. I really appreciate it. I still can't get
(11:34):
over that number. A thousand meals before nine am. Think
of how little we get done before nine am in comparison. Yeah,
I know, like I normally do like a thousand corncies
before nine I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I just
do five hundred. But seriously, though, Lean is an impressive
person and she creates joy in such a hard role,
(11:56):
we wanted to dig a little deeper and learn more
about how community organizations and restaurants stepped up during the
pandemic to in short, folks experiencing homelessness. We're still getting
hot meals. So when we get back from the break,
Amy Turk and John and Vinnie we're here today speaking
(12:20):
with Amy Turk, the CEO of the Downtown Women's Center
and Los Angeles restaurateurs Behind Animal and Son of a Gun,
John Shook, and Vinnie Titlo, Amy, John Finny, Hey, it's
great to have you here, Hey, John, have Vinny? How
are you hi? Amy? How are you guys doing good? Good? Thanks?
So happy to be with you guys here today. So
(12:41):
I am were to start us off. Could everyone share
a couple of thoughts that you have after listening to
Leanne's story, Amy, could you start us off. I have
the pleasure of working with Leanne, and I just love
how she takes such a great skill of hers and
builds community out of it, both for the women that
are served a downtown women's center, for her staff that
(13:03):
she supports, and for the many volunteers that support our
work as well. Vinny, her story in particularly resonated with me.
John and I each started as dishwashers, have seen the
full gamut of dews and don'ts and kitchens. Um, so
I related on that level. And it's already grueling work
working in a kitchen. It's tough, it's hard, and obviously
(13:26):
with the pandemic this made it so much harder. But yeah,
you know, I think the people that are doing this
work for the community in the houses, this is the
most essential work that there could be done in the community.
Because you're constantly looking for solutions to a problem that
has existed for a long time, it seems to constantly
(13:46):
be overlooked and underfunded. You know, I didn't grow up
in a place where I was faced with this sort
of situation at hand. So, you know, moving to Los
Angeles and in your nineteen years with John and have
seen it grow and know that there's so many more
people just on that edge, you know, where they're almost
(14:08):
in this situation where it's somebody that might just not
be able to make ends meet. But knowing that there's
so many people faced with the situation life is obviously
truly heartbreaking and something that, like I said, you always
want to do more for it. John, anything you'd like
to add, I think the part that resonated with me
the most about what she said is just about how
(14:30):
everyone has a different story, you know, and I think
just taking a little bit of time to hear them out,
and you know, I think that part really resonated with me. Amy.
Can you discuss some of these changes at the Downtown
Women's Center during the pandemic and can you expand a
little bit on those changes and the changes that happened
behind the scenes that go beyond the kitchen during the
(14:53):
pandemic down to Women's center likely Anne had mentioned just
really had to shift everything we did. Were very much
an in person in service for women experiencing homelessness, and
you know, we provide on site housing, healthcare clinic, all
the meals, the mental health services, everything is just so
in person. We even run our own businesses too. We
(15:14):
have a cafe and re cell boutique, and we employ
women who come through our programs, so you know, we
are a business owner to some degree. And so everything
just had to change, you know, so quickly, and everything
just kind of stripped down to the most essential while
we helped gear people up to using technology in a
(15:35):
different way to do the kind of like higher level engagement.
So our meals program expanded by more than fifty We
the previous year served about a hundred thousand meals. During
served two hundred and sixty thousand meals. And one reason
that increased is that we house women in two buildings
(15:55):
permanently house. They sign a lease with us, and we
wanted to make it really easy for them to shelter
in place and not have to come and go since
been their little income, you know, in grocery stores and one.
So we were hand delivering meals, hot meals and providing
three meals a day starting at the beginning of the
day for the women that were coming to our day centers.
(16:16):
These are women who are mostly unhoused in the skid
row community. We wanted them to have access to enough
food for the rest of the day, so certainly the
meals was a huge shift. We were getting donations of
cell phones and helping the women learn how to use
that so that they could communicate to their staff that
help them find housing that support them with their mental
(16:36):
health needs. You know, tons of new HR policies to
make sure that the staff were safe and able to
work from home to the degree that was possible. Our
Reseell boutique just relaunched, so we now have shoppers back
inside being outfitted by our fantastic staff that are good stylists. Thankfully,
our online sales of fantastic through this time. The women
(16:59):
that through our programs are employed to make handmade items
like candles and soaps, and those products did really well
when we had more time to really focus on the
online business. And we look forward in the next few
weeks as we're bringing back more volunteers and people who
come to our buildings to reopen our cafe as well.
(17:21):
Um which is a coffee addict. That is something I
certainly have missed for this time. Yeah, thank you for
sharing that, Amy, so Leanne spoke to us about the
folks that you serve on skid Row and creating relationships
with these folks who are experiencing homelessness. Can you tell
us what you wish people knew about the residents of
skid Row And as a follow up to that, how
(17:44):
would we reframe the conversation about caring for folks who
live in our community and are experiencing homelessness. You know,
what I've really appreciated about this conversation is already understanding
the humanity and these are people's ms, brothers, kids, grandparents.
You know, these are people with tremendous stories, just like
(18:07):
anyone else. And seeing anyone who's experiencing homelessness through the
lens of what we use as a practice called trauma
informed care, which is kind of a lens of understanding
when you see someone try not to see like what's
wrong with that person, but understand that something has happened
to this person, and something quite fine, very traumatic. And
(18:27):
of course any night without a house, without your basic
needs adds to that trauma, which then leads to a
lot of complexity as people seek to get out of
those situations. So you know, if you've been to this
skid Row community. Unfortunately, there's about on any given night,
probably about four thousand people experiencing homelessness, you know, right
(18:49):
in front of you and in just fifty square city blocks.
And because skid Row was intentionally designed as the place
to send people who are experiencing a lessness or had
some struggles, it became the place where many social services
exist today. Which that's not a bad thing, but it
really was an intentional policy to try to contain our poorest,
(19:13):
in our unhoused individuals into one area. So the need
is just so obvious when you are in that community.
But what I think people don't always feel and see
is how much of a community it really is. I mean,
I've seen people literally give the shirt off their back
to someone who didn't have that, or you know, sharing
food sharing advice. At Downtown Women Center, we don't have
(19:35):
to do all that much outreach really because a lot
of community members, including the unhoused, refer women directly to us.
I feel protected when I'm in that community. People kind
of know like, hey, she's here to do good. Um.
There's more beautiful aspects, but there's a lot of predatory
behavior to a lot of people bring in and kind
(19:57):
of prey on the vulnerabilities of people. Of course, women
are more susceptible to gender based violence. In my view,
the people that are experiencing homelessness are more likely to
be victims of crime than to perpetuate crimes. So, you know,
it's both. I think Leanne kind of mentioned there's kind
of a tension between both the beauty and the obvious
hardship in that community. That tension you're bringing up is
really powerful and poignant. Thank you for sharing that, And
(20:22):
given that all three of you what you do professionally,
John and Vinnie and Amy, you're all in the caring profession,
albeit in different ways, because food is care and providing
access to resources as care and providing jobs for people's care.
So could all three of you speak about how you
took care of not just the folks that you serve,
(20:42):
but your employees and yourselves throughout the pandemic. Let's start
with you, Vinnie, I was gonna say that, you know,
that was our first incinct, was to check with everyone
that worked with us and just see where they weren't um.
You know, they had to let go of so many people,
which was the most heartbreaking thing that we could possibly
have to do, John, You know, as a business owner
(21:04):
and an operator, everybody was kind of the blind. I mean,
nobody had planned for pandemic, studied it, knew what we
were supposed to do, so there wasn't a handbook or
guidance to it. But as we were going through this process,
Benny and I made sure that, hey, if somebody was
out on the streets, that we made sure to take
care of them. We wouldn't let anybody really kind of
(21:25):
go by the wayside for us. As we kind of
made this decision that we had to focus on making
sure that they had a place to come back to
work for we also kind of focused on where can
we help. How do we help, you know, whether if
it was giving money or giving groceries or whatever might
be we tried to do because Benny and I also
(21:46):
felt like, hey, you know, it's our responsibility. We'll be
right back after this break, Welcome back to Essential Voices.
Can you describe a moment where you were especially proud
you know this last year, John, why don't you go
first for me? There were so many moments even in
your industry. I mean we worked a lot of work
(22:07):
alongside with motion Picture Television Academy, which you know, typically
we were their caterer for Oscars and Emmy's and now
it was like reversing and like what was you know,
somebody who was a set designer or a stylist or
something that worked in television or in a movie and
like you know, had a family like getting in a
(22:28):
line to pick up a box of food that we prepared,
you know, because they didn't know when they were going
to get their next check. And like you know, all
these experiences being down in skid Row, like seeing that
like really in person and connecting with you know, the
team at at the mission and talking with them about
you know, what their needs were, just like basic things
(22:50):
like hey, can you got a line on plastic forks?
Were like totally all out, like you know, we can't
send the food out without forks. And it's like, you know,
calling twenty different people that we know until we can
find somebody that's willing to give us enough plastic forks
for a week for just skid Row, you know, and
like using those relationships or you know, we have corporate
(23:11):
partnerships and just seeing how like they stepped up, you know,
and uh, you know, Delta airlines who were worked very
closely with, you know, they called us, are you we
have this list of a ton of product that was
going to go bad or was sitting in storage. How
can we distribute it? And just like connecting them whether
it was a blanket or pillow from an airplane that
would just be sitting in storage that they wanted to
(23:33):
pump out into the world to help, or you know,
I think just the feeling and connecting dots. And what
about you, Amy, what were some of your prodest moments
from the past year. It's just so many flashbacts now
that we're kind of living in a more safe environment,
just like going back to those moments of like we
had a donation of toilet paper from Westfield Malls. We
(23:56):
were just like, oh my god, thank you so much.
You've really made a world of difference. And all those
people that handmade masks for us, like you know, them
sitting in their homes out of desperation, wanting to do
something to help. But that was so helpful. And then
we've been a part of a larger nationwide effort through
FEMA reimversed dollars to house people in hotels and I've
been really impressed with our sector how quickly we came together.
(24:19):
At its peak, we had six thousand hotel rooms supported
by people who do work like Downtown whim and Center,
and then now transitioning those through new federal and state
dollars into permanent developments. There's been so much innovation and
creativity out of this crisis, and that's what I hope continues.
That an urgency too, is it It's still not enough. Obviously,
(24:42):
as you're driving around and walking through Los Angeles, you
see the depth of the need. And at the same time,
I've never seen our sector work harder and faster to
bring about really important solutions that are appreciated by the
people that we serve. I'm glad that you said the
word solution, because I was going to ask you what
collective action the Downtown Women Center is taking. We've heard
(25:03):
a little bit about your every Woman Housed action plan,
but we'd love to know a little more about what
that plan is. Since Amy, you mentioned solutions, can you
start us off just a few weeks ago? Um, maybe
some listeners have heard about the hearings that Judge Carter's
presiding over put out of mandate that every woman unhoused
(25:25):
in the skid Row community was to be offered housing.
Yet in that mandate there was no how to do that,
and I was like, Oh, that's that's what we do.
Will tell the community how to do that. So we
put forward and every Woman Housed plan that has been
well received by our City council member, our Board of Supervisors. Thankfully.
In the plan, of course, is how to get people
to permanent housing resources, and that part of the plan
(25:48):
has come forward our City Council and our in the
Mayor of Los Angeles has supported an initiative that we're
calling Housing Justice Program that will provide permanent housing for
women who are currently unhoused in the skid Row community.
Where we're still working to come together is that we
do need more interim shelter options while we're looking for
(26:10):
those willing landlords. And that's what we really need to
is those willing landlords who will we'll work with our
staff who provide the supports that someone needs once they've
been rehoused. Um and thankfully, due to the Cares Act
and a lot of recovery dollars, right now, we do
have funding to pay for people's rent while we're helping
(26:31):
them get back into employment and see get the care
that they need. But what we really do need is
the landlords. How about you, John. You know, it's a
tricky balance, all of it. I could just think about
people that work in the restaurant industry that might be
making you know, eighteen twenty now are working forty hours
(26:52):
a week, and what they could actually afford and where
they can afford it. And I think you kind of
have this double edged sword because you want developers and developed,
but in order for them to develop that he did
invest money, and then that investment needs to be equated.
And real estate costs in every major city pretty much
in the United States has gone bonkers and there's no
(27:13):
real win on this right. L A has a lot
of downtown development that's happened, and like very little bit
is for those that are in need. Most of them
are expensive condos and uh, apartments that have been developed.
And it's you know, building costs have gone through the roof.
I mean, just in the last month that sheet applied,
(27:35):
what has gone up twenty bucks. It's hard, it's gonna
be hard to kind of repair this. Uh. You know,
I was reading article the other day on America and
it's climbed back and that it's never gonna really return
to where it was. You know, I've been having a
deep talk with a guy who's worked for us for
over ten years, and he's like trying to talk about, like,
(27:58):
you know, where is he gonna be in another tenure.
It's like, well, I don't even know where I'm going
to be in another ten years. You know, at this
point right now, maybe in two thousand nineteen I might
have had a different thought, but right now it's hard
to even give him the guidance any anything to add.
I think that for the in housed community here in
Los Angeles and in the United States at large, I mean,
(28:18):
I think that these things need to be bills that
get presented to voters, and I think that there needs
to be some regulations put in place. I mean as
far as buildings go, and how do you do it,
like John was saying, in costs and who's investing the
money and how it's actually done. I don't know if
I've come up with any sort of great ideas myself,
but I would love to in a perfect world, like
(28:40):
imagine that there's an opportunity for everyone that gets faced
with these situations in life that there's a place for
them to go. I think that Amy could speak to
this much better than I could. But the on housed
community that's near where I live, it's like you're dealing
with everyone from that like is literally working and in
(29:01):
a job that just can't afford an apartment, to someone
that's mentally ill that needs nical attention. Well, I could
definitely go down the rabbit hole of the policing and
all that stuff. I think it's ridiculous how much money
we spend on policing, and we could allocate funds to
help these communities. And I would love to think that
(29:22):
a lot of people think that way in Los Angeles.
I believe that there is a large community of us
that do. They're obviously big hurdles to jump, but these
are people, these are humans, you know. Treat them with
some respect, some dignity. They have a story, they've had
a life, They've run into a tough situation, and I
think ultimately, if we can get people to look at
(29:43):
it like that, I think we would be moving in
the right direction. No, I'm so grateful for every single
one of the Guess's perspectives. I mean, I think if
one thing is loud and clear from this conversation, as
this discussion saying specifically for us, you know, as we've
been doing this show, and what I would say is
that we don't have to wait for your local leaders
or your national leaders to react. We've seen enough humanity
(30:06):
and enough of us to wake up to be able
to reach out to one another and say, hey, we
got to create a signal we can all share. We
all got to get behind the message and the people,
you know, And I think that what you guys have done,
you know, an example is that you know, sometimes you
have to roll up your sleeves and get it done,
you know, and you can't wait, and lobbying takes months,
(30:26):
and calling you congressmen is almost seasonal sometimes, you know,
and sometimes the networking of your your community of just
talking to one another and leveraging each other's strengths. So
I'm proud of every single one of you guys's efforts.
And you know, Amy, honestly, it's nothing short of heroic
what you and your team are able to do for
(30:46):
women and in general. Just to put a dance on
the on the big conversation, there has to be you know,
louder than it is you know, out there. But I'm
just proud. I'm proud to have this conversation with you guys.
And as you see, you know there there's for us
as a conversation of you know, solution and a lot
of this like in the Perfect World conversation actually is
the visualization of hopefully an intentional move. You know, we
(31:08):
gotta move with intens just to try to find a
solution for this in moments of crisis. Oh, we have
is each other and the work that Amy and the
Downtown Women's Center are doing, along with the contributions from
local restaurants like John and Venie's spots. Uh. You know,
it really demonstrates that even during a time when we
(31:29):
were isolated by the pandemic, folks were still out fighting
for their communities to survive. Any stories like Leans that
reminds us to find the unique ways, uh, that intersecting
communities can help sustain one another. You're absolutely right, Wilmer.
And this also makes me think back to our very
first episode and first Essential Voice, Jenny and her initiative
(31:51):
feed e Er in Oakland, And so we're seeing how
different sectors of various communities can leverage their skills to
band together providing for a common goal, and in both
these cases that goal is feeding their communities. Yeah so proudly.
And to learn more about how to support the work
that Leanne and the Downtown Women's Center does, visit Downtown
(32:12):
Women's Center dot org or if you happen to be nearby,
Leanne would be happy to show you around and there's
always something for volunteers to help out with. Thank you
for joining us. I can't wait for next week when
we'll talk with Amina Ashraff and entrepreneur and a race
share driver, followed by a round table conversation with entrepreneurs
and author Lewis House and Alyssa Walker from New York Magazine,
(32:36):
anchored about the gig economy and the future of the
rice share industry in the US. Essential Voices with Wilmer
val Drama is produced by me M r Riquel, Alison Shano,
and Kevin Retkowski, with production support from Associate producer Lillian Holman.
Executive producers Wilmer Val Drama, Adam Reynolds, Leo Clem, and
(32:56):
Aaron Hilliard. This episode was edited by Sean tray C
and Luigi Villen Nueva and features original music by Will Risotti.
Special thanks to this week's Essential Voice, Leanne Martinez and
Too our Thought leaders Amy Turk from the Downtown Women's Center,
and restaurateurs John Shook and Vinnie de Tolo. Additional thanks
to Lodena Sanchezzeez, Anna Lee Wilson, the U t A Foundation,
(33:22):
and Brian Chan. This is a Clamor and w V
Entertainment production in partnership with I Heart Radio's Michael Dura
podcast Network. For more podcasts from I Heart, visit the
i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows,
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