A volunteer hands bags of fresh produce to a community member during the Korean Resource Center’s Sijang mutual-aid food distribution event in Koreatown on Sept. 18.
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Hanna Kang
/
The LA Local
)
Topline:
As food costs rise and food assistance rules change, community organizations in Koreatown and Pico Union are working to make groceries more accessible.
Why it matters: Stricter eligibility requirements and changes to how benefit are provided took effect Oct. 1, adding to the challenges facing low-income families across the country. In Los Angeles County, about 1.5 million people receive CalFresh benefits, while another 320,000 are eligible but aren’t enrolled, according to the latest available data.
Mutual-aid programs: On a hot September morning, a handful of elders moved between tables of fresh fruits and vegetables on the Korean Resource Center’s back patio, picking up groceries as trot music played in the background. Some sat together, chatting as they waited for a raffle. Organizers gave away bags of rice, containers of kimchi and other staple groceries in the Koreatown community. It was the second “Sijang,” Korean for market, a mutual-aid food distribution program launched by KRC over the summer.
Read on... for more on how community organizations are working to make groceries more accessible.
On a hot September morning, a handful of elders moved between tables of fresh fruits and vegetables on the Korean Resource Center’s back patio, picking up groceries as trot music played in the background.
Some sat together, chatting as they waited for a raffle. Organizers gave away bags of rice, containers of kimchi and other staple groceries in the Koreatown community.
It was the second “Sijang,” Korean for market, a mutual-aid food distribution program launched by KRC over the summer.
Sijang and other community efforts like it come as businesses and residents adjust to changes in CalFresh, California’s version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Stricter eligibility requirements and changes to how benefit are provided took effect Oct. 1, adding to the challenges facing low-income families across the country.
In Los Angeles County, about 1.5 million people receive CalFresh benefits, while another 320,000 are eligible but aren’t enrolled, according to the latest available data.
“Groceries are commonly an item that is cut and people historically rely on community and social networks like churches and charity and grassroots mutual aid programs, where social welfare program and public institutions fail,” said Danny Park, who spearheads the program.
Sijang is organized in partnership with Polo’s Pantry and the Hollywood Food Coalition. The next marketplace is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 23. KRC says no one will be turned away.
Park said it grew out of the center’s work with residents and conversations with members and staff experiencing economic hardship.
“In our pilot day of Sijang … close to 50 people from family to seniors were lined up before we opened our doors, a sight that is not uncommon in Koreatown and Los Angeles,” Park said.
Bags of groceries at the Korean Resource Center during its Sijang mutual-aid and community marketplace event on Sept. 18.
(
Hanna Kang
/
The LA Local
)
KRC’s work has given the organization a close look at the financial pressures facing residents. In 2025, the center helped 4,286 people enroll in public assistance programs, including EBT, General Relief and Medicaid, Park said. Staff handled an average of 18 enrollments each day.
Food insecurity remains widespread across Los Angeles County. A USC Dornsife study published in December found that 24% of county households experienced food insecurity last year.
KRC staff sometimes help elderly residents take cans and bottles to recycling centers to earn money, Park said.
One neighborhood over in Pico Union, With Love Market & Café is also trying to help residents afford food. But the changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, have hit the business hard, said Anna Cho-Son, the market’s community programs director.
Most of With Love’s customers use EBT, she said, and the market has seen a decline in EBT users since the changes took effect. The market has also lost contracts after some of its partner organizations lost funding.
The market is owned by 38 investors from the community and loses money on groceries, Cho-Son said. It has relied heavily on EBT spending, and the decline in customers using those benefits has compounded other financial challenges.
“We lose money on groceries, and so we were really relying on a lot of EBT dollars,” she said. “But obviously, people are not able to spend as much money as they were previously.”
Asked how the market is preparing for the full impact of the SNAP changes, Cho-Son said, “We’re deeply not prepared for it.”
With Love is trying to help customers stretch their grocery budgets through a produce incentive program called With More California. The program, which operates as a localized extension of California’s Market Match initiative, matches SNAP spending on California-grown produce, Cho-Son said, allowing customers to receive up to $40 worth of free produce a day.
Cho-Son said the market has been increasing outreach at schools and community colleges because many people who could benefit from these programs do not know they exist.
Customers who do use the program regularly return to buy produce, she said.
“I think the biggest and most important metric is that people come back, and they come back specifically for that program,” Cho-Son said.
She added the market is also looking for ways to build a more sustainable local food system, rather than relying entirely on temporary grants and emergency food assistance.
“I think as we’re trying to do these emergency programs, we’re aware that food is obviously such an immediate need,” she said, “but in the long term, that’s not going to fix anything.”
The Korean Resource Center
Address: 900 Crenshaw Blvd Unit B.
Phone: (323) 937-3718
When: The next Sijang is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 23.
More details: Follow their Instagram for more information.
With Love Market & Café
Address: 1969 S. Vermont Ave.
Phone: (213) 817-7294
When: It’s open 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.,, Monday through Friday, and 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
Jordan Rynning
has been following this case for months, including interviewing the man at the center of allegations.
Published October 31, 2026 7:00 AM
Michael Angel Alvarez, 41, spoke with LAist on Sept. 16, 2026, about the federal body armor case against him being dismissed.
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Jordan Rynning
/
LAist
)
Topline:
The L.A. County District Attorney’s office dropped its felony body armor charges against Michael Angel Alvarez earlier this week. Alvarez was sentenced to time served on a lesser charge — a probation violation. He served more than 100 days in jail earlier this year while awaiting trial.
Most serious claims haven’t materialized: Though federal prosecutors made headlines claiming in court documents and on social media that Alvarez was “leading a violent street gang, while claiming to be a gang interventionist for the City,” they have not filed charges related to those claims.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office dropped its felony body armor charges against Michael Angel Alvarez on Wednesday. Alvarez was sentenced to time served on a lesser charge — a probation violation. He had served more than 100 days in jail earlier this year while awaiting trial.
Why Alvarez’s arrest made headlines: Alvarez was working as a city-contracted peace ambassador in MacArthur Park when he was arrested by federal agents in May. Federal and county prosecutors each brought felony charges against him, claiming he was in possession of body armor as a violent felon.
Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A., pointed to the case on social media to criticize city officials for allowing taxpayer money to be “shelled out to a convicted gang murderer.”
About his criminal record: Judges in federal and state court have now dismissed prosecutors’ felony charges against Alvarez, after U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang found on Sept. 9 that Alvarez did not have a violent felony conviction. Alvarez was 15 when he committed a gang-related murder. He was tried and convicted as an adult in 2002. After a change in state law increased the age at which minors could be sentenced as adults to 16, Alvarez’s case was sent back to juvenile court, and he was released in 2024. At that point, he had served more than 20 years.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday, Oct. 7 that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles.
The ruling is the latest roadblock to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate — something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support.
Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote.
The order won’t take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal. Essayli said he doesn’t agree with the court’s order. He said the president and Attorney General “have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.”
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Mariana Dale
explores and explains the forces that shape how and what kids learn from kindergarten to high school.
Published October 31, 2026 5:00 AM
Myrna Velasco (left) performs as Dolores Huerta in “¡Sí Se Puede!” at Boyle Heights City Hall on April 2, 2026.
(
Carlin Stiehl
/
LAist
)
Topline:
An all-ages play about the life of Dolores Huerta and other under-told stories of the farmworker labor movement is back on tour in Los Angeles.
The backstory: Center Theatre Group commissioned ¡Sí Se Puede! from Eliana Pipes in March 2025 and it debuted in L.A. this spring. “There's this perception that farm work was only done by men,” Pipes said. “There were women on the fields, there were women on the picket lines, and there were women in leadership in the United Farm Workers movement.”
An all-ages play about the life of Dolores Huerta and other under-told stories of the farmworker labor movement is back on tour in Los Angeles.
The show's extension had been announced prior to the news that Huerta died Wednesday, Oct. 28., at her Bakersfield home. She was 96 years old.
“There's this perception that farm work was only done by men,” said playwright Eliana Pipes. “There were women on the fields, there were women on the picket lines, and there were women in leadership in the United Farm Workers movement.”
Center Theatre Group commissioned ¡Sí Se Puede! from Pipes in March 2025 and it debuted in L.A. this spring.
CSULA seeks memories from underground music scenes
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published October 31, 2026 5:00 AM
CSULA is seeking memorabilia from LA's underground music scenes for its research archives.
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Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles.
)
Topline
There’s a whole world of underground Southern California music history that’s hidden in storage boxes — photos, fliers, cassettes and other memorabilia. Research librarians at the California State University, Los Angeles are holding a community archive event on Nov. 5 to ensure the cultural memory of L.A.’s underground music scenes are preserved for future generations.
Why it matters: The memorabilia are the physical remnants of the supportive L.A. communities built around music and enjoyment. But many of these objects languish out of sight, and run the risk of being lost, along with the memories attached to them.
Why now: For four years, archive staff have held an annual day to receive ephemera from the public. They're doing it again on Thursday, Nov. 5.
Read on… to hear how goth, rockabilly and other underground clubs in L.A. inspired the head archivist.
Right around the year 2000, there was a club night in Hollywood called Clockwork Orange. Fans of The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Bauhaus and other bands came for the DJ’s mix of their favorite songs but also for a vibe that welcomed people regardless of race, ethnicity or sexual and gender identity.
“I was a pretty shy person, and so that was a place where I could sort of be myself and express myself,” said Azalea Camacho, a regular there in those days.
She had just graduated from Workman High School in the City of Industry and was also clubbing at rockabilly music nights in Rosemead and goth club nights in downtown L.A.
Camacho said there was lots of memorabilia from those times, such as photos taken in and outside the clubs, ticket stubs and promotional fliers. They're the physical remnants of those supportive communities built around music and enjoyment, but many of them languish in shoeboxes and storage units, at risk of being lost — along with the memories attached to them.
Cal State LA has hosted Sounds of the Underground Archive for the last four years. It's an opportunity for people to donate their underground music scene memorabilia.
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Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles
)
“I think the danger is maybe those stories are not being told, or people don't know about the story,” she said.
Keeping stories alive
More than two decades later, Camacho is now in a position to make sure those stories are kept alive. She’s head of special collections and archives at the university library at California State University, Los Angeles.
Four years ago, she and library staff created an annual day for area residents to donate or digitize memorabilia for their Sounds of the Underground Archive. This year it's on Thursday, Nov. 5. They’ll accept physical donations, but they’ll also have a scanner to digitize printed material, so people can keep items that are precious to them.
SOUNDS OF THE UNDERGROUND ARCHIVE
Date: Thursday, Nov. 5 Time: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m. Location: Cal State LA Library Community Room, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles
Camacho is hoping this year will bring in a bumper amount of memorabilia. It's taken time to get the word out, she said.
“From the actual community archiving day [we’ve collected] maybe 100 or less than 100 items. … It's not a lot,” she said.
She said they're on the lookout for a wide range of mementos, including:
Fliers
Handbills
Zines
Newsletters
Posters
Set lists
Photographs (prints, negatives or digital files)
Cassette tapes, CDs, or vinyl records
Ticket stubs
Wristbands
Band merchandise (stickers, buttons, patches, T-shirts)
DIY press kits or liner notes and correspondence (letters, emails, messages related to music scenes)
Venue or collective ephemera (membership cards, schedules, announcements and more)
