Two Valley area nonprofits have received nearly $100,000 to help families in the San Fernando Valley, facing financial hardships due to the federal immigration raids, to expand access to food, provide rent relief, utilities support and other services.
The funding was awarded to Ignite the Light of Hope Foundation, a community-based nonprofit that organizes food distribution events, and Home Again Los Angeles (a homeless services agency that provides aid in the cities of Burbank, Glendale and San Fernando). The grants came from two sources: the City of San Fernando and LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.
The City contributed $15,000 to Home Again LA and $5,000 to the foundation. The funds for Home Again LA were part of the city’s “San Fernando Together” initiative that was launched in July to provide financial relief and essential services to people impacted by the raids.
The grant to the foundation supported a food distribution event it held at Las Palmas Park on July 23.
After hearing about the funding, Horvath awarded another $75,000 to the two nonprofits – $25,000 to Ignite the Light of Hope Foundation and $50,000 to Home Again LA – bringing the total amount to $95,000.
Light of Hope officials will use the funds to expand its weekly food distributions. Home Again LA officials, meanwhile, will use $55,000 for its financial assistance program, a pilot program that provides direct emergency cash aid and case management to families who lose income when a primary wage earner is detained or deported.
The announcement was made at San Fernando City Hall Sept. 19, where city councilmembers and Horvath were joined by Lorraine Aceves, founder and president of Ignite the Light of Hope Foundation, and Albert Hernandez, CEO of Home Again LA.
“We obviously live in very challenging times where it feels, some days, that we are almost living in a system of tyranny,” Councilmember Joel Fajardo said. “And we’ve seen that with families torn apart, with parents being taken from their children, with children being taken from their parents. And this is one way that we can work together to help bring relief to families in need.”
Aceves, speaking to the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol, said that the funds they received will support the foundation for the next six to seven months. Each week, the nonprofit distributes dozens of foodstuffs – including milk, fruits, vegetables, bottled water, bread and canned goods – to different parks and centers within the City of San Fernando, Sylmar and Pacoima.
The grants will also support the foundation’s pilot program, where volunteers deliver bags of food to people’s homes to help families who are too afraid to leave their front doors due to the immigration raids.
“We’ve gotten countless calls from families who are [in need],” Aceves said. “This is going to help us continue to establish this pilot program that we started three months ago on our own, which was making it hard for us to continue providing, but now that we have this funding, it’s going to be able to help us do a bigger outreach.”
Hernandez said his nonprofit has also been using the funds to issue one-time grants to those who have been impacted by the raids – $250 for individuals and $500 for families. The money helps pay for basic needs such as rent, groceries and utility bills.
He added that before the initiative, the City of San Fernando allocated $150,000 to help the nonprofit provide eviction prevention support, rental assistance and other services.
Although the nonprofit is ready to provide aid, Hernandez feels that many people are too afraid to ask for help because of the raids.
“It’s not just fear of leaving their home, it’s ‘who can I trust?’ … ‘Who has our back? Who’s out to get us?’” Hernandez said. “Even making that initial phone call has been really tough, but … they need to see that we are genuine, we’re compassionate and we’re here to help.”
Horvath echoed those concerns, saying many in the Latino community are afraid to seek assistance from the government at any level – particularly the federal level. So in times like these, it’s community organizations that are on the front line to fill in that gap.
“[These nonprofits] don’t have the infrastructure that governments do to provide this kind of assistance, so that’s why we are supporting them,” Horvath said.
“But we also hope that all community members who can will support them, too, to make sure that they are able to provide the assistance that they need.”
For information about Home Again LA, visit https://www.homeagainla.org/.
To ask about the foundation’s pilot program, contact Ignitetlh@gmail.com. To learn more, go to https://www.ignitetlh.org/.
They shouldn’t be here to begin with.