Allison Mannos, Communications Specialist for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy
Mannos speaks out on the what she hopes to see in the future with the efforts of LAANE, pushing to enhace the quality of life for the South Central areas. She wants the markets that are already in the neighborhoods to push for the standards that will give their people access to healthier food.
LAANE works directly with grocery stores in South Central, showing them they can have better standards, food, and jobs.
“We don’t see nearly enough healthy food access in all neighborhoods,” Allison Mannos, Communications Specialist of LAANE, said.” “For us, we are really focused on how to address that through policy needs.”
LAANE doesn’t necessarily implement more markets. South Central has plenty of markets. Instead, they want to work with these stores and future established stores through policies to make sure they report to the Department of City and Planning each year. Thus, they can determine exactly what they want to do to improve healthy food access.
“A lot of times in these neighborhoods, they have markets,” Mannos said. “But they’ll be corner stores or there’ll be markets that don’t necessarily provide the healthiest food.”
Mannos said the cost of healthy food should not be the challenge in these low-income neighborhoods. There are ways to provide cheaper food through locally grown fruits and vegetables.
“There’s that assumption that there isn’t enough income to support their stores,” Mannos said.
Despite the food desert and difficult access to healthy food, many people of South Central still go out of their way to live a healthy lifestyle because they have what Mannos calls "significant buying power." South Central residents will take transit to go to the Ralphs, Trader Joes, or Vons in the more affluent cities.
“So the fact is even if it’s a low-income area,” Mannos said, “there are still a lot of people willing to make that trip to by better stuff.”
The people that keep these healthy life-styles are the ones that are educated. Many people do not come from families that were nutritionally educated, making it difficult to understand a healthy lifestyle in the midst of a food desert.
“I think a lot of people don’t know where they can access healthy food or how to cook it,” Mannos said.
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