UCLA Food Security Work Group to decide on allocation of UC funds

University of California President Janet Napolitano allocated $75,000 to each UC campus in March to improve food security efforts. Students experience food insecurity when they are unable to access nutritious food regularly.

The UCLA Food Security Work Group, which currently has about 32 members, will decide how best to use the funds, said Tony Sandoval, director of the UCLA Community Programs Office.

The group will meet for the second time Thursday to discuss how to improve current programs aimed at improving students’ access to food on campus, such as the CPO Food Closet, the Economic Crisis Response Team Meal Vouchers Program and 580 Cafe. The cafe provides students with free meals at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church near campus, he said.

Sandoval added the task force aims to create collaboration between different programs which have little interaction now. He said he thinks a coalition of food security programs will make individual components more effective and sustainable in the future.

Undergraduate Students Association Council President Heather Rosen, a member of the task force, said the group will decide how to use Napolitano’s allocation by July, but she thinks it should continue meeting afterward to continue food security efforts once the money runs out.

Rosen said she thinks $75,000 is not sufficient to ensure food security. The task force will have to work to create sustainable programs that will outlast the allocation, she added.

Sandoval said students shouldn’t have to decide between food and the things they need for class or other commitments.

After quitting his job to study more, second-year neuroscience student Alec Swift said he has a tighter budget. Swift said he thinks on-campus lunches are too expensive or too unhealthy, so he relies on the CPO Food Closet.

Among the closet’s stock is fresh fruit, frozen burritos, canned beans and several loaves of bread.

Fourth-year political science student Alex Mercier, who said he has donated to the closet on several occasions, said he wonders where the money goes when he sees the condition of the closet. Mercier said he thinks the closet is too heavy on bread, which is unhealthy for students who rely on it for nutrition.

Alejandro Mosqueda and David Watson, a fellow Reserve Officers Training Corps cadet, go to the food closet daily to look for lunch, and they think the food closet’s stock is relatively healthy and fresh.

Mosqueda, a second-year Russian student, and Watson, a second-year atmospheric and oceanic sciences student, have limited food options because they are on campus from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. for ROTC training.

Louis Tse, a member of the task force and a graduate student in mechanical engineering, said he thinks people assume college students do not suffer from food insecurity because they can pay tuition.

He added that he thinks the college culture of pursuing higher education at the cost of a student’s nutrition is being pushed to the extreme because of rising tuition costs.

Rosen said she thinks addressing food insecurity is important, but it does not solve the problem of affordability, which grows further out of students’ reach as tuition increases and financial aid fails to compensate.

“Financial aid is not properly covering the cost of living, especially the cost of living in Westwood,” she said.

While addressing food insecurity is not the ultimate goal, Rosen said she thinks it will bring attention to the lack of affordability of higher education.

The group will meet in the Student Activities Center basement Thursday at 9 a.m.