Roy on Rising Need Amid Government Inertia

A Civil Eats article on community-based food distribution efforts that have been overwhelmed during the COVID-19 pandemic cited Ananya Roy, director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. To more efficiently bring food to the hungry, grassroots groups have begun to band together, building networks of farmers, grocers, lawyers, researchers, activists and nonprofits. Despite the creativity and coalition-building of charitable groups, strong government action is needed to provide meaningful relief for the alarming number of people in need, the article noted. “We’re starting to see an urban majority facing many kinds of insecurity, but the policies and programs people deserve are not going to arrive in time, and I have no idea how people are going to survive,” Roy said. “At all levels of government, inertia is very much driven by the fact that those who are going to get evicted and those who are already unhoused are politically unimportant.”

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