Welcome to our PUMA updates

Our city council recently expanded 41.18 which is an ordinance that criminalizes sitting, sleeping, and lying down across large parts of public space throughout the city. Since the expansion of 41.18, we’ve observed one of the encampments we support grow in size as more unhoused people are displaced and forced to move to this already crowded space.

Our city council also instituted a new bike ordinance that criminalizes the activities of unhoused and poor Angelenos who have bikes (see the info sheet below).  This new law will likely result in citations and arrests. In response, we partnered with several organizations to host a bike repair, mutual aid, bike ride, and night market. Housed and unhoused people came together to share food, supplies, fix bikes, and hold space on the city hall lawn on Aug 8 which was the first day it went into effect.

The resource center officially turned 1-year-old this past Saturday! As usual, PUMA hosted the art/maker space and karaoke stations. We were also pleased to be joined by M.C. who runs her own little mobile book library. Please let us know if you have books to donate! Graphic novels are quite popular as are hobby-based books.

We want to extend our gratitude to the LAN4N core organizing group who work tirelessly to make this resource center great!

 You can learn how to get involved here.  

Free Food Collective is still doing amazing things out here. As of this week, the produce distribution program has diverted  21,462 lbs of food saved from the landfill!

They meet at a local park on Sundays to sort and distribute fresh produce across local encampments. 

You can learn more about the program here:

Our partners Palms Action Collective are in search of a place to host a community fridge in Palms, Mar Vista, Culver City, or any neighboring locales.  A community fridge is an accessible refrigerator that is stocked by the community, for the community. Most community fridges are hosted by local schools, businesses, churches, community centers etc. The Palms Action Collective would be organizing volunteers to support the maintenance, stocking, and upkeep of the fridge.

Please let us now know of any sweet locations for a community fridge!

Some of you might remember that two months ago we helped a young woman return home to Las Vegas. We were able to support another young woman in returning home this week.

We realized that we should lean into more reunification work and so we're starting a new program called OMW HOME. 

You can read R’s story here.

Please follow us on Instagram. 

Thank you all for the ongoing support,

-Ndindi.