With temperatures dropping and coronavirus infections rising, local small business owners Elizabeth Muñoz and Nellie Alcaraz did what they could to bring some comfort to their unhoused neighbors.
Their family and friends helped the pair load donated supplies from their new Wrigley storefront, Auranary Love Co., into three different vehicles, completely filling the flatbed of a truck and taking up most of the trunk and backseat of the other two cars.
First heading to the debris strewn and graffitted area known as The Canals wedged between the 710 Freeway and the LA River, the approximately 11 volunteers set up tables and assembled care packages, with a few heading out into the area to spread the word and invite people needing supplies.
In response to a request over social media by Muñoz, community members started dropping off supplies at Auranary Love Co., located at 2469 Pacific Ave., including personal protective equipment (PPE) such as disposable masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer, necessities like food, water, menstrual products, deodorant, toothbrushes and toothpaste and new beanies, socks and blankets to protect them from the cold.
Those who received the care packages did so with smiles, often responding to the volunteers with “God bless you.” However, it was blatantly apparent that despite the kindness and best efforts of community members such as Muñoz and Alcaraz, there is a critical need to connect unhoused individuals to greater social services.
Volunteers rushed to put extra water in a care package for a noticeably pregnant woman whose full belly stuck out below her thin blue T-shirt. A barefoot man who had no access to shoes was given two care packages, squatting in the dirt to open them, precariously avoiding the trash scattered around him. Multiple individuals that volunteers encountered needed crutches or walkers to move around.
One senior citizen on a bench in downtown had a sign on his walker that read, “I don’t drink or smoke. So please don’t smoke around me. I have stage 3 lung cancer.”
A common misconception surrounding homelessness is that those experiencing it can simply go to a shelter. According to an April 2019 memorandum by the City of Long Beach, when it was discovered through the Everyone Home Long Beach analysis that 500 more available shelter beds would be needed to meet the local need, the city approved the new year-round shelter in the Northside, which only supplied 125 additional beds. This means even if every unhoused person in Long Beach attempted to go to a shelter, approximately 375 would be turned away.
Johnson Trieu, Muñoz’s boyfriend, told the Signal Tribune that he and Muñoz wanted to return to The Canals soon with better clothing for the pregnant woman they met because she had asked for some. Trieu expressed sincere empathy for his unhoused neighbors, telling the Signal Tribune that he had experienced housing instability himself while living out of state. He eventually sold enough of his artwork to be able to return to Long Beach, and now assists Muñoz in the floral arrangement business she founded during the pandemic, Xochiquetzal Arrangements.
“We grew up struggling, like John, Liz, me. And it’s like now that I guess in a way we’re succeeding in our goals, it’s like ‘what way to give back? We need to give back,’” Alcaraz said about their motivation for organizing the distribution.
Alcaraz grew up around plants, eventually starting her own plant business, The House Plantt, where she began showcasing different flora at farmer’s markets.
“My uncle owns a nursery and my dad worked there all their lives. That’s all I’ve known since I was a kid. It was like a side hobby that I would just have plants at the house and then it just picked up. Like people would ask me questions about knowledge that I had, and then it just started as a small passion and kept going,” Alcaraz said.
She met fellow small business owner Muñoz this year through their older sisters, who are best friends. Muñoz had started Xochiquetzal Arrangements after the pandemic, originally beginning by arranging flowers she bought at the grocery store.
Muñoz and Alcaraz then co-founded their business, Auranary Love Co., which received the keys to its new storefront location in September, in the same Wrigley neighborhood Muñoz and Alcaraz grew up in, right across the street from the church playground they frequented as children.
While Auranary Love Co.’s brick and mortar location is currently only open for plant and flower shopping by appointment only due to the pandemic, Muñoz and Alcaraz have always envisioned it as community space where people can gather if they have nowhere to go and feel safe.
“I just remember walking up and down those streets when I was younger. I used to go to that church across. We didn’t have anything to do so that church, they would have a bus to come and pick up all the kids in the neighborhood […] And they did that for the community so it was cool, you know. And then to be able to open up across the street from that and just remember like, ‘Whoa, they did that for us.’ Now here we are, we’re gonna open our doors for the community,” Muñoz told the Signal Tribune.
Follow Auranary Love Co. on their Instagram, @AuranaryLoveCo, you can also follow them on their individual pages @xochiquetzal_arrangements and @thehouseplantt.
