Food and Charity : Skid Row’s Sweet Spot

In 1979, Tony Trafecanty, who liked baking bread at home, went from being an airline pilot to a bakery owner. Not that unusual a career change in that food-besotted time. But Trafecanty’s bakery was located in the worst part of Downtown Los Angeles. And it employed only the homeless. And it was nonprofit.

Now that’s different.

Today, Trafecanty still can be found at Justice Bakery, a sweet-smelling corner of Skid Row, located near the corner of 7th Street and Central Avenue. Here, he supervises a crew of six workers--all drawn from the neighborhood. As every Justice Bakery product notes on its label: “You are receiving wholesome products while participating in an effort to create meaningful work at a just wage to those who live at the margins of society.”

For Trafecanty, the transition seemed natural.

“Like all airline pilots, I had a lot of off-time, so I started working for the Catholic Worker’s soup kitchen at 6th Street and Gladys Avenue,” he says. “I remember one time a policeman came in for a disturbance--you know how those things can happen--and he got pretty worked up and told me: ‘You know what? You’re not doing anything here. You’re just putting a Band-Aid over a festering wound.’ I kind of had to agree with him, but. . . .”

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Trafecanty’s voice trails off and his eyes take on what combat reporters refer to as the “1,000-Yard Stare.” Obviously, it’s difficult for him to put into words just what it was that prompted the change--quitting a lucrative job and taking on a struggling charity project, in the process moving his wife and five children from Canoga Park to Boyle Heights.

“As far as the finances of it go, I probably would have been better off just keeping my old job and donating money,” he says. “I probably would have ended up donating more than what we’re making here. But if you don’t have programs like these, you’ll never get people off the streets.”

Trafecanty and his workers make a dozen kinds of bread, cookies, pies, carrot cake, granola and trail mix, all of which are sold through local churches and at the Long Beach, Santa Monica and downtown farmers markets. The products are fine, but the business is just hanging on.

“There are so many additional costs with the changes in rules and regulations, and with enforcement of rules and regulations, that it’s really killing us,” he says. “Workmen’s comp really affects us--not that we have anyone who would qualify, but it still costs us $3,000 or $4,000 a year. Then, in 1983, they started taking Social Security taxes for nonprofits. That’s 14% of income. None of these people are making enough that I could take it out of their checks, so I just pick it up. Our health licensing fees went from $150 in 1983 to $1,500 this year. I don’t blame the government, they need money, too. I guess Prop. 13 had the same effects on us that it had on normal businesses.”

And so Trafecanty and Justice hobble along. After paying for fees and materials, roughly only one-third of the $120,000 to $150,000 the bakery grosses each year is left over for salaries--Trafecanty, himself, takes nothing.

“It’s not difficult to see that this doesn’t leave a whole lot of wages to pay these people,” he says. “Most of them make about $6 an hour and work about 30 hours a week. You try living on that.”

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Still, he is never short of workers.

“We haven’t even had to replace anybody lately, because nobody’s left,” he says. “There’s no place for them to go. It used to be that people would slip off every once in a while, it was a pretty good job market and people would find something on the next rung up. But that’s not happening now, and I don’t know how long it will be before it happens again.

“Today, we would have to consider a lot of these people for the most part unemployable. Fifty or 100 years ago, most of them would probably have found other jobs. But society keeps upping the ante. Now, they probably couldn’t make it even at another bakery. At other bakeries, they probably have a lot more equipment, maybe even computers, and they can hire people who are better qualified. They have a big pool of people to draw from . . . people with an education.

“Most people here can’t read or write in their own language, let alone English. And, of course, there are emotional problems and other problems most employers won’t deal with. Let’s face it, if you’ve been in this country for 15 or 20 years and still haven’t learned to speak English, there are probably other problems. And these days there are only so many jobs sorting carrots and separating good celery from bad celery.”

Trafecanty has no illusions about the job he’s doing. He’s not going to change society and he’s not going to make Skid Row bloom. “What I do is give six people jobs,” he says. “And that’s six fewer people who are in line at the soup kitchen, and who knows, maybe even a couple more, with the people who are dependent on them.”

Justice Bakery, 1001-B 7th St., Los Angeles (mailing address: 634 N. Brittania St., Los Angeles 90033). (213) 629-3854 or 261-2597.

Special Needs: Church volunteers to sell bread and cookies.