Volunteer coalition CILA delivers neighborhood-led services as city funding shifts

On Oct. 11, 2025 at Silver Lake Community Church, Sarah Reyes, executive director of CILA, said the group's formal mission is “to build a community-led response to homelessness in Los Angeles that addresses the needs of our most vulnerable neighbors and activates an empowered coalition of participants, volunteers, and partners.” That mission underpins what staff describe as a volunteer-driven model that delivers meals, clothing, bike repair, haircuts, case-navigation and a services desk across Silver Lake, Echo Park, Los Feliz, Atwater and Hollywood.

Rachel Sanov, CILA's volunteer engagement manager, described day-to-day logistics: “I start my day by looking at our volunteer roster for that day just one more time,” she said, explaining how staff finalize rosters, touch base with volunteer leaders and prepare materials so volunteers can lead programs. Staff said volunteers often perform outreach and ongoing relationship work that produces frequent referrals and follow-up needs.

The organization uses a mobile-friendly case-tracking tool called Better Angels to share information across sites and volunteers, enabling staff to follow a participant across multiple programs. “Because we're able to just sort of ... pull up an app,” Reyes said, the group can reduce repetitive administrative burdens for participants and maintain continuity of care.

CILA staff stressed that volunteers shoulder significant emotional labor and frequently act as de facto case navigators. “Being homeless is a full-time job,” Reyes said, describing how outreach and administrative tasks take participants' time and explaining why volunteers often help with benefits applications, IDs and mail services at the services desk.

Partners provide essential in-kind and service support. Staff cited regular donations from Everyday Action and the Hollywood Food Coalition, and medical partnerships with UCLA and Sabon that enable mobile clinics, vaccinations and expanded outreach. Rachel and other staff recounted arranging a mobile vision clinic after participants asked for eye exams.

On scale, staff gave concrete metrics: roughly 600 active volunteers receive volunteer requests and about 1,000 people are on regular program communications, while outreach information reaches roughly 5,000 people in the service area, according to staff estimates. Reyes said CILA’s current operating budget is roughly $500,000; “our dream financial budget would be around a million dollars,” she added, while noting that about half of costs should be in-kind material aid and a large portion of program labor is volunteer-based.

Staff emphasized that CILA's value lies in neighborhood-level relationships and trust. The operations manager explained the group's site partnerships — the Silver Lake Community Church, a shared food hub called the fish warehouse, the Center in Hollywood and El Centro — and said those local ties make the model effective but also limit its direct replicability elsewhere without similar neighborhood networks.

Looking ahead, Reyes said the coalition aims to formalize training beyond day-of orientations (harm reduction, de-escalation, housing navigation), to secure more stable funding, and to identify a permanent building to centralize services. The group said it will continue to rely heavily on partnerships with medical providers and community donors while urging local funders and policymakers to consider how shifting city and federal resource allocations affect neighborhood referral pathways.

CILA’s staff closed by underscoring the organization’s guiding principle: rather than top-down service delivery, programs rise from neighbors listening to neighbors and coordinating practical aid and referrals across a tightly knit volunteer network.