Every day in Los Angeles County, thousands of seniors rely on a meal to stay healthy, connected, and independent. A proposed change to how California distributes funding for senior services could take that meal away from hundreds of thousands of them.

California's Department of Aging is updating its intrastate funding formula — the system that determines how money flows to local agencies serving older adults. The goal is equity. But the proposed formula could result in a 17% funding cut to Los Angeles County, one of the most significant senior service regions in the entire state.

The numbers are staggering. Nearly 186,000 fewer meals served at community senior centers. Over 157,000 fewer home-delivered meals annually. That is roughly 1,300 fewer meals every single day for seniors who have no other option.

LA County serves approximately a quarter of California's older adults, including one of the largest populations of low-income seniors and seniors with complex needs in the state. The county added more than 92,000 older adults in a single year. None of that growth is proportionally reflected in the proposed formula.

Equal weighting of unequal factors is not equity. It is a formula that looks fair on paper while producing deeply unfair outcomes on the ground.

The state is right to update the formula. But it must test alternative scenarios and get this right before finalizing anything. 1,300 meals a day is not a rounding error. It is someone's only meal.

Sign this petition to demand California's Department of Aging revise its funding formula to reflect real-world demand and protect senior meal programs in LA County and beyond.