By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

Growing up in the tranquil Virgin Islands doesn’t mean your life will be a breeze.

Marjorie Beazer has called Sacramento home for more than 30 years, but today she doesn’t actually have a home to call her own. Beazer, 61, is currently homeless in the South Sacramento area and is sharing her experience living as a senior facing food insecurity in “the greatest nation in the world.”

Beazer has a ton of lived experience. She was in the Army National Guard. She earned a degree in communications, with a minor in government, from Sacramento State. She has worked in education and for the California Military Department as a liaison to the Pentagon. She also attended law school, but didn’t complete those studies. Back in the Caribbean, Beazer served at one point as the counselor at Her Majesty’s Prison for Antigua and Barbuda.

“I’ve always had the vision and goal of being the first female to take on the mantle of governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands,” Beazer says.

She didn’t foresee being poor and hungry at this stage in her life.

“It’s been a journey,” she says.

Beazer joined the military in her 20s. She was a mother of three boys at the time.

“I needed a way to feed my family.”

She initially planned to make a career of it, but it later proved not to be a “good fit.” She’d go on to have four more children. At times she provided for them by relying on public assistance, known widely then simply as “welfare.”

She received more then, as the head of a household with children. Being a single person means you receive less. Much less.

“I get $87 a month,” Beazer says. “I can spend $87 without leaving the dairy section.”

Beazer originally qualified for $27. Upon asking what she was supposed to do with so little, her eligibility worker found a way to “bump it up a little bit.”

“She asked a bunch of probing questions, looking for ways to intervene and increase it,” Beazer recalls. “She got it to $87. Honestly, it doesn’t go very far at all. Once that $87 is done, guess what?  I’m dipping into my [Supplemental Security Income].”

The local senior relies on what she gets from Social Security for her other expenses.

“If I’m not strategic, I am hungry,” Beazer says.

Who ‘Benefits?’

With inflation and rising food costs, $87 isn’t a lot to live on and one can only stretch such a small food budget so far.

“Because my children are adults, it’s harder to get when you don’t have children,” Beazer says. “It’s interesting because when you are homeless, you would imagine that that’s when you need it more.”

According to the CalFresh Data Dashboard, 1.1 million California seniors age 60 and older received food stamps in 2023. In Sacramento County – about 19% of those who receive food stamps are 60 and older. Data also shows that some 1.5 million seniors in California age 60 and older who qualify for assistance don’t get it. In California, CalFresh Expansion, or Seniors Eat Well, helps low-income seniors who are at least 60 years old, regardless of whether they receive SSI or State Supplementary Payment benefits and provides what it calls an “essential hunger safety net.”

To supplement things, Beazer tried going to a food distribution in Midtown, but found the experience unfruitful as a homeless person.

“I only went once because you get so much and a lot of it is perishable. How am I going to carry this food? Where exactly am I going to put it?” she says. “Because I don’t have a refrigerator, or a way to store anything, I have to eat as I go. I can’t save it because there’s no place to save it.”

‘Food Is Not A Privilege’ 

Today, Beazer talks publicly about food insecurity, respect for the homeless and high jail recidivism rates as a volunteer for Sacramento Area Congregations Together, or SacACT, and the California Lived Experience Advisory Board. 

“When we talk about hunger in Sacramento County, it is even more impactful when you’re a person who has no home, who is living in places that were not designed for human habitation. Fortunately for me, I have a voice and I will use my voice.”

Beazer also created a nonprofit called H.O.P.E. Consulting Inc. that focuses on life and business coaching, entrepreneurship and policy and advocacy, specifically around incarceration.

“My experiences with law enforcement and the justice system have played a significant role in my food insecurity – not only what happened, but how it has impacted my ability to feed myself,” she says. “We call ourselves a civilized society, but what is civilized about barring me from eating? There’s a lot going on, negatively, as it relates to persons like myself.

“Food is not a privilege, it’s our right. Dignity is not a privilege. It’s our right.”

Beazer recently graduated from Women’s Empowerment, an eight-week program that helps local women through instability.

“It’s connecting you to resources and relations that you can take advantage of,” she says. “They support you in key areas that will have the power to transform your ability to feed yourself, to provide for yourself, to have a quality of life,” she says.

While Beazer has yet to secure employment or housing, she’s launching a new podcast with international guests and she says participation in the Women’s Empowerment sessions helped her restore a sense of dignity.

“I mattered,” she says. “That’s what keeps us going to change the world.”

I’m not able to feed myself. There’s a system in place to help me feed myself and even then, because I am housing insecure, you won’t give me as much as you would give somebody who isn’t housing insecure. How exactly does that work? You set me up to fail in so many areas.” 

– Marjorie Beazer

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is edited and has sections removed from an earlier version.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a crossover installment of OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer Genoa Barrow’s two series, “Hunger Pains,” focusing on food insecurity in the Black community and “Senior Moments: Aging While Black.” Both are supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and are part of “Healing California,” a yearlong reporting Ethnic Media Collaborative venture with print, online and broadcast outlets across California.