Growing Food.
Ending Homelessness.
Building Equity.
Humble Farms is the only organization in Los Angeles combining aeroponic vertical farming, permanent dignified housing, commercial food production, and resident equity ownership — on one integrated 5–7 acre core campus.
“I grew up on these streets. I know exactly what was missing — and I’m building it.”
— Carlos Azucena, Founder
Humble Farms is a mission-driven nonprofit in formation (501(c)(3) application in progress) with a for-profit subsidiary, operating on a 5–7 acre core campus in the Los Angeles area. We address the interconnected crises of homelessness, food insecurity, and social disconnection through an integrated model combining sustainable agriculture, dignified housing, and economic empowerment.
Strategic Technology Partnership
A Proud Alliance With John Faircloth
Tower Farms / True Garden
We are proud to partner with John Faircloth, Authorized Commercial Representative for Tower Farms / True Garden. John has provided the official Designing a Tower Farm manual, marketing materials, technical guidance, and ongoing support. This partnership ensures we implement industry-best practices from day one.
480-586-1750 • JohnF@Truegarden.com • TowerFarms.com
The Crisis Demands an Integrated Answer
Los Angeles County recorded 72,308 individuals experiencing homelessness in the 2025 point-in-time count. Food insecurity is pervasive among that population. No single-pillar solution — housing alone, food banks alone, job training alone — has solved this. Humble Farms was built on a different premise: that housing, nutrition, employment, and economic ownership must be delivered together, on one campus, through one self-sustaining model.
Mission
To cultivate dignity, nourishment, and belonging by providing formerly homeless individuals with secure housing, meaningful employment, and community connection through sustainable vertical farming and value-added food production.
Vision
A Los Angeles where every person has access to safe housing, nutritious food, purposeful work, and a supportive community.
What We Stand For
Loving Action
Sustainability
& Equity
& Connection
& Accountability
From South Central to the Screen.
Now Back to the Block.
“I grew up on the streets of South Central Los Angeles, Watts, and Compton. I know what it feels like when the systems around you are designed to keep you down. I spent twenty years learning how to make something out of nothing in Hollywood. Now I’m using everything I know to build something that gives people the same fighting chance I fought for.”
Carlos Azucena — Founder & Executive Director, Humble Farms
Twenty Years in Film & Television
Carlos spent more than two decades in the motion picture and television industry, working in the art, property and production departments — feature films, television, music videos, commercials, visual effects, and experimental productions. He has worked alongside Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and many of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors across every phase of production, from development through post.
That career gave Carlos a rare skill: the ability to produce high-caliber, high-impact work with limited resources. It is the same skill he now applies to Humble Farms — building something extraordinary from the ground up, on a shoestring, with everything on the line.
Roots in South Central Los Angeles
Carlos grew up on the streets of South Central Los Angeles, Watts, and Compton. He understands the harsh urban experience not as a statistic but as a lived reality — which is precisely why Humble Farms is not a charity project. It is a direct response to what Carlos knows was missing from his own neighborhood: dignified housing, nutritious food, meaningful work, and someone who genuinely cares.
Carlos envisions Humble Farms as the foundation for a larger movement — one that eventually creates pathways for at-risk youth in South Central to discover filmmaking, agriculture, entrepreneurship, and their own power to build something that matters.
No Organization in Los Angeles
Has Built All Ten of These
Every comparable organization has one or two of these pillars. Humble Farms has all ten, on one campus.
143 Tower Farms towers in Phase 1, scaling to 572 by Year 3 — 122,400+ lbs annually at full build, in a purpose-built greenhouse of roughly 4,500 sq ft expanding to about 16,000 sq ft. Up to 98% less water and up to ten times the production per unit area (Tower Farms, published figures, accessed August 2026), 365-day harvest, zero pesticides. Standard 13-pot towers carry 52 plant sites at 2.9 m. We specify regular towers throughout — high-density towers require roughly four times the planting medium and twelve times the harvest labour, the wrong trade for a workforce in training. One irrigation system serves up to 150 towers per manufacturer recommendation.
Soil-free aeroponic technology — nutrient mist to roots, zero pesticides, 365-day harvest.
50+ private factory-built homes on permanent foundations — Boxabl is our lead candidate product, with the certification pathway decided alongside the capital path. Each is a fully equipped home — kitchen, bathroom, living area, bedroom — deployable in days. No preconditions. Housing First is the evidence-based model and LA County’s $843M Measure A proves it is the funded model too. A minimum of 25% of all residences are reserved for veterans, filled through coordinated entry and veteran service partners.
2,400 sq ft processing facility producing vegetable chips, salsas, nut butters, jams, and herb blends. Built to USDA-FSIS construction and sanitation standards, operated under FDA/FSMA authority — FDA-registered, CDPH-registered, food safety plan under a Preventive Controls Qualified Individual, certified as a National Organic Program handler for the purchased certified-organic ingredients we process. 40–52% gross margins. Implements a conveyor-assisted assembly system inspired by Sweetgreen’s Infinite Kitchen — sized to campus demand rather than a chain’s national throughput — enabling $10–$13 salads at our on-site restaurant.
$18.50–$22/hr from Month 2. Paid training: agriculture, food safety, kitchen operations, financial literacy. 60+ living-wage jobs created by Year 3, with clear pathways to advancement and equity ownership.
A 15% value-appreciation pool in our enterprise subsidiary, reserved for resident-employees and vesting over two years. Residents keep W-2 employment, withholding and benefits under every structure under consideration, and funded independent benefits counselling is a gate before any vesting event. The legal instrument is being finalised with tax, benefits and ERISA counsel. This is not a perk — it is the most powerful differentiator in our model.
Every product carries a blockchain-anchored QR code. Scan it to see the tower it was grown in, the harvest date, the certification, the provenance tier, and the social impact of your purchase — with the grower named only where they have chosen to share it, and only for as long as they choose to. Consent is explicit and revocable. No resident name, photograph or story is ever written to the ledger itself. From July 2028, FDA’s Food Traceability Rule requires this level of record for four of our product lines — we are building it now rather than in 2028.
Beyond organic, and no animal inputs, ever. Our nutrient program is mineral — no animal-derived material enters the growing operation, not in the nutrients, not in the medium, not as a carrier. Certified organic does not carry that guarantee; the concentrated nitrogen sources that make organic hydroponics work are blood, feather, bone and fish meal, and we will not use them. Zero pesticides, third-party residue tested, and every resource figure metered and published — gallons per pound, miles eliminated, organics diverted under SB 1383.
Every tower is continuously monitored. Harvest is scheduled against measured growing conditions rather than a calendar, and the restaurant menu is generated each morning from what is actually ready. Harvest itself is recorded by the person who cuts it — a sensor measures temperature, humidity, pH, nutrient concentration and light, but it cannot record a human action — and the system attaches that tower’s full environmental history automatically. Our forecasting models improve as harvest history accumulates. We do not claim machine learning before there is data to train it on. Our kitchen also implements a conveyor-assisted assembly system inspired by Sweetgreen’s Infinite Kitchen — now owned by Wonder Group — specified to campus demand and procured from a food equipment integrator, freeing our resident workforce to focus on quality and creativity.
Every person who calls Humble Farms home is welcome to adopt a rescued animal from our on-site rescue — a program operated by seniors and residents who want to work with animals. Therapeutic interaction with rescued animals fosters connection, reduces stress, and builds the compassion and sense of responsibility that underpin long-term healing and stability.
A dedicated space with professional film, audio, and editing equipment for residents to create films, shows, and digital content — led by a founder with more than twenty years in film and television production, including on pictures directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. This is not an arts-and-crafts room. This is a real production facility with a real mentor. Every resident’s story deserves to be told on their own terms.
Every Comparable Organization Has One or Two Pillars.
Humble Farms is the only campus where all of them operate as one system.
| Organization | Housing | Farm | Kitchen | Equity | Traceability | Restaurant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Humble Farms | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| Homeboy Industries | YES | — | YES | — | — | YES |
| PATH | YES | — | — | — | — | — |
| Vertical Harvest | — | YES | — | — | — | — |
| Growing Home | — | YES | — | — | — | — |
| Sweetgreen | — | — | — | — | — | YES |
Organizations shown do excellent work within their pillars — the comparison illustrates integration, not quality. Swipe to see all columns on mobile.
At Least 25% of Every Home on Our Campus Is Reserved for a Veteran
The people who served this country should never sleep on its streets. Humble Farms reserves a minimum of one in four campus residences for veterans experiencing homelessness — with the same private home, the same living-wage employment from Month 2, and the same pathway to equity ownership as every resident. Not a separate program. A permanent seat at the same table.
Guaranteed Placement
A minimum of 25% of all residences — 12+ homes at full build-out — are held for veterans, filled through LA County coordinated entry and veteran service partner referrals.
Partner Pipeline
We are building referral partnerships with established Los Angeles veteran-serving organizations so veterans move from the street to a private home through channels they already know and trust.
The Full Journey
Veteran residents receive everything the Humble Farms model offers: paid training at $18.50–$22/hr, certifications, peer community, animal therapy, the creative studio, and vested equity in our for-profit subsidiary.
This reservation will be codified in board-adopted governance policy and binding unit set-aside agreements as our Board of Directors is seated — so the commitment outlives any single leader, funder, or phase of growth.
Every Purchase Ends Homelessness.
Verified on the Blockchain.
Our “Impact-Grown by Humble Farms” brand links every product via QR code to the specific resident, tower, and social impact generated by each purchase.
Kale, beet, sweet potato, and corn varieties in compostable bags. Pesticide-free, grown in our towers, seasoned in our on-site kitchen.
Roasted tomato, mango-habanero, and tomatillo verde in 12oz jars. Chef-developed recipes using produce grown feet from our kitchen.
Small-batch nut butters from harvested nuts and seeds. Crafted by our resident workforce in our on-site kitchen.
25+ varieties of leafy greens, herbs, microgreens, and specialty crops. Available direct-to-restaurant, CSA subscription, and LA farmers markets.
Hyper-local beyond-organic produce for LA restaurants — grown without pesticides and without animal inputs, harvested the morning it is delivered. Our greens enable chefs to serve premium salads under $18 — well below the $22–$25 industry norm — while improving margins through eliminated cold-chain costs.
Seasonal fruit jams, preserves, dried snacks, and herb blends. Small-batch, hand-labeled, with resident story packaging for specialty grocers and DTC.
Our 2,400 sq ft commercial kitchen and processing facility is the engine behind all value-added products. Every item is crafted by our resident workforce using produce grown feet away — zero distribution, zero cold chain, maximum freshness.
Retail placement: Specialty Grocers · Co-ops · Farmers Markets · DTC · Corporate Gifting
Become a Retail Partner →Every Claim on the Label
Is One You Can Check
Nut butters need purchased nuts. Jams need purchased fruit. So every package carries one of three tiers — and the tier is exactly what the customer can verify.
Fonseca Salsa · original recipe. Amalia’s Salsa · roasted tomato. Azucena — A Su Mesa tortilla chips with sea salt. Living Lettuce, pesticide free and fresher longer. Microgreens, nutrient dense and local. Cold Pressed Juice, 100% raw and unpasteurised. Heritage recipes, clean ingredients, sustainably grown — named for the families they came from.
Farm-to-Table in Under 10 Minutes.
Salads From $10–$13.
Because every ingredient is grown on our campus and processed in our on-site kitchen next door, our on-site restaurant eliminates every cost that drives up salad prices — no distributors, no cold-chain logistics, no middlemen, no spoilage. The result: fresh salads at $10–$13, a fraction of the $22–$25 charged at comparable LA farm-to-table restaurants.
Inspired by the conveyor-assisted assembly model pioneered by Sweetgreen’s Infinite Kitchen — now owned by Wonder Group following their $186.4M acquisition on 6 November 2025 — our kitchen implements targeted conveyor-assisted automation specified to campus demand. Automation serves our people — it never replaces them.
On-Campus Restaurant · Humble Farms · Los Angeles
Real Numbers.
Real Lives Changed.
Held in benefits-safe vehicles
Tower Farms, Aug 2026
Where Verified Provenance
Meets Web3
Blockchain traceability, verified regenerative performance, AI monitoring, conveyor-assisted kitchen automation, and Web3 giving infrastructure — an impact enterprise as technologically advanced as it is human-centered.
Every product batch is anchored on an immutable blockchain ledger. The worker who harvests records it; the system attaches the full environmental history of that growing cycle automatically. Each QR code reveals the tower, the harvest date, the certification, the provenance tier and the impact of the purchase — with the resident named only where they have chosen to share their story, and only for as long as they choose to. Consent is explicit and revocable. No resident identity is ever written to the ledger.
Inspired by the Infinite Kitchen — pioneered by Sweetgreen and acquired by Wonder Group on 6 November 2025 for $186.4M — our kitchen uses targeted conveyor automation for portioning and assembly. Specified to campus demand. Automation serves our people. It never replaces them.
Our aeroponic system uses up to 98% less water than conventional farms and delivers up to ten times the production per unit area (Tower Farms, accessed August 2026), with zero pesticides, no animal inputs and near-zero food miles. Water intensity per pound, miles eliminated and organics diverted under SB 1383 are metered and published — verified performance rather than asserted impact.
USDC and BTC donations via Endaoment.org — instant settlement, near-zero fees. NFT “Founding Farmer” badges on Base (Coinbase L2). Gitcoin quadratic funding rounds amplify small donations through matching pools.
Strategic Technology Partner
John Faircloth — Tower Farms / True Garden
Authorized Commercial Representative • 480-586-1750 • JohnF@Truegarden.com
John has provided the official Designing a Tower Farm manual, financial forecasting tools, CAD farm layout drawings, and six months of post-installation ACR support.
Five Partners.
Every System Documented.
Each selected on engineering merit before brand — and each measured, published and independently reportable from the day it is installed.
Tower Farms because tower architecture gives every unit an independent pump and reservoir — a failure costs one tower, never the crop. Boxabl because a folded factory-built home arrives on a trailer and is habitable in days rather than quarters. Tesla because the campus critical load — refrigeration, aeroponic pumps, life safety and resident medical devices — cannot go dark, and standalone storage retains the full federal investment credit through 2033. Starlink because food safety records and resident services cannot depend on a single fibre line. xAI because forecasting readiness across 572 towers on staggered cycles is exactly what large models are good at — and because it will never be pointed at a resident.
From the Street to Equity Ownership
in 24 Months
Move-in to a private home. No preconditions. Food, healthcare navigation, mental health assessment. Peer mentorship assignment.
$18.50/hr from Day 1. Agriculture, kitchen operations, food safety, financial literacy. Living wage with full benefits.
Food Handler, OSHA 10, agriculture certifications — portable, and they belong to the resident. Wages scale to $22/hr. Lead roles with expanded responsibility.
15% of for-profit subsidiary vested. Pathway to permanent housing or on-site rent-to-own. Alumni network and ongoing community connection.
If a resident stops working, they keep their home. If they relapse, they keep their home. Employment consequences and housing consequences are administered by different people, in different systems, and are never linked. Housing is never conditioned on work, sobriety, treatment or programme participation. This is the single most important rule on the campus, and it is the one that will come under the most pressure.
Vesting can cost a resident their SSI, Medi-Cal and housing subsidy — the countable resource limit is $2,000 and the 2026 federal SSI payment is $994 a month, so two months of unspent benefits reaches the cliff. Funded, independent benefits counselling happens before any vesting event, with an unconditional right to defer or decline. ABLE accounts, excluded up to $100,000 for SSI purposes, are part of the toolkit. A promise withdrawn from someone failed by systems their whole life does more damage than a promise never made.
Three Phases to
Full Operation
A clear, phased path from groundbreaking to break-even — each stage building on the last, with measurable milestones at every step.
- Secure 5–7 acre Los Angeles core campus
- Install 143 Tower Garden systems — one complete irrigation system
- Construct 2,400 sq ft commercial kitchen & processing facility
- Place first 25 factory-built homes on permanent foundations
- Install Tesla battery storage on the critical panel; build the site solar-ready
- Hire core operations team
- Homekey+ pre-application consultation with HCD
- Begin grant applications and seed fundraising
- Welcome first cohort of 25 residents
- Launch on-site restaurant operations
- Begin commercial kitchen value-added production
- Open to farmers markets and wholesale channels
- Launch blockchain QR traceability system
- Expand to 286 towers (second irrigation system)
- Add remaining 25 Boxabl homes (50+ total)
- Scale to full 60+ resident workforce
- Expand to 572 towers across four independent systems
- Reach $2.0M+ Year 3 revenue target
- Achieve EBITDA break-even (Year 3, Q3)
- Launch Animal Rescue & Therapy Program
- Open Creative Production Studio
- Begin national replication planning
The Complete
Ecosystem Blueprint
Every element supports the whole. Fourteen steps from seed to salad, eight human services, and one closed loop where waste becomes compost, water is recycled, and energy is generated on site.
We Don’t Just Help People.
We Build a Community.
Eight services on one campus, so that a person never has to travel across a county to assemble a life.
Seed to Salad,
in Fourteen Steps
Purpose Fills
Every Hour
Every Element
Supports the Whole
| System | Function | Design basis |
|---|---|---|
| Renewable Energy | Battery storage in Phase 1; solar generation in Phase 2 | The §48E solar credit window does not fit this timeline, so the array is Phase 2 and the site is built solar-ready. Critical panel carries refrigeration, aeroponic pumps, life safety, network and resident medical devices through a full outage |
| Water Systems | Capture, filter, reuse | Greywater to ornamental and orchard only — it may never contact an edible crop. Kitchen and dishwasher water is excluded by California definition and goes to sewer |
| Nutrients & Compost | Mineral nutrients; two compost streams | No animal-derived material enters the growing operation. Plant-only compost returns to the orchard and landscape; animal-zone bedding is composted in a dedicated windrow that never contributes material to the growing structure and goes to ornamental landscape only |
| Community Center | Education and events | Resident council meets here; community agreements are written and revised by residents annually |
| Amphitheater | Gather, learn, inspire | Weekly community dinners and the public face of the campus alongside the restaurant |
| Farmers Market | Local, fresh, weekly | Outreach begins across LA County markets before the campus opens its doors |
| Cold Storage | Temperature perfect | On the critical electrical panel — inventory value and food safety both depend on it |
| EV Delivery Fleet | 100% electric | Campus charging integrated with solar and storage |
| Animal Zones | Rescue dog sanctuary and cat haven | Separated from growing and processing by exclusion or by separation in location, time or partition, as 21 CFR §112.127 requires. Subpart I does not apply to a fully enclosed growing structure, which is our design. No federal rule sets a numeric setback — the distance is set in our Food Safety Plan with our PCQI and our certifier |
Waste to compost — nothing wasted. Water recycling — every drop counts. Energy independence — clean, reliable, scalable. Local economy — jobs, ownership, dignity. We are not a shelter. We are a community. We don’t do things for people — we do things with people.
Not a Business Plan.
An Engineering Programme.
A twelve-volume Master Design Specification is underway — so that when a parcel is secured, the design work is execution rather than discovery. Every load-bearing claim has been tested against statute, regulation, agency documentation and manufacturer rate cards.
Mission, values with falsification tests, brand architecture, the three-tier provenance standard, ten pillars, community rules, resident journey.
CompleteTwo value chains, five shared substrates, and exactly four points where they touch. 48 pages, 41 engineering tables, interface and assumption registers.
Complete · Verified143-tower configuration priced against the manufacturer rate card. Yield analysis, irrigation architecture, electrical load, siting and setbacks.
CompleteCrop forecasting, demand planning, maintenance scheduling. ERP as system of record for goods, case management for people, joined by a pseudonymous key only.
In progressProcessing facility and HACCP architecture, conveyor line performance specification, housing certification pathway, microgrid and critical-load design.
SequencedRoads, drainage, utilities, grading, sequencing and commissioning. Parcel-specific by nature — a design basis exists; the full volumes follow site control.
Awaiting parcelThe Numbers
Behind the Campus
Every figure below carries a source. Where a number is an assumption it is registered as one, with a named owner and a closing action.
| Parameter | Specification | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 fleet | 143 towers, 13-pot, 52 plant sites each | One irrigation system serves up to 150 towers per manufacturer recommendation. Housed in a purpose-built greenhouse, not a container |
| Organic status | Beyond organic. Not NOP producer certified | Confirmed by Tower Farms and True Garden, 5 Aug 2026: no Tower Farm holds producer certification; both the rockwool medium and the mineral blend prevent it. Handler certification is retained for the processing facility |
| Nutrient inputs | Mineral salts only. No animal-derived inputs of any kind | Vendor-confirmed 5 Aug 2026 |
| Monitoring | Specified and budgeted separately from the tower package | The vendor package supplies irrigation cycle timers. Sensors, telemetry, alarms and escalation are a separate line |
| Year 3 fleet | 572 towers across four independent systems | Demand-matched to 105,000–125,000 lb Year 3 requirement |
| Plant sites | 7,436 at Phase 1 | 143 × 52 — manufacturer rate card |
| Growing area | ~2,950 sq ft Phase 1 · ~11,800 sq ft Year 3 | 20.6 sq ft per tower including aisles, propagation and nutrient handling |
| Reservoir volume | 3,575 gallons standing | 143 × 25 gal integral reservoir |
| Irrigation cycle | 3 minutes on, 12 minutes off, continuous | No more than 15 minutes of feed per hour |
| Pump architecture | 143 independent submersible pumps | No single point of failure — a pump loss costs one tower. Spares held at 5–10% of fleet, documented swap under 15 minutes |
| Continuous harvest floor | 100 towers minimum | Below this a farm has harvest gaps; above it, rotation supports a daily harvest and a menu built from it |
| Tower selection | Regular towers throughout | High-density towers require ~4× planting medium and ~12× harvest labour — the wrong trade for a workforce in training |
| Farm labour | ~2–3 FTE Phase 1 · ~8–10 at full build | One FTE per 75–100 towers plus a manager. The 60+ campus jobs come predominantly from the kitchen, restaurant, cold chain, case management and studio |
| Food safety authority | FDA / FSMA, CDPH licensed | USDA-FSIS covers meat, poultry and egg products only. Our product list falls entirely to FDA and the State of California |
| Acidified foods | 21 CFR 108.25 and Part 114 | Salsa requires FDA Form 2541 registration, a filed scheduled process per product per container size, a process authority, and a supervisor who has completed Better Process Control School |
| Data architecture | ERP for goods, case management for people | Joined by a pseudonymous key only. The scheduler may see a resident is unavailable; it may never see why |
| Ledger | Batch hashes only | No resident name, photograph or story is ever written to a public ledger. Consumer-facing stories appear only on explicit, revocable consent |
| Algorithmic boundary | No model scores a resident | Not eligibility, risk, tenancy, promotion or equity. Board-adopted policy and a binding term in every replication licence |
| Energy credit | Storage retains full ITC through 2033 | §48E solar requires placed-in-service by 31 Dec 2027 for construction begun after 4 Jul 2026. A 501(c)(3) claims credits as direct payment under §6417 |
It removed a revenue line no registry would have certified. It corrected the governing food regulator. It found a federal tax credit window that had closed. It caught a manufacturer pricing discrepancy of $4,655 on a single order — and it reversed one of its own earlier corrections when a second source proved the original figure right. Claims that did not survive were removed rather than softened. Where sealed engineering is required, a California-licensed professional authors it; this programme produces the performance specification they are engaged against. Full volumes available to partners, investors and funders on request.
Built to Be Self-Sustaining.
Stress-Tested Against Real 2026 Costs.
| Revenue Stream | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresh Organic Produce | $90,000 | $155,000 | $275,000 |
| Value-Added Products (Kitchen) | $60,000 | $220,000 | $495,000 |
| On-Campus Restaurant | $205,000 | $491,000 | $898,000 |
| Grants (Federal, State, Local) | $245,000 | $260,000 | $210,000 |
| Philanthropic Donations | $120,000 | $145,000 | $80,000 |
| CSA & Farmers Market | $25,000 | $55,000 | $80,000 |
| Total Revenue | $745,000 | $1,326,000 | $2,038,000 |
Restaurant revenue shown net of COGS (78–82% gross margin; 100 bowls/day in Year 1 scaling to 280/day by Year 3). Year 1 volumes run on the initial 143 towers; Years 2–3 scale-up adds three further irrigation systems to reach 572 towers, funded from operating revenue. Regular towers are specified throughout — the licensor advises high-density towers require roughly 4× the planting medium and 12× the harvest labour.
Key Metrics — Year 3
Capital Stack — $5M Target
| Source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Impact Equity (Seed Round) | $1.5M |
| Philanthropic Foundations | $800K |
| Measure A Innovations Fund | $250K |
| State + Local Grants | $400K |
| Federal Agriculture Grants | $400K |
| Year 1 Earned Revenue | $380K |
| Total Identified | $3.73M+ |
Targeting net $3–4M after grants and subsidies. Bridge financing available from committed impact investors.
A Separate Stack,
Because It Is a Separate Raise
Housing capital and enterprise capital come from different sources with different requirements. Cost per unit follows the capital path, and that decision is open. Private and philanthropic capital has delivered supportive housing in Los Angeles at approximately $200,000 per unit; the public stack, with its labour, procurement and process requirements, runs $430,000–$600,000. Homekey+ contributes $150,000–$200,000 per door as the state’s share against a 1:1 match — not the total cost. Fifty homes is roughly $10M on the private path or $21.5M–$30M on the public one. We publish the number when the path is chosen.
| Source | Indicative | Note |
|---|---|---|
| HCD Homekey+ | $150K–$200K per door | $2.2B from Prop 1, open and awarding on a rolling basis. March 2026 amendment incentivises veterans’ units |
| Match — philanthropic | Balance | Named home sponsorships and veteran-designated giving |
| Home Depot Foundation | $100K–$500K | Veteran housing capital — Phase 2 eligibility after track record and audited financials |
| Phase 1 — 25 units | $2.75M–$4.0M | Remaining 25 homes follow in Phase 2 |
A pre-application consultation with HCD is a programme requirement before a Homekey+ application may be submitted. It is free, requires no site control, and is scheduled as a first-quarter action — along with confirming that factory-built Casitas satisfy the programme’s unit standards on permanent foundations.
The People Behind
the Mission
Carlos spent more than twenty years in the motion picture and television industry, working in the art, property and production departments. He worked on major feature films, television shows, music videos, commercials, and visual effects productions, including pictures directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, and many of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors — in every capacity from development through post-production.
Carlos grew up on the streets of South Central Los Angeles, Watts, and Compton. That lived experience is not background color — it is the foundation of Humble Farms. He knows precisely what was missing from his neighborhood, and he has spent his career building the skills to do something about it. His ability to produce high-caliber, high-impact work with limited resources — honed over two decades in Hollywood — is the same ability he now brings to building this campus from the ground up.
Carlos also envisions Humble Farms as the seed of a larger foundation for at-risk youth in South Central — providing technical support, creative expression, and the living proof that dreams are buildable.
Our Advisory Board and Board of Directors are actively being formed with experts in agriculture, social services, finance, law, and governance. Our goal is 30% representation from individuals with lived experience of homelessness — because the people who know this challenge most deeply must have a seat at the table.
We are seeking advisors and board members across the following domains:
Interested in joining our advisory board? Contact Carlos directly.
Six Ways to Be Part
of This Story
Humble Farms represents a transformational opportunity to address Los Angeles’ most pressing challenges through an integrated, financially sustainable, and deeply human-centered model.
Equity in our for-profit subsidiary. Board observer rights available. Two exit pathways: equity appreciation in the LA campus and national replication licensing revenue.
Grants to our nonprofit (501(c)(3) application in progress) supporting housing and social services. Named tower sponsorships. “Sponsor a Resident’s First Year” packages with quarterly impact reporting.
Specialty grocers, co-ops, and marketplaces seeking impact-driven, blockchain-verified provenance brands. Priority placement for founding retail partners who join early.
Farm-to-table contracts for hyper-local, traceable produce. Our greens enable premium salads under $18 — well below the $22–$25 industry norm. On-farm dinners and chef collaborations available.
USDC and BTC via Endaoment.org. NFT Founding Farmer badges on Base. Gitcoin quadratic funding rounds. ReFi grants via Regen Network and ReFi DAO.
Homeboy Industries referral pipeline. PATH and LAHSA coordinated entry. LACI cleantech network. Co-branded “Made in LA by Hands That Healed” product collaborations.
Meeting Los Angeles
at the Farmers Market
Before our campus opens its doors, Humble Farms will be a presence throughout Los Angeles County — introducing our mission, our people, and our products to the communities we serve.
Samples of all our products — vegetable chips, artisanal salsas, nut butters, jams, and fresh greens — will be available at every market visit. Taste the mission before it ships to shelves.
Our chefs will prepare fresh vegan dishes on-site using produce grown on our campus. Farm-to-bowl in real time — a living demonstration of what Humble Farms makes possible every day.
We will be reaching out across Los Angeles County farmers markets to introduce our community to the people, the produce, and the purpose behind Humble Farms. Come find us, taste our food, and hear our story.
Going Home — A Documentary on Homelessness in Los Angeles
The Only Products That
Directly End Homelessness.
Every purchase provides nourishment and living-wage work to a formerly homeless neighbor — grown on our Los Angeles campus, crafted in our kitchen, connected to a human story.
CarlosAzucena@Protonmail.com
323-351-4547