Skid Row

Welcome to where the sidewalk ends - literally.

This isn't America - this is not how Americans live. This is not legal. This is not what we believe in.

So . . . Why was I able to get there in a matter of minutes? Why would I be able to find some small piece of this in so many big cities?

I am here with the sole purpose (as far as my job placement anyway) of serving the homeless. Yet I didn't come to skid row to reach out a hand - This is a place where PATH does not extend its hand as it does in the rest of the LA area. For one thing, that would be impossible. We take sack lunches to the people who live around the city and even in areas where there are only ten or twelve homeless it becomes unsafe for our group two to four to engage them. The sheer numbers of people on skid row crammed onto one small strip of sidewalk could easily overhwhelm us.

Here there are shelters; the Weingart shelter is where we were headed for a meeting, the Mission shelter is just up the street. There are three or four others in the immediate area. And there were people. Everywhere. The sidewalks were blackened by constant use - like the black spots that grow on sidewalks where gum has been dropped only without any space in between.

This is so much of why we are doing what we are doing and yet it is something that we really can't address. This is one of those problems that can't just be touched on one or two levels, but has to be pulled at the root - everywhere.

This is something that takes a community, a culture to fix.

This is a stark reminder of why we do what we do.