I had a very interesting 15-minute conversation with Gracie as she panhandled on the off-ramp this afternoon. As she brought me up to date on the whereabouts and news of the others, I commented on the way most drivers and passengers looked the other way or straight ahead as they passed by or sat waiting for the light to turn green. She responded by coming up with a new slogan for her next sign, “those who can, don’t, and those who can’t, do…” It’s a telling bromide and one that can join “homeless, not hopeless,” and “not homeless, houseless,” among the battle cries written with markers on cardboard.
As much to mollify Gracie as to justify my presence on that freeway offramp, I told her how I wished (and have proposed) that each and every one of the people who are on display as 4x4ft prints in City Hall could have their lives intervened in by the city’s social services departments, with something positive being done for each of them. I swore out loud in frustration that instead, she is still out there… then she swore and I told her not to copy my bad habits and we laughed, and the people looking at us from their car windows might have thought, well they don’t look so miserable after all…
Many people associate the term “skid row” with an end-of-the-line, bottom-of-the-barrel location where the poorest of the poor end up, either mentally ill or strung out on one illegal substance or another. Life skids to a halt here, by this reasoning. But the actual origin of the name refers to the skid marks left by the lumber dragged through the streets in times long since past. General Jeff, known in some circles as the unelected “mayor” of Skid Row, insists that those who want to change Skid Row’s name to something less stigmatized, for commercial or other reasons, are wasting their time. Skid Row’s many problems, including its status as the epicenter of homelessness in Los Angeles and perhaps the entire country, does not mean its people and history should be forsaken or erased, especially not for public relations purposes. To the contrary, he and others fighting for the souls that live there believe that redemption will come not from sanctimony or patronage, but from an insistence on better representation and policies toward the community.
If you want to at least scratch the surface of the mind-bending situation in Skid Row today, General Jeff is the right person to start with. The South-Central native has taken on what should be respected as one of the hardest jobs in Los Angeles– to keep things moving in a positive direction in the face of the common sense deficit that plagues the social service, political and law enforcement sectors… General Jeff does in fact fill the void left by a lack of action from City Hall, involved in all aspects of Skid Row life. Mayor or not, he’s been at the forefront of the ongoing move to obtain Neighborhood Council representation for the community. He wants the local businesses in the area to be more understanding and responsive to the residents. To steer the population away from associations with the lowest common denominators of popular culture he fights to have salacious billboards advertising the sex-industry taken down.
Touring the area with General Jeff is a lesson in both history and civics. He is greeted in the streets with respect and love, fist bumps and handshakes. The landmark mural, created in the image of a traffic sign, is his bold proposition that Skid Row deserves to be respected and taken seriously as something more than the dead end it is dismissed as. Asserting sovereignty for residents who cannot afford or survive gentrification, to use one example Jeff looks at the fishing industry’s use of prime real estate within the Skid Row borders for storage and distribution as a symbol of inequality and the disconnect between the business world and the people. His movement would be happy to see the business owners take a more balanced interest in the welfare of those they are keeping off their properties with coils of razor wire, security gates and fencing, or just dull, windowless, undecorated walls.
The door in the background was once the entry to the Salvation Army kitchen, located in one of the many early 20th century buildings in the area. That this particular building stands is in disrepair is a symbolic and ironic testimony to failed philanthropy.
With four major missions and numerous other charity organizations, Skid Row on a Sunday morning features sidewalk sermons, with people lining up in several locations for meals and other services. General Jeff firmly believes that not enough scrutiny is paid to the operations of the charity industry, and also decries the “shell game” that is too-often played by governmental bodies at the expense of the Skid Row community, hindering real development and making it more difficult for the residents to rise up.
General Jeff is frequently approached with questions and concerns. He is known as a fearless and tireless representative of the community, and does not suffer fools gladly…
Along with the tents and tarps that line the sidewalks on most streets in Skid Row, the most glaring sign of municipal neglect is the sheer volume of trash gathering in the gutters and elsewhere. One of many concerns is the pollution caused by this trash (which includes syringes and other toxins) entering the drainage system openings along the curbs … one wonders how often city sanitation trucks visit these streets.
Outside the Hippie Kitchen, where meals and other services have been provided since the late 1960s…
Mural in progress by Dimitri; General Jeff speaks adamantly about bringing positive imagery and lively colors to the community, to counter the oppressive facelessness and the outdated negative artwork that currently marks much of the industrial and commercial property on Skid Row.
This is the cliché that has come to represent Skid Row. It is a common sight and a sobering reminder of the enormity of the task.
A stark reminder of how dangerous life can be; burn marks on the wall where a tent was torched in retribution for an unpaid debt.
65-year-old women (or men) shouldn’t have to sit on the ground like this. Days like today, you feel the weight of the struggle our friends go through, and get down over the reality of how slow, or non-existent, change seems. “One of us” feels more like “none of us.” Lynda is still largely laid up with her rib injury, working on some new pieces, excited about the possibility that she will be able to show, and possibly even sell, some work, and is more determined than ever to get the hell out her dead-end existence and into a small apartment somehow…. Like her friends Rebecca and Rachel, she’s now hoping that Friday will bring good news when she goes to apply for an HUD apartment.
Her message was loud and clear, though most of the people in attendance at the Los Angeles Housing+Community Investment Department’s celebration of 25 years of achievement in the fields of affordable housing (and homelessness, by proxy) weren’t in the mood to listen … with $1.5 million already allocated to enhance the emergency shelter system into a year-round program, Laura Rathbone arrived to plead that there be no more excuses. She wasn’t on the agenda, and my request to have access to the microphone (I intended to turn my time over to her) was shushed due to “time constraints.” Laura, denied the opportunity to explain the situation in more measured tones, and maybe a little put out by the fact that she had been running all over the city on a daily basis trying to find someone who could unlock the Armory doors, went all Norma Rae…. Lives were on the line– just as there are lots of people who refuse to go into the shelters for a variety of reasons, there is also a segment of the homeless population who do not want or cannot cope with living out of doors. If only the powers-that-be would listen, and realize that hundreds, even thousands of people are on the streets because of decisions like this one.
The thing that sticks with me the most after watching this a few times is how the officials around the perimeter of the rotunda just carried on as if nothing was happening. Laura was just speaking the truth, trying to help people who due to the closure of the Sylmar Armory suddenly have to fend for themselves outdoors. Besides the obvious irony of turning a deaf ear while the gallery is filled with larger-than-life portraits of the class of people Laura was speaking for, it’s absurd that not one person in a position of authority approached her to find out more, to see if there was any validity to her claims, to even recognize that there was a problem. This was during an event focussing on the city’s commitment to finding affordable housing and lifting the homeless up. Yet when my wife went to ask if they could turn down the music that had been cranked up to drown out her voice, she was told “no, there’s a time and place for everything.” Real solutions to homelessness in this city thus remain elusive, or at least move along at what must seem a glacial pace to the marginalized, afflicted and dispossessed.
With curious uniformed officers in pursuit, Laura was long gone by the time we gathered for this photograph with members of the North Valley Caring Services and the Museum of Social Justice. It felt great to be surrounded by so many dedicated activists, family and friends including Richard Conner, a gentleman of many talents.
All the photography displays in the world won’t make a bit of difference if those in power don’t take action… big, beautifully printed photographs become just entertainment for the elite to feel good or bad about. Case in point– I took Gracie to a neighborhood council meeting last December, where she spoke out about her predicament and pleaded for understanding. Two weeks later she was in handcuffs and carted off to jail…
In preparation for an exhibition on homelessness currently in the planning stages at the Museum of Social Justice in Los Angeles, I was asked three very simple and direct questions, which challenged me to define the motivations and expectations of the One of Us project:
1.
Is there one thing, or one experience that
tangibly crystalized the dedication that drives you to pursue this project with
such ferocity? Or is there a significant experience you can point to that
initiated your motivation to provoke change in how homelessness is treated in
Los Angeles?
Homelessness in Los Angeles is a humanitarian crisis that
can’t be ignored. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas recently characterized it as
the defining issue of the time, and better late than never, it is good to find so
much activity and mobilization going on now. I’m personally motivated by a
sense of outrage over the passive-aggressive way much of society deals with the
homeless population, and alarm at the way the problem has been allowed to
fester and grow. The relationships, trust and even friendships I’ve established
with an odd fraternity of homeless individuals (and activists) in my own community has only
reinforced and illuminated these beliefs.
Photographs and words can only interpret and represent, and
in actuality there are already more than enough dramatic photographs of
deprivation and suffering, and enough anecdotal information and demographics to
convince the powers-that-be to do the needful. The media, myself included, have
been complicit in this. With the notable exception of the few instances where
photographs, reportage and even Art have had a direct, measurable effect on its
subjects, the ubiquity of coverage has only added to an overwhelming sense of
intractability and despair, perpetrating harmful stereotypes and further
serving to objectify the homeless as some homogeneous societal woe.
What harm can there be in listening to and learning from
those who are actually living this nightmare on a daily basis? The concept of
soliciting the personal stories and portraits that became One of Us arose out
of a longstanding collaboration with Wade Trimmer, director of the San Fernando
Valley Rescue Mission. Wade encouraged me to pursue our common interest in
“humanizing” the homeless, a phrase that on its face seems redundant and
offensive because it infers that each person encountered in this work is not unquestionably
and obviously quite human already. So we want to remind the public of this simple
fact of humanity; the motivation for this approach lies in the desire to change
the conversation surrounding homelessness, to bring it back to a human level,
to perhaps nudge anyone who encounters the material to feel more inclined to
enact real, sustainable solutions.
2.
If you were to ask the participants of “One of
Us” what the most important message we need to convey would be, what do you
think they would say?
The conversations we recorded with more than 40 individuals
provide a wide variety of answers to that question. Taken collectively, they
present a pretty comprehensive catalog of the causes of homelessness and the
many obstacles that make it such a difficult situation to rise above. At the
risk of overusing another cliché, in the context of “giving voice to the
voiceless” as a path toward human autonomy and dignity, the most important
messages I heard were connected with the longing for understanding and empathy
from the general public and law enforcement.
Each person’s story touches on
this in some way, whether it is boyish, twenty-something Jesse who dreams of
becoming a doctor or nurse while currently living in his car in the parking lot
of the Walmart store he works in, or
Nancy, an elderly Southern debutante whose safe world was turned upside down
after being victimized by real estate fraud. Ultimately it
doesn’t matter how many stories are told, how many “likes” their images collect
on social media, or any of that. They just need affordable housing.
3.
What is your favorite image and why?
There’s a big distinction between the studio-lit
portraits made in locations where the people were for the most part comfortable
and knew they were in a safe place among friends and allies (possibly having just
eaten a warm breakfast and used the portable shower unit), and those taken out
in the streets and encampments. While I’m gratified that so many of the
close-up portraits reveal a sense of common humanity that transcends their
economic or living conditions, my favorite picture is often one I have just
recently taken, portraying both personal and symbolic meanings.
Right now an
image I feel conveys some measure of universal hope, if not redemption, is that
of Gracie holding up the tiny portrait of a baby girl recently born to her
street-mate Emmy. The baby was the only survivor of twins, and Gracie was
noticeably proud to have been anointed her “honorary grandmother.” As tragic as
the circumstances surrounding the child’s birth may be, and as uncertain as the future is now for Gracie, Emmy and the rest of the people in this one
camp—a microcosm of homelessness in Los Angeles—there is still the desire to
sustain a sense of familial belonging.
How much trouble can one life endure in just 66 years? The joys, the meaningful pleasures, the temporary reprieves from the sameness of living out of doors, these can’t take root when you are suddenly forced to abandon your base camp on the sidewalk next to the 7-11, and follow police orders to clear out in 30 minutes or else… so it was this morning when Gracie suddenly came chugging around the corner into Craig and Lynda’s encampment, pushing a loaded shopping cart in an agitated state. Lynda was sound asleep (so it seemed when I dropped bag of nail polish, this one donated by a student). Craig, thinking with his heart first, quickly said yes when Gracie indicated she needed to move everything into their space, like pronto…
Things did get a little testy when Craig arrived on his bike to help with the move. After a minute of watching her pull back tarps and stuff items into milk crates and carts, he let Gracie know that she would have to take a quick inventory and thin out her belongings, if mainly to avoid upsetting the apartment building dwellers in the cul de sac, who were giving tacit approval to the presence of the little makeshift duplex. (Earlier, while discussing which local stores had the cheapest groceries, Craig told me he was planning to go behind the chain link fence and tidy up the strewn rubbish).
As Gracie sorted fretfully, a guy in a small pick-up stopped to offer three full McDonald’s breakfasts he had somehow inherited, and just around that same time another group of Good Samaritans came over to offer us more food, and were directed over to Terry and Amy’s side. Craig and Mike ate lustily but it was all lost on poor Gracie who now had to wrack her brains and shift into full survival mode again…
A few hours later her blond ponytail was seen bobbing along the sidewalk under the freeway bridge. “Turns out it was a false alarm,” she said into the car window, without sheepishness and still a little beside herself, before continuing along on the way to pick up her clothes at the corner laundromat.
Craig and Lynda are now resigned to avoiding the constant hassle of the overpass life, sharing a dead-end side street butted up against the chain link fences meant to keep people away from the freeway. This new spot is equidistant between where the others still stubbornly squat near the money-generating ramps on busy Nordhoff, and the saving grace of the old Methodist Church and community center run by the North Valley Caring Services a few blocks east. Even though Craig, Lynda, Gracie and rest are loathe to take advantage of the food pantry, breakfasts and other services, it’s not an exaggeration to say that with Manny and others so ready to come to them, their proximity to the mission is almost comforting in itself.
It wasn’t surprising to find Gracie relaxed and pleased to greet company, sitting alone in Craig’s tent, spirits buoyed by her new status as the “honorary grandmother” of a baby girl recently born to Emmy, the raw-boned gal who along with boyfriend Mike were caught up in the ultimately unhelpful New Year’s Eve crackdown that put most of the group (including Mike) in the clink. Now living close to Gracie on the sidewalks off Nordhoff, the couple are part of what Craig somewhat emotionally refers to as their family, which includes everyone mentioned so far plus Terry and Amy. “We’ve had our spirit broken,” he confesses, “but we got it back.”
Gracie Crilley wants to help get Emmy into a drug addiction program, so she can get off the street and care for her child herself.
But there’s more… there’s always more…
The child’s twin did not survive until birth. This happened outside, on the ramp, though in the overall scheme of things was not overly dramatized, and everyone soldiered on. Emmy’s aunt in Santa Clarita has taken the baby in, hence the studio portrait Gracie pulled out of her shirt to proudly share. The printed photograph stabs at the heart, a throwback to a simpler, pre-digital time It will not lose it’s preciousness even as it weathers and fades, as a possession stored in a refugee’s belongings must do, and relatively quickly. Slipping back into the first-person witness of the human condition, I feel an uncomfortable sense of awe at the resilience and capacity to endure hardship my friends often show. What I am moved so much by is not Gracie’s cracked fingernails, or the depth-of-field you can achieve with an iPhone, but her happiness while sharing the news, the photograph, the experience of being a grandmother. Don’t believe this photograph. Or at least believe that for a few minutes, Gracie was smiling.
Can somebody please get this woman (and her family) a place to live?
Manny Flores and his outreach team from the North Valley Caring Services bring warm meals, hygiene kits, human kindness and even prayer to people living outdoors. Encampments, alleys, sidewalks, the wash, even groups camped inside the bushes of public parks are visited each Wednesday night. It requires just the right blend of missionary zeal, street cred and unconditional love to gain and keep trust. Some of the spots, such as the “Trails” encampments that line the 405 freeway, are home to the hardest cases of chronic homelessness, notorious for tough, sometimes fatal living conditions. Deaths among the homeless and other street dwellers in this repressed section of North Hills are surprisingly common, and Manny talked about some recent incidents while driving his loaded-down pick-up through the night traffic between spots.
Randy, an elderly gentleman surviving the elements and lung cancer, talks to volunteer Lauren Rathbone and her service dog, and unburdens himself to a sidewalk ministry.
MOTEL LIFE
Outreach includes regular visits to families who have secured temporary shelter in motels along Sepulveda Boulevard, through a voucher program provided by Los Angeles Family Housing. Kids and adults congregate on the balconies as doors open to greet the visitors. One of the motel rooms we visited housed a family of ten…