Photos: Four walls and a bed: Part 1
Bobby Livingston, a 37-year survivor of skid row, was No. 1 on the list of people most likely to die on skid row’s streets. If anyone tested the idea of offering housing with few strings, thought Project 50 director Carrie Bach, right, it would be him. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Outreach worker Doris Starling walks through skid row. The idea behind Project 50 is that the hard-core homeless cost taxpayers hugely enormously in emergency services, and that housing them, with access to doctors and counselors, will slash those costs. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Project 50 director Carrie Bach, fourth from left, participates in a ring of support with members of her staff to try to alleviate pressures associated with seeking to find and house 50 homeless people. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Wanda Hammond, No. 5 on the list, had mental health and drug problems. She belts out a tune in front of the Senator Hotel, where she got an apartment. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Like many of the homeless people approached on skid row, Thomas Gordon initially rebuffed Project 50 workers and their offer of an apartment. He is shown in front of the Fred Jordan Mission, where he slept on the sidewalk. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Project 50 workers Doris Starling and Donald Holt talk to Gordon outside the Fred Jordan Mission. People used to the streets can be hard to persuade to accept housing. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Project 50 participant Andre Cotton looks out the window of his sparsely furnished apartment at the Senator Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Maurice Lewis was the first in Project 50 to be placed in housing. Fearing the previous tenant might harm him, he refused to move in to the Senator Hotel until the lock was changed. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Outreach worker Donald Holt, right, talks with Project 50 participant Paul Sigler at the Weingart Medical Clinic on skid row. Sigler had previously said he used to be a millionaire. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Cathy McFee, who had struggled with drugs, also had health issues that in one year led to 15 emergency room days and 26 inpatient hospital days, a taxpayer tab of $90,000. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Andre Cotton, left, panhandles along 4th Street in downtown Los Angeles. “I don’t do shrinks. I don’t do meds. But if you want to give me a place, sure,” said Cotton, who was living on the streets until Project 50 gave him a room. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
