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Life on the Streets
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After spending a week on skid row and listening to the city authorities promise to make a difference, the Times columnist wonders when the homeless will see results.
PHOTOS: Will Deeds Follow the Words?
One man injects himself while another sleeps in a wheelchair near 7th Street and San Julian Place.
(Francine Orr / LAT)
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PART ONE
STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WESTThe call comes in at 11:18 in the morning. Possible overdose on skid row, just half a block from one of the busiest firehouses in the United States.
PART TWO
STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WESTA few hours after a homeless guy named Virgil died of an overdose in the portable toilet, the blue plastic outhouse at 6th and San Julian streets was back in business. Not as a toilet, but as a house of prostitution.
PART THREE
STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WESTThere is no such thing as skid row disease. But if there were, Lonnie Whitaker would have it bad. He hobbles into the office of Dr. Dennis Bleakley and goes through the long list of what ails him.
PART FOUR
STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WESTHe's in a wheelchair, ducking behind a trash can. I step forward to see if he's OK and inadvertently scare him.
PART FIVE
STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WESTThey're yours for the taking: Luxury lofts in downtown Los Angeles, with rooftop pools, swanky cabanas, and views of Porta Potti brothels on skid row.
STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WEST
Steve Lopez's 5-part series was sparked by his friendship with Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a homeless musician with schizophrenia who sleeps each night on one of skid row's most dangerous streets. Lopez has chronicled Ayers' life on the streets in his columns.
SERIES: READ THE STORIES ABOUT NATHANIEL
RELATED ARTICLES
Stakes Are So High, It's Hard to WaitHelp for Skid Row
MAP OF SKID ROW
At 6th and San Pedro, the JWCH Medical Clinic treats many of the roughly 10,000 people who flop on skid row streets each night.
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