Street People Pitch In to Help Clean Skid Row

Felton James, 44, a regular on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, came because he had nothing else to do.

Just out after a year in jail, Ernest Barnes, 36, said he hadn’t been picked in the 5 a.m. labor pool and needed the free lunch.

Linda Bolton, 29, a self-described prostitute, said she needed a break and came for fresh air and the music.

Whatever the attraction, more than 100 low-income residents and street people joined in Friday to clean up a downtown neighborhood in an event also designed to showcase a nonprofit housing group’s efforts and to promote a ballot initiative to aid the homeless.

It was the 12th cleanup sponsored in the last three years by SRO Housing, the agency that has purchased and renovated eight hotels with 796 rooms for low-income tenants and provides other services for Los Angeles residents.

Noise from work under way at two more hotels--the former Regal and Ellis hotels, scheduled to open next year--could be heard across Gladys Park, on East 6th St., Friday morning, as dozens of volunteers lined up to join in.

“What they get is a meal, a T-shirt, a pair of work gloves and they get to enjoy a concert,” said Andy Raubeson, executive director of SRO, which operates on an annual budget of $4 million.

The volunteers picked their way through three television camera crews and hit the streets for two blocks around, adding to the mid-morning bustle of a commercial district dominated by seafood processors and distributors.

For James, the task helped pass the time and also provided “self-gratification. All I want to do is get back into the mainstream,” he said.

Delores Hutton, 52, explained softly that she came to support SRO, which helped her off the streets and into a refurbished hotel room. “I’m here because I’m grateful to have a place to live,” she said.

Melelani Madson, 20, who accepted a cigarette with a violently shaking hand that she attributed to the after-effects of a car accident, said she has been attacked and raped on downtown streets, her home for the last eight months. “I just want to get out,” Madson said.