A New Woe for Homeless on Skid Row: Hopelessness
The homeless have been aborted by the American economy. Canned food drives, used clothing and turkey dinners cannot save them. I used to believe they could.
When we first started Chrysalis on Skid Row four years ago, I thought the homeless simply faced a supply-and-distribution problem. I asked people for their shoes, shirts, groceries to give to the poor. Thousands gave and thousands received.
Many homeless-relief agencies and politicians have defined success as survival . They promote the delivery of services to the homeless as a solution to the problem of homelessness: If we could only serve enough socks, turkey dinners or shelter beds, then we could eradicate the problem.
My frustration was that I always expected more from our distribution program than actually occurred--something like, you invest socks in people and then they go on with their lives.
During my first years working on Skid Row, people like Stafford lived in the neighborhood. He was 60, alcoholic and waiting out his final years. Stafford survived month to month using his disability check. He paid $160 a month for a 10-by-10 room at a flophouse and spent most of the remainder on Thunderbird. Some months, alcohol got the better of him and all of his check. Those months he would explain, “I go to the missions to get God, a cot and a meal.” And he came by Chrysalis for a clean shirt, a warm jacket and a friend to talk to. This was all Stafford wanted for his last years.
Back then, Stafford shared his neighborhood with other poor people, like Albert, who was mentally disabled; Frank, who dropped out of society; and the Martin family who crowded their three children into a rat-infested, one-room apartment.
Skid Row was a place of last resort.
Suddenly, everything changed.
Just as much of the affordable housing was being demolished in Skid Row due to the pressures of redevelopment and the rates of even the worst hotels doubled, in came a new wave of homeless who were younger, able-bodied, alienated, frustrated and without hope. The older population of alcoholics waiting out their final years, of mentally disabled and of families crowded into one-room apartments, had no defense. They were pushed out onto the streets, where they remain today, or they simply seemed to vanish.
Why can’t the new homeless, young and able-bodied, return to a “normal life?” At first glance, they seem to have great potential. They are people like Wilson and Butler. Wilson, 34, is a high school graduate, as are 90% of the people Chrysalis serves, and a veteran. However, he can barely read and write. Over the past 10 years, he has worked at a fast-food restaurant, as a parking-lot attendant and as an assembly worker, usually for about $4 an hour, and usually for employers who find it more cost-efficient to change workers every 90 days rather than pay benefits. A year ago, soaring rent, the loss of a job and no savings pushed Wilson out of his Los Angeles home of three years. He now moves between shelters and flophouses.
Butler, 30, recently divorced and without other family ties, left New Orleans with a spotty work history, few work skills and $600 in savings in his pocket. He arrived at the Greyhound station on Skid Row at 11 p.m. and was greeted by two thugs who robbed him. He turned to the police; they dropped him off at the welfare office; welfare provided temporary housing on Skid Row. Despondent, he turned to social service agencies for survival.
Wilson and Butler now walk the toughening streets of Skid Row, pondering what to do. They pass by thousands who have “quit,” people not much different from themselves.
“Quitting” offers relief from the constant struggle for housing and employment but often it also means battling with the nightmares of crime, crack cocaine and alienation. Wilson and Butler see streets lined with relief agencies offering food, clothing and shelter beds but little hope.
Wilson and Butler face a decision. To quit or continue the struggle for a decent place to live and enough money to survive, independent of public assistance. To me, success on Skid Row has more to do with that decision than achieving some arbitrary goal.
Increasingly, I believe we face a societal problem of an able-bodied, young, predominantly black and hardening “underclass” or “homeless” population that is beginning to exist with a social norm of unemployment and without a community. My great concern is that this population is becoming more dependent on government and private handouts to survive, and often turning to a life of drugs and crime. I find it disturbing that during what should be the prime of their lives, so many individuals have been aborted by the economy or chosen to quit society.
Helping people survive on Skid Row is not difficult. Most have mastered how to get free food, shelter and money before they come to us. If they have not, we provide free services like rent assistance, bus fare, groceries and clothing in a contractual manner, “If you do that . . ., Chrysalis will do this.”
Stability and a chance to succeed come harder. That part of the dream usually involves finding a job. Of 1,700 who applied to us for help in finding a job over the last two years, we tried to help 500. The other 1,200 either did not want to work, were not alcohol- or drug-free, or did not appear to be mentally balanced.
Of the 500, 260 found jobs and 163 of them kept them for 90 days. Salaries ranged from minimum wage for most to $11 an hour for a few.
Since most only qualified for low- or no-skill jobs, they were quick to experience frustration at the prospect of little or no advancement and more apt to quit. In addition, returning to work does not drastically change the individual’s life in the same or similar environment, such as the flophouses and shelters of Skid Row, South Central or Hollywood. They continue to remain socially and economically isolated.
What can we do to help people leave behind institutional dependency and compete in an unfriendly economy?
At Chrysalis we promote the work ethic and, at the same time, try to involve the business community in the problem, to inform them of our clients’ problems and to train business professionals to become employment instructors at job-readiness workshops. We try to find employers who will pay higher wages and reward loyal service and hard work.
It looks bleak, but there are still reasons to hope.
For one thing, the very economy that rejected these people still needs them as productive members. For many employers, their business’ survival depends on finding better-trained workers. It is clear that for many businesses to compete they will have to train or re-train the available labor force.
And for another thing, I believe that we, as a society, will never grow to accept homelessness. People individually remain troubled by it. Working on Skid Row, I can see that they are reaching out, but they see the problem worsening and they don’t know how to help.
What I see is that despite all that compassion, homelessness essentially is understood as an “us and them” problem. It needs to be more of “our problem.” And as soaring costs and dwindling personal savings make all people feel more vulnerable, the once-clear lines of distinction will become blurred.
So it must be the community as a whole that will need to find a new direction, develop comprehensive plans for affordable housing, deal with an exploding crack epidemic and reinforce a work ethic that gets people employed and keeps them participating.
It will be expensive and requires a commitment. But the cost will be nothing compared to the cost of doing nothing. I find hope in the dignity of the human spirit and the compassion of the people of Los Angeles.
