A Man With a Mission : The Rev. Mike Edwards, a Longtime Understudy, Takes Over at Skid Row Facility

One day back in 1992, a former burglar and drug addict hugged the Rev. Mike Edwards as they stood outside an office at the Los Angeles Mission on Skid Row. Not since childhood had Burton Taylor loved a man so much.

“I told him I loved him and he said he loved me too,” said Taylor, a graduate of the mission’s rehabilitation program for homeless men. “I haven’t felt that way since I was a little boy.”

Perhaps Edwards’ reputation as a fun-loving guy with a “heart for people,” as one staff member described him, permits some men to freely express their affection. Even though he is the Downtown Los Angeles mission’s new executive director, Edwards, 40, is greeted by these men with a “Hey, Rev. Mike!” as he walks the two flights of stairs to his office.

The geniality of this tall, rosy-cheeked father of two toddlers can be misleading. After nearly two decades as a key player in the development of the mission’s programs--though never at the steering wheel--Edwards said he is now working to mold the mission’s programs to his liking.

“I think every time leadership changes, new people have ideas,” said Edwards, who took over last month for the retiring Mark Holsinger. “I worked for 18 years for Rev. Holsinger, so certainly a lot of our ideas are the same. But, naturally, there were a lot of times when I wanted to go in one direction and he didn’t. So yeah, there will be some changes.”

For those 18 years, Edwards worked as a “sort of understudy” to Holsinger, said Dick Willis, chairman of the mission’s 10-member board, which selected Edwards. Four years ago, Holsinger suggested to the board that they consider naming Edwards his successor when he retired.

“He’s grown up with the mission and it seemed like he would be the logical one,” Willis said. “He’s got this kind of work in his heart.”

The work is also in his own personal history. Growing up in a small farming town outside of Nashville, Tenn., Edwards said, he only met his alcoholic father three times.

His mother worked two jobs, including one at a hosiery factory. Edwards got a job at 12. “Alcohol was what destroyed my family at that time,” said Edwards, whose brother died three years ago of alcohol-related diseases.

Edwards never took to the taste of alcohol. He made plans to play college football and become a veterinarian. But those plans changed. Although raised in a Christian home, it wasn’t until age 18 that Edwards decided he “wanted to do more with my life.”

He enrolled at Kentucky Mountain Bible College, and while there, Edwards heard from other missionaries about the need for those willing to work with the urban homeless.

“Seeing what (alcohol) has done over the years, I guess there was a natural gravitation,” Edwards said. “I just really felt a real leadership of the Lord in that area.”

One of Edwards’ priorities is to erase the image of missions as places that just give men food, clothes and a quick gospel service.

“Sure, we do those things,” Edwards said, “but what we are about is helping . . . men find hope, a much healthier self-esteem, reuniting the family whenever that is possible, finding gainful employment, and going back out there and making a contribution to the community.”

The mission and the Union Rescue Mission are the two largest such agencies that serve the estimated 11,000 to 15,000 homeless in the Skid Row area. There are also smaller missions in the area.

Through the Los Angeles mission’s Fresh Start program, 176 homeless men live indoors for a year while training to re-establish themselves in mainstream society. It’s a rigorous schedule of job training, work duties, educational classes, spiritual counseling and biblical instruction. Women are offered a similar program called City Lights, which can house 28 residents.

Edwards said residents are not required to convert to Christianity, but they are exposed to the religion. The inter-denominational mission has a $16-million annual budget, made up solely of private donations.

Edwards believes such structured programs work best to end an undignified street life. Of the men that graduate from the program, 53% succeed in staying off the street, he said. Leaving men and women to fend for themselves on the streets, Edwards said, means that many remain mired in their problems. “I think if you leave that too long . . . it ends up becoming . . . chronic homelessness,” he said.

One of those stuck in the streets was Taylor, who passed the time between burglaries smoking crack and drinking. For three years, he was one of the hundreds of homeless who came daily to the 46-year-old mission for a meal, shower or an overnight stay. Taylor liked the free services, but he didn’t like the Christian preaching.

Before the homeless are led into the mission’s dining room, they are escorted into a chapel for a church service.

“I was like, ‘Man, you’ve got to listen to all this before you can eat?’ ” Taylor said. “I didn’t want to hear it. But after a while, things started sinking in. I was tired of living like I was. I said I might give God a chance.”

Taylor graduated from the mission’s rehabilitation program almost two years ago. He works as a medical technician at the mission’s clinic, withdrawing blood from those being tested. He lives in North Hollywood with his wife, whom he married in November.

God, said Taylor, delivered him from his drug habit. The mission’s rehabilitation program, his own hard work and Christianity have helped him maintain a stable life.

“I think the majority on the streets don’t know how to get out of there,” Taylor said. “And the ones that are presented with the opportunity to do it are scared. Their coping methods are that they’d rather smoke a joint than cope with a normal situation.”

The mission is developing two new programs in response to changes in the homeless population of Skid Row’s 11-block area. One will offer free HIV testing and help the mission’s HIV-positive residents handle their illness. The other will allow homeless women to live in a separate building with their children during rehabilitation.

The HIV/AIDS shelter, a building being renovated behind the mission’s 5th Street headquarters, will provide specialized medical care and counseling. It is scheduled to open in March.

Such specialized treatment is necessary because one of every 25 of the area’s homeless are now HIV-positive. The men’s average age is 28, Edwards said, and such a young, unstable population is highly susceptible to AIDS.

Women with children go through the mission’s rehabilitation 12-month program alone. Usually, the women have lost custody of their children but try to re-establish relationships while in rehabilitation. But graduates, who often regain full or part-time custody of their children, sometimes become overwhelmed by the responsibilities of parenthood, work and the pressures of mainstream life.

To solve the problem, women and their children will live together during the mother’s rehabilitation in a separate shelter.

Taking account of the various aspects of his work, Edwards sees a long road ahead.

“The community I grew up in, there was not these types of problems,” he said. “The more I heard about the need and realized it was a community that not a lot of people were interested in, the more I became intrigued and challenged.”