Annual service puts name, face on the year’s dead in skid row

Kim Roberts did not feel safe in shelters. A quiet woman, she shied away from skid row’s missions. But she found solace at the Downtown Women’s Center, where she went a few times a month for meals and to shower.

Jesse Quirino beat addiction and spent 15 years living in units downtown run by the SRO Housing Corp., where he found a job working in the dining hall.

Fran Anthony passed out spoons at the Hippie Kitchen run by Catholic Worker on 6th Street and Gladys Avenue.

All had some connection to skid row, and all died within the last year.

On Thursday, theirs were among the almost 100 names of homeless and low-income people -- and those who ministered to them -- memorialized at an annual ceremony on skid row.

In a small park at San Julian and 5th streets, service providers, officials and others gathered to honor those who died in the last year, and ensure that they would not pass without notice.

The park looked as if it had been decorated for a holiday party, with a Christmas tree, a blow-up snowman and signs offering seasons greetings. A choir from First AME Church, decked out in red and black, sang “Amazing Grace” and “This Little Light of Mine.”

But holiday wreaths and sprigs of greenery were decorated with photos and names of the dead. And Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reminded those present that the holiday season represents an opportunity for everyone to examine how society is helping the homeless.

“A real community,” Villaraigosa said, “has an obligation, a responsibility to one another.... We give these people the honor of saying, your life meant something. You are a human being, a child of God. You are no longer anonymous, faceless.”

The people of skid row have been gathering since 1993 on Dec. 21 -- the day with the least hours of sunlight a year -- to honor their dead. The occasion, said SRO Housing Corp. Executive Director Anita U. Nelson, is part of a national event to memorialize homeless and low-income people.

She said the event served as “our way of bringing our community together.”

The people whose names were read ranged in age from 5 to nearly 100. Some had frequented skid row drop-in centers and were known only by first names; others were loyal clients who hid the symptoms of illness from the care providers until it was too late.

Juanita Weaver stopped coming to the Downtown Women’s Center after she was diagnosed with cancer. She never strayed far, though, from the corner of 4th and Los Angeles streets, near the entrance to the center’s residence building. But staff at the center said she thought of the center as her family, and they tried to return the favor, ministering to her until she passed away.

Thursday, Downtown Women’s Center staffers lighted candles as they read her name.

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cara.dimassa@latimes.com