Angelus News | June 30, 2023 | Vol. 8 No 13

AD REM
ROBERT BRENNAN
A sign from above — on the ground
Homeless on Skid Row in Los Angeles. | SHUTTERSTOCK
I
see her when I drive into the
underground parking lot of the
homeless shelter where I earn my
daily bread.
I see a lot of things on my commute
and very few of them are good. When
I drive the streets of Skid Row, human
degradation at its zenith — or is it at
its nadir? — is on full display. It is difficult
to process knowing I live in the
most prosperous and wealthy nation
in human history, and see misery on a
daily basis in a city where people drop
$100 on a salad at tony restaurants.
She is like so many of the other
people I have seen on Skid Row in
downtown LA, and yet she is different.
Men and women in a drug-induced
psychosis screaming in the middle of
the street, or wearing layers of caked
dirt with tattered fabric hanging on
open sores, is business as usual down
there.
Her clothes are not clean, but by
Skid Row standards this woman is
well-kept. She sits in one of those half
chair/half walkers that people with
mobility issues rely on. I have never
seen her use it to assist in walking. I
have only seen her sitting on the device
with her back hunched over and
her eyes looking up at her surroundings.
On Skid Row, keeping one’s head
on a swivel is an essential element
of survival. It is a violent place. It is
a parallel universe with its own rules
and regulations as structured and
absolute as the law of gravity. It is an
environment where only the bravest
can survive.
She looks like somebody’s grandma.
Odds are, she is somebody’s grandma.
She was once somebody’s pride and
joy, a bundle of innocence wrapped
in swaddling clothes. I have no idea
how, at her advanced age, she came to
sit outside a homeless shelter in Los
Angeles.
The irony is not lost on me that she
will not enter that very shelter where
services abound, and where a safe
place to sleep and assistance with
reconnecting to her family is offered
to all comers. To the best of my
knowledge, other than availing herself
of the food we provide, she has never
stepped inside.
She always waves at me and smiles,
whether I am going into or coming
out of the parking lot. I smile and
wave back, and that is all I do. I
reason that by working at this shelter
raising money to fund programs and
keep the lights on, I am doing my
bit to help. That is the nature of this
business. The beds are here, the help
is at hand, but the people those beds
and services are meant for must, in
the end, walk themselves through the
door to access them.
There is another demographic on
Skid Row that is rarely highlighted in
news reports or feature articles. There
are families down here and they are
30 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023