The LA Times has begun to publish a five-part series on the crushing and out-in-the-open poverty in Los Angeles's downtown Skid Row. Columnist Steve Lopez is living on Skid Row for the week and reporting on what he sees. A brief glimpse?
"People stumble and rant, they lie in filth, they trap you with eyes that threaten and plead. Roughly 10,000 people flop on skid row streets each night, up to half of them mentally ill. The landscape is relentlessly bleak, the stench of rotting trash and misery everywhere."
Here's a link to the first part in the series, published today:
http://tinyurl.com/7uj9t
I once did a ride-along with an LAPD officer while filming a documentary. When we turned onto Skid Row and I was shocked by what I saw. That thousands of peope with no help and no hope crash and die here is shameful. And most of my fellow LA-ers that I spoke with had no idea such a place existed.
Read the articles, and please spread the word about this good journalism. Awareness is the first step towards action.
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