Los Angeles - The Ugly

The infamous Skid Row, also known as Central City East or Hope Central, is a very sad place in Downtown Los Angeles. According to Wikipedia, this area contains one of the largest stable populations of homeless persons in the United States, around 7,000 to 8,000.

I read about this place from the Los Angeles Times but seeing it for real was a shock. Maybe because I never expected a first world country like the US to have this kind of poverty.

Maybe because a lot of the people looked healthy, normal and able to work but was unfortunately derailed by drugs, alcohol or just plain bad luck.

Maybe because, the US, a country that labeled itself as 'the land of opportunity', promoting the 'American dream', has almost given up on these people.

Maybe because this place is hidden amidst the trendy condominiums, skyscrapers and consumerism of downtown, as if it's a secret that should never be revealed.

I took only a few pictures, all of them inside the car and during the day, because I was scared of going out and getting shouted at. I have been to a lot of places, most of them developing and third world countries, that has a lot of poor people. But I've never seen poverty quite as dismal as this.

This is the Los Angeles Mission, one of the numerous mission houses that pepper the district to help those who live on the streets of Skid Row. These missions serve food (sometimes the only meal for the day for the homeless), have proper toilets and baths and warm beds.

Around mid-afternoon, long lines surround the missions as the homeless hope for a bed for the night. Not everyone gets a bed though, and most end up sleeping on the streets, in the cold, with just a tent or a cardboard box over their heads.

Here are some people trying to set up for the night. A lot of them are drug addicts that have nowhere to go and since drugs are very accessible at Skid Row during the night, they'd rather stay here and do nothing but shoot up.

Check out the muscular, bald guy. I hope he's not homeless and have a job because he seems like he can work.

I know that poverty is rampant all over the world. There's a baby with AIDS in Africa that needs our help, a family in South East Asia that needs our donations, or a kid in South America who is too poor to go to school. But people in Skid Row need our help, too. If you can't volunteer to cook food or serve in the missions, why not donate for a good cause. The missions need your help to bring hope to people who has given up on it.