Midnight Mission Hosts Clinic To Assist The Community with Traffic Tickets

The Midnight Mission has been a long standing advocate for the homeless and otherwise downtrodden. It has a a wide variety of programs to assist those who are resolute in facing the challenges that blanket their lives. It established itself as being in the vanguard, partnering with other Skid Row organizations while spearheading the negotiations with Hollywood power players to include Skid Row residents as background artists in the movie The Soloist, released earlier this year.

After the negotiations were complete with Hollywood, Orlando Ward, Director of Public Relations for the Midnight Mission, led the Mission staff in conducting a smooth streamlined processing orientation for prospective background artists for the movie, talking and joking with residents when, occasionally, patience by some was giving way to short sighted outbursts.

On Thursday May 21, The Midnight Mission, in partnership with the City Attorney's Office, hosted the Halo Clinic, a program to assist residents of Skid Row resolve their outstanding traffic tickets to avoid criminal prosecution. It took a year of negotiations and planning to make this clinic happen. The Mission staff was again courteous and efficient while handling the large crowd which gathered there to clear themselves of open traffic ticket cases. Residents from the various Skid Row programs as well as the homeless attended the clinic.

The Physically challenged Struggle When The Cameras And Spotlights Are Off

Somewhere in my early blogging days, I went to Wells Fargo Bank on Spring St. Turning the corner from 4th Street onto Spring St. I came upon a huge protest by home care workers in front of the Reagan State Building. The demonstration was a vocal outcry against the feared budget cuts by Governor Schwarzenegger which would most likely cost them their jobs.

That was quite some time ago.

On Friday, May 22, I went to the same bank and came across another demonstration by the same workers for the same reason, to prevent the loss of jobs. The voting results on Tuesday motivated the unions to present a strong voice to the governor. Placards were everywhere: "Don't Risk Lives" was a prominent one held by protesters. The message was clear: If jobs are cut, people who need supportive services will be at risk.

Union Officials scuttled around to find those who were the most physically challenged to interview with the mainstream media, using the visual images of the physically challenged as a powerful weapon to grab the emotions of the viewers.

I watched all of this with a different eye from the previous demonstration. At that time, I had only lived on Skid Row for six months and was sequestered from most of the community until I started blogging. Skid Row had not had a chance to work its magic on me--to truly understand the plight of people who struggle every day.

This time I possessed the eye of a man who has experienced Skid Row in various capacities for over two years. I have seen many people who are wheelchair bound. I have lived with them and talked with them, and have grown to appreciate the various challenges they face every day and the courage it takes to face each and every one of those days. I no longer live on Skid Row but I still work there. However the lessons I learned from the people who need supportive services help me every day as I assist in taking care of my mother, a dementia victim.

One can not live on Skid Row and not be affected by the environment. It changes you. if you possess your total faculties and are physically able you begin to appreciate how fortunate you really are. You see people struggle so hard to make it from one block to the next, going to the store or to an office to handle their business. Day after day the fight to survive.

These people need allies more than once or twice a year when the TV channels hustle to get wheelchair bound people to compete against other channels who are doing the same. The union workers should launch a never ending campaign to assist those who are needy instead of only when they need them to bolster an argument to save their own jobs.

Every where I travel in this city, I see physically and mentally challenged people. They are forgotten by the masses and isolated to fight their own battles until the spotlights need them again.

Cindy, a spinal chord injury victim, is the woman in the picture. She speaks on the video about her concerns. Cindy should not have these concerns about which she speaks. Can TV take a time out from customary practices and provide coverage to a category of our population that needs their assistance and commitment. Can the media and unions fight for them longer than just the time it takes to create a sufficient sound bite? Can the population get behind the struggles of people who need 24 hour care and compel the government to care for them regardless of the budget situation. Can America find its moral compass and use it to maintain the course for a better humanity? Are we able to embrace these people and demonstrate by our actions they are not are not forgotten? Until we do, people who need help will continue to be isolated. As long as they are isolated from the mainstream population, the mainstream population will be isolated from themselves.

Homeless Children

People are under the impression that the homeless are so because of their own decisions.

Approximately 40% of the homeless population are children. How can America turn its back on children? How can the State of California try to make cutbacks that increase the vulnerability of children and the elderly? I can not answer that question but the practice continues.

Here is an article about a homeless girl who became that way without making any decisions. All children become homeless because of factors over which they have no control.

They suffer though we can bail out banks and have the money go to the executives that created this catastrophy in which we find ourselves. Go figure.

Death and Drugs

"Walter, did you hear about the shooting around the corner?", he asked me when I walked into the office for work over a week ago. He was referring to the two murders in the Lamp residential facility. The rumor is that it was a contract killing: competitors in the drug trade could not arrive at an agreement so two men died/

"Walter, just so you know, a woman overdosed in the shower on Saturday," were the first words uttered to me on Monday when I again reported for work.

"Walter, we just found another person dead". That was yesterday. One man loitered about asking questions, feigning concern and interest in the fate cast upon the deceased. However the strain draped upon his face made transparent what he believed was concealed: he was worrying if it was his heroin that killed the deceased. It was not easy to discern if he was worried to ease his conscious or if that anxiety was due to the fact that he may not be able to use his own supply. Four deaths are within a block of each other. All of which are related to drugs. Family and friends are weeping day and not for their love ones who are gone.

A man was looking for his son. He presented me with a flyer. His eyes waited anxiously while I studied the photo. Yes, I thought I had seen the man. No, I was not sure. I did not want to give him hope yet did not want him to be discouraged. Fortunately he shared with me that others had seen him. They called him but before he could arrive, they man had vanished. The man was his son. He walked out of a drug rehabiliation facility and landed on Skid Row. He had only a few weeks to before he completed the program. Once finished, he could have gone into court, had his probation cleared and case of possession dismissed. Now, he risks being returned to jail or prison. His probation officer explained to the father that he must report to him before May 5. Otherwise he will have violated his probation or parole. The father was not clear. It makes not difference what it is called. Incarceration is the same, no matter the label.

Yes, the coroner wagon is not an uncommon sight. Its presence does not dissipate. It has a waiting clientel standing on 6th and Gladys though they may not realize they are patrons of the morgue.

I did drugs for a long time. I was not surprised that I stopped, though it seems to fascinate others. Yes, the relapse rate is high. Sometimes I believe it is high because people are told that relapse is expected. Self fullfilling it becomes. I am not concerned about how to stop.

I am more surprised, as each day goes by, that I ever started. Exploring is one thing but remaining in that forrest is quite another. Once you go deeper and deepr into it, it does become difficult to find one's way out. It becomes easier to stay in it than fighting to get out of it.

There was a friend of mine. We were on a high school championship team together. We went to school together from the 7th to 12th grades. When I came home once I saw his name on commercial real estate signs along the Wilshire Blvd corridor. Eventually I worked with him. However there was a night when we had a long conversation and he shared with me that he did not like doing what he was doing. He was making well over $250,000 a year. Why did he keep doing it? "I do it because I am good at it". He did not mention that he did it because he made a lot of money. The psychological income was more valuable to him than the money.

Why did I continue to get loaded off drugs? I got loaded because I was good at it. It is ironic that being one of the best at something is the road to destruction. Never the less I was good at it. I was a good liar,when, after my money ran out, I could find inventive stories to borrow more. Of course, it tormented my soul. However that was offset by the warped sense of accomplishment I felt when I put it all together to make a deal.

When one sets out to get loaded, you have a goal. When the goal is accomplished, you feel up with confidence. Yes, you see the day when it all may catch up with you. but you continue because it takes so much to turn your mindset around long enough to make a dent in carving out a new path, an enduring path.

Last week, the Safe Cities Initiative almost fell prey to the budget ax. Yes, the mayor's office said that it was an oversight. I find it easier to believe that there is good swamp land in Florida to purchase. There are too many checkpoints that the budget to pass--too difficult for anything to be missed.

It is much more plausible to believe that the Mayor's office believed that it could not gain any more political capital helping Skid Row and that in a time when people are concerned about surviving, they could take away the little Skid Row had been given.

Yes it is the time to tighten belts. But does it have to come on the backs of the people who have nothing and need the most help. It costs the city a lot more to house and cloth people in jail than it would to teach them something, that when they learn how to do it, they feel good about themselves. Something that can help them earn a living.

It is not the time to cut back on Skid Row. It is time to increase aid. People will return to jail if, after freeing themselves from drugs, there is nothing upon which they can grab, that makes them proud of themselves.

If the city does not go that extra step. The coroner wagon will continue to be a regular guest in the Skid Row community.

Lesley Taplin And Now 'The Soloist' Teach The Nation about the Power of Love

Lesley Taplin died recently in a car crash.was a tireless supporter of the Skid Row community. She was an early supporter of the Skid Row 3 0n 3 Street Basketabll League while a volunteer member of DLANC, The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council. She championed the causes for children and adults, making resources available that would further the education of both while on DLANC's education board. Her picture will be displayed indefinitely as her spirit will never die in the hearts and souls of the people of Skid Row.

It is ironic that her death came on the eve of the premiere of the movie The Soloist, which is a story about the unlikely friendship between Steve Lopez, a staff columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Nathaniel Ayers, a former musical prodigy who studied at the famed Julliard School until he was stricken with schizophrenia and landed on the streets of Skid Row. As Lesley Taplin developed unlikely friendship with Skid Row, so did Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers.

Lesley Taplin understood that Skid Row is a very complexed environment. She knew that the problems of Skid Row were a consolidated, condensed microcosm of America. Indeed, she endeavored to bring attention to the various issues of homelessness, poverty, mental illness, education and human relations, while encouraging the people of the communit to empower themselves. Lesley knew that this place called Skid Row, that many scorn, is a place of hidden beauty and power where one could learn the profundity of life and relationships. It is a place that fascinates me. That is why I call it The University of Skid Row.

There is a Skid Row deep in all of us. The good, the bad and the ugly. However, there is a unique purity of kindness that evades all of us to some level. If you remain in Skid Row long enough, you begin to grasp it. it no longer runs through your fingers as easily as water. You can cup it essence and drink its refreshing and insightful purity. Lesley epitomized that purity. She was a professor at the University of Skid Row, the de facto human laboratory of the United States. It is all here for any to see. If you unravel the entangled threads of anomalies that form the fabric of this community, you will solve the issues of the country.

National Public Radiohas done a series of articles about the Skid Row environment. Please use the link to read those articles. It will provide a cross section of perspectives that will serve to generate thought and discussion of the many challenges that we face in ourselves, individually and as a national and world family.

LAPD Officer Deon Joseph

Today an article I wrote about LAPD Officer Deon Joseph was published in LABeez, the new online hub for hyper-local ethnic news in Los Angeles. I also write a column which is published weekly on the site.

Please enjoy the LABeez website as it publishes interesting news articles on a variety of issues that impact the various communities, and thus, all of us.

I would like to add that I have started a new blog, A New Era. I share with you my adventures and experiences as I embark on a new phase in my life. A cornerstone to my blog will be the challenges and joys I experience caring for my mother who has dementia.


I will continue to post on Scribeskidrow material pertaining to social issues in general as well as those traditionally associated with Skid Row.

Thank you

It Is Over--A Free Man

4:00 AM. So silent. The energy is peaceful. No cars are driving by the window. I am sitting with the shutters open in the dark. A green traffic light never changes in the background of my peripheral vision. Every few minutes a jet quietly floats overhead as it begins its descent into LAX while the heater whispers in warm air behind me.
I am not sleepy. Just very reflective. At the same time I am planning. I can plan now. My life is once again my own.
On March 18, I walked into the Criminal Courts Building (CCB for those who are more familiar with it than they would like to be). The hearing had been postponed on three occasions but this time all parties were present.
My Attorney spoke and he recited the team effort of private attorneys, public officials and police officers that assisted me along the way. It was a verbal parade of un sung heroes for whom I owe a debt that can never be repaid. Two motions were on the table—reduce the felony to a misdemeanor and end probation early.
The DA spoke. I received accolades that I could not believe were used to describe me. A little less than three years ago, the same person wanted me behind bars, fighting vigorously to keep me away from my family. She recounted the complete timeline of my Skid Row experience and as she did so I felt each stage of time, and the texture of my emotions that corresponded to that time. Sometimes I felt the pain. At other moments I merely remembered it. The DA was asked by the judge whether or not she agreed that the motion by my attorney that the felony be reduced to a misdemeanor be granted. She agreed.
The judge looked at me. He had heard the various versions of the success stories that were shared and he added to it. We had gotten to know each other during each delay as the previous commissioner had been appointed to a judgeship in another courtroom. He told me to come back and visit him and let him know how my life was coming along. Both motions were granted. I was no longer a felon in the eyes of the legal system. Probation was lifted. My attorney will file for expungement shortly. When he finished there was an eruption of applause from the courtroom. I turned to face the roar and saw that every seat was filled with smiling faces. It was a very special moment. I was a free man.
I walked out of the building in a blissful, dreamy state. Suddenly it hit me that I did not have to go in there again. It also hit me that I was free for the first time in my life. Sure it was not until three years ago that I had any record but I lost my freedom when I made the decision to experiment with drugs and embarked on a lifestyle of recreational consumption, or so I thought. I was dependent on those drugs. I was not guilty of the crime charged but I was guilty of making bad decisions and exercising a behavior that was destructive and put me in the position for Murphy’s Law to happen.
Since January 1 I have been back in the family house taking care of my mother and enjoying every bit of it. I have thought of this phase of my life that has ended. The lessons learned from it will be nothing compared to what I will learn from it as each day comes and goes.
For years I missed out on much of life smoking the time away in one room or another , alone or with others who chose the same form of self destruction. Now, I try to live it like there is no tomorrow and attempt to do something different and new every day.
This weekend, after the burden was lifted, I relaxed for the first time in years. I drove to Venice Beach, had lunch,breathed the fresh air and felt the crisp wind beating against my face. It was wonderful. I was alive and living life.