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Amelia Rayno

Skid Row in Los Angeles is home to one of the largest unhoused populations in the United States.

‘I Still Hold My Head Up, and I Still Know Who I Am’

Ten stories of people with histories living in Skid Row, in their own words.

by

Magazine

In downtown Los Angeles, roughly fifty square blocks make up Skid Row, a dense landscape of makeshift shelters that has become both a refuge and a flashpoint. Skid Row is home to some of the people most failed by our systems: veterans, the elderly, people with physical disabilities and mental illness, and survivors of compounded trauma and incarceration.

As cities across the country harden their response to visible poverty by embracing sweeps, citations, and policies that criminalize sleeping outside, many cities have also expanded housing programs and other services intended to help those in need. But good intentions do not guarantee good outcomes. If policy solutions are to do more than displace harm, they must withstand scrutiny from and be shaped by those most affected.

In February and March, ten people living in Skid Row—many of whom I have known for years—spoke with me in a series of in-person conversations across the neighborhood. These stories are not simply accounts of pain and instability, but testimonies of endurance, kinship, and hard-earned wisdom about what safety, dignity, and true support actually looks like.

Charlie Andrews

I served eleven years in the military. Everything you learned from your mother and your grandmother, they wiped all that right out your head. This was the 1970s, and we had separate barracks; we couldn’t stay in the nice barracks with the whites. We had to wait until they all finished eating before we could. [Later], I spent twenty-eight years in prison. There was a war between the Mexicans and the Blacks. You had to keep your eyes open. I got this [scar] coming out of the shower one day. They wanted to kill me, but I ran.

When I got out in 2022, I completed a [housing] program and got my own apartment. For two Christmases I was there, and I loved it. It turned out the building had a termite infestation, and they said they were going to relocate us. I had no problem with that. But almost two years later, I’m still waiting.

I’ve been kicked out of a few programs. The last place, after a couple days, I still hadn’t gotten my meal card. [One worker] said, “You can let him eat; I do it all the time,” but the [one serving] said, “I’m not you,” and he refused. I told him he was wrong. I was mad. They had a trash can right there and I turned it over and dumped all the trash out. Then they put me out.

I’ve learned not to trust people. I’ve been by myself for a long time, and it’s lonely. But there’s very few people that make me feel comfortable and safe.

Alaesha Rowdean

I’ve been down here since I was nineteen. My mom and I were living at [a shelter]. She was on drugs and all that, but since then, she’s quit. I want to be like her. I didn’t start using drugs until I was twenty-one years old. I graduated high school with a 4.0 [GPA]. I wanted to be a pediatrician. I got introduced to meth by a dude I met online. It was a one-time thing with him. But not with the drug.

I want it out of my life. I have a four-year-old daughter. She looks just like me. Having her was my happiest moment. She needs me—I don’t want her to say “my mom didn’t want me.” I haven’t seen her since she was one. I’ve been trying to go to rehab for a long time. A lot of rehabs aren’t ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] compliant; they need you to be able to do everything yourself. I don’t want to live in a board and care. It’s like living in a hospital. I shouldn’t have left the last place I was at, but addiction is a condition; people don’t understand that. I can’t stop overnight.

Out here, I have to ask people to push me around; sometimes I have to pay people, or get them high. Sometimes if I don’t have anywhere to go, I’ll go to the hospital in an ambulance. I don’t want to have to ask people to stay with them. I don’t like feeling like a burden. But I need support to get my life together.

Marlene “Shorty” Rubio

If what you want to accomplish is helping the person, you need to connect with them, understand what they need to be complete. That takes time; you can’t just do your job and get it out of the way. I could say, “I need housing, but please don’t let there be no predators there.” I’m trying to tell you something. I’m saying, “I’ve been raped before; please help me.” I was raped [by a family member] as a kid—from when I was five to when I was twelve. I was weak and vulnerable, and always quiet, because if I said something, he was going to hurt me. He put that in my head, and I believed him.

A lot of people have gone through trauma like that, too, and they don’t have any support. It’s not easy. Some people don’t comprehend or don’t want to. People judge me because I smile through my trauma. But we all deserve to have some type of understanding, some type of security. [Service providers] have to understand people, and go at their pace. If you rush it, you won’t accomplish anything. Yeah, you do your job, but it’s for nothing; they’re just going to end up leaving just like I did before. Because you didn’t understand what I was trying to tell you. I’ve found unity in community. I want to build safe houses for people to have that support. A place where they can run to without running to the streets. A place where they can feel safe and secure, where someone has their back.

Maura Fortes Capestany 

(Translated from Spanish)

I went through two [interim housing] programs—if you don’t watch it, you’ll go from there to the cemetery. Both had bedbugs. There was mold everywhere: I got so sick I lost five pounds. In the last one, all the elevators broke, and I had to climb to the fifth floor with all of my things.

How are they treating people? I don’t see any kindness. They never helped me get up the stairs. The people working there need training on dealing with different characters and attitudes of the residents. You can’t push people and say, “If you don’t like it here, leave or I’ll call the police.” Many people who live there are working or just got out of prison; they don’t have [emotional] balance. They are working to reintegrate into society, but they need help. [Service providers] need to talk to people, try to reach an understanding. If they are yelling, you must speak softly; if you yell back, they’re going to keep yelling.

Sometimes people are just asking for an extra piece of bread because they don’t eat other things they are serving, and they won’t give it to them. When they start to argue, they end up leaving the program—over a piece of bread! I see other people that were there now living on the street. I left on my own because I didn’t like how they treated me, and what I saw there was an injustice. Being here in the street is cleaner. I don’t prefer it, but the situation obligates it, to keep myself far away from those places.

Wanda Robinson

This is my land. This is my stomping ground. I’m not fixing to move somewhere where I don’t know the land. It would be just like I’m out there in the wilderness. Here, you’re free. On the block, everybody comes together. I sit out here for a reason. People are not going to tell me, “You’re going to take this or you’re going to take that.” I go by your rules, but you’re not like me. Your eyes are not my eyes.

I made it out. I did what I had to do. Other people don’t have the authority because they’ve never been through it. People with experience—that’s important. The sidewalk is a matter of life or death. There is something everyone wants to do, but a lot of them are afraid—of growing, of changing. Skid Row brought me back alive. If it wasn’t for Skid Row, I don’t know. A lot of us, we didn’t grow up together, but we all came from the projects. All creeds and colors, we have slept up under the same damn covers. Maybe people here just use the word “auntie,” but I’m their real auntie, their real sister, their real cousin. We’re family. I have six kids, but I might really have 506 and still counting. Because we’re here for everyone. We make sure everyone is all right when no one is seeing to them.

Roderick “Eyes” Armstrong

A few years ago, fentanyl started popping up everywhere, and it has changed a lot of things. I’ve seen a lot of people die. It’s terrifying—you don’t want this to be your final destination. It was never my intention to be here this long. This is the longest relapse I’ve had.

I always thought when you were ready [for rehab], there was a door open and you could just run to it. That’s far from the truth. Some places are way too strict, and it’s not what I need. A lot of it is an insurance problem. Some of them want you to do a whole church program and shove that down your throat. It’s frustrating. After a while, you just settle back into your regular program, and the feeling [of wanting to detox] goes away. It’s like turning the clock back to twelve and going all the way back around.

More than anything, I just need to get away from here. But even just leaving is so hard, so stressful, especially when you have a tent set up and you’ve got stuff you don’t want to lose. I’ll make plans to go somewhere and won’t be able to, because I can’t find someone to watch this place, or feel comfortable with just leaving it and not being in a rush to come back. I’ve overdosed on fentanyl [by consuming other drugs that were laced with it] twice. It scared the shit out of me. I really felt like somebody was trying to kill me. We need immediate health care and immediate housing. It’s really scary that people can die out here and never make it back home.

Viola “Mama Smooth” Robinson

It was cutthroat out here. I lost so many tents [in sanitation sweeps]. I lost my IDs, my Social Security card so many times. I lost photos of my family and my kids, my journals, my grandmother’s jewelry.

Outreach workers, mental health workers, housing navigators—they give up on you; you don’t give up on them. When they stopped coming, I’d try it again. And the same thing. It made me stop believing it would happen. It felt painful, like I was nothing. Like I wasn’t worthy of the effort for me to get there. I convinced myself maybe I ain’t shit. I built up a wall. I got pissed off at God. Sometimes I would cry myself to sleep. I would tell myself I don’t need nobody, but in reality I did.

The biggest change for me was someone walking up to me, looking me in my eyes, saying they care and meaning it. Real love, I can see it, I can feel it. It has to do with caring about the community, caring about people’s lives. About taking the time to make sure a person going through something can still put one foot in front of the other and have the breath of life. It’s OK, because it’s over now—I have my housing. I still hold my head up, and I still know who I am. I know love today. I know my words are valid; my being is valid. Because someone took the time out to make it that way.

Rickey “Mississippi” Mallory

You’ve got to confront the root causes [of mental health struggles]. Then you can figure out how to deal with it. But most [providers] are only going halfway with people. They’re giving people medication. They’re not digging to find out “How did it get like this?” and “Why do you feel like that?” They get to the tip, and they feel like that’s sufficient. Then they go textbook: “When a person does this, then we do this.” If you haven’t experienced these things, you can’t give me nothing but what a book taught you. You’ve got to let people vent the way they need to vent and not the way all these psychologists and psychiatrists think they need to vent.

There are people out here who are artists, musicians, mechanics, people who have skills. Having places and programs that can address what a person does sets the tone for who they’re going to be. People become useful. Creative. Motivated. A lot of [service providers and volunteers] who come here, they do a charade, but they really don’t give a fuck. Maybe they think the best place for people here is really in jail, or in the grave. You have to show people love. The more love you show, the more someone will come toward you. They start to feel worthy. And once a person feels worthy of something, they can overcome.

Doris “360” Smith

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Amelia Rayno

Doris Smith, known as 360, wants renewed stability so she can go back to work as a barber.

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Amelia Rayno

“They say they want people off the streets, so why are they putting me back here?” Smith says of her eviction late last year.

I’ve always kept up my appearance—my clothes, my hygiene. I have so many men coming at me, but it’s always the wrong ones. They threaten me. I can’t even respond; I have to walk away. All these scars on my face are from the times I couldn’t. I’ve been attacked and raped here. I see these predators walking around. It’s an eerie feeling. The police say they’re here to protect and serve, but they seem to only be on high alert if you’re bleeding out or have a gun in your hand. I have had to be an advocate for myself.

I got housing in 2022; I think my diagnoses put me at the top of the list. It felt like hope—like I could get back on track. But three months ago, they evicted me. They said I was hoarding. I never even got my stuff back. I have lost so many material things, but they can be replaced. I’ve been through a lot of trauma in my life, from my youth up until now. I lost my two kids at ages two and six to the system. It started because I made a statement about domestic abuse, and then they took them. The word they used was “neglect.” I always kept my house clean; I took my kids to church. But I had to work at the same time. I fought my heart out to get them back.

Recently, my brother died, and my son was incarcerated, and I have heard that maybe my daughter might not be in the world anymore. I’m trying to come to terms with that, and I need closure. There needs to be programs that help with reunification with children, even adult children, help you clear things up so you can see them again. There is still that feeling, missing my kids saying, “Mom, can you come over?” The trauma is still there.

Lawrence Coleman

Some people think once you get into housing, that’s the end of the story. No, you have to figure out a whole new life after being homeless. A lot of people treat the homeless like they’re a piece of shit. They stick people with a label and almost make them a criminal at the same time. You take a good person and make him feel like a criminal; now you’re creating one. Sometimes it makes a good person bad, and sometimes it makes a good person want to end their lives.

You never know what’s in a person’s mind. You put people inside and tell them they’ve got to figure out everything else. Come on! These people were homeless because they couldn’t figure out things for themselves. There’s a lot of other things that a person needs. How many billions of dollars have been given to fix this? It’s really crazy. Some of this money should go toward things for people to do along their lines of interest. You’ll probably find that there are a lot of talented people out here. But if you don’t give people something to reach for, you’ll never find out.