in a way disco tehran is that mirror for us to experience each other. >> we always say, we are proud of the past. we have to make our present, our current days more important to be proud of. >> persians grow up thinking america is like this lands of opportunity and a place to succeed. there is a connection that most people don't realize. iranians actually like america as a people, and idealize america. >> well, look at the iranian-american community here. doctors, computer engineers, musicians, filmmakers, entrepreneurs. loirz lawyers. >> we sit down and enjoy the persian music. we'll tell to our kids, don't forget it. try to keep alive. but you pass that. we are american.

>> we don't have to be in a certain box. we have a choice. >> my dad would say, first i'm iranian by birth. by choice i'm american. and i'll proud of both. i'm w. kamau bell. on this episode of "united shades of america," we look at the homeless crisis in the united states. los angeles has one of the largest and busiest homeless communities in the country. we filmed this episode in late august 2019 well before the coronavirus pandemic hit. when the country started talking about practicing social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands frequently and quarantining at home, homeless communities didn't always have those options. there are no concrete numbers on how many homeless folks have been affected by covid-19 but in this community, basic resources like food and hygiene items are already scarce. the pandemic only magnifies their struggles.

the united states has neglected our responsibility to these americans for far too long. >> in 2018, california went from the sixth largest economy in the world to the fifth largest economy in the world. yet we have a homeless pandemic. i did not say state of emergency. i did not say we have an epidemic. i said we have a pandemic. a homeless pandemic because of income inequality. you want to know what the income inequality looks like in california? it is the widest income inequality in the country. if i was imitating jesus, let me go through scriptures. right there. jesus would say to the rich young ruler, california, and america, take everything you've got. sell it and give the money to the poor. >> let the church say amen.

♪ ♪ so tell me, what do you love about l.a.? >> i love that i haven't seen everything. >> first of all, the weather. obviously. >> where are you from? >> i'm from atlanta. i'm here for a whistling festival. >> it is where you make your dreams come true. [ whistling ] >> what do you think l.a. could do better? >> oh, public transportation. >> they think they have it. >> yeah. [ whistling ]

>> all right! i don't want you to be a hater but what do you think they could do better? >> the homeless problem. >> homeless. >> homeless. >> the homeless problem is getting worse. >> capitalism is [ bleep ]. america loves talking about how rich it is. but america's riches aren't spread around equally like oranges at a kids' soccer game, no. it is like halloween candy. hoarded. and one of the biggest is in my home state, california. the big part of the wealth is in los angeles. l.a. is among the world leaders in money, red carpets, limos, and one more thing, homelessness. if you've been to any major city lately, you know this crisis is exploding. los angeles county has 60,000 people without homes. that's up 12% from last year. some stay at shelters but 73% live on the streets in the shadow of all this wealth.

and thousands of them are right here on skid row. even the way you say it. you live in beverly hills. but brother, you live on skid row. >> welcome to skid row, my brother! >> thank you. nice to meet you, brother. >> i'm born and raised right here on skid row. >> born and raised. >> right here on skid row. >> i didn't know that people grow up in downtown l.a. >> well, you're looking at one right here. >> general dogan describes himself as being among the first wave of crack users. that landed him in prison for 12 -- 11 years. he turn his life around and now serves community as field commander of skid row. he makes sure people are safe and taken care of. that means he's 5-0's 5-0. >> you know, skid row is a community. about 13 to 15,000 people. 80% black folks.

about 40 to 60% of the folks have some form of disability. about 90% of the folks on skid row here, we all living you know, under the poverty level. meaning we po-po. the poorest folks in the city. the only thing we need is the right resources. bring us some bathrooms. give folks resources like you put resources in other districts. they didn't want to do it. they wanted to give us policing. controlling our communities. like it's vietnam. >> let me be clear. while general dogon and i are walking around, having a nice conversation on a beautiful day, it's tense. being on skid row is overwhelming all of my senses. everything i see, everything i smell. it's a lot. >> i met some of the most amazing people on skid row. it is really truly that community that i'm going on live in. >> i don't think people imagine people down here are community and taking care of each other.

>> a lot of people don't think that. >> people see individual tents. >> because the city and the business folks paint us all off as transients. >> in the 1870s, a spur of the trans continental railroad hit downtown l.a. it brought seasonal worker, immigrants, wanderers and emancipated africans alike. many landed right here, in what over time became l.a.'s skid row. and skid row, it ain't a row. it is a 50-block area between third and seventh, alameda and maine. the largest permanent population of the homeless in the entire country. even though l.a. is basically written off this part of the city, skid row has been here in one form or another for over 100 years. these people aren't transients, they're residents. but if l.a.'s movers and shakers get their way, they won't be residents much longer.

they don't see a neighborhood, they see prime real estate. >> i'm from jump street. our organization knew, if they ever got us out of skid row, we were never coming back. we said look at the native-americans, africans, if they ever move you off the lands, you ain't never coming back. all the policy that's we went after, were land policies. how do we stay here? >> pete is the founder and executive director of grassroots civil rights organization. he is loved by the people and hated by the people in power which probably means he's doing a good job. >> a lot of people who don't come down here, they just know it as a name, have misconceptions who is down here, what is going on down here. >> right off the top, we have to do what i call, what i consider myth busting. the dominant narrative that people have been sold, one, people are homeless because they want to be. they just want to be on the streets.

the second one is, people are houseless because of mental illness or substance abuse. >> yeah. >> the other thing they've said, it is meritocracy. if you try hard enough, you won't be houseless. if you take five jobs instead of four jobs, you would be okay. the los angeles homeless services authority finally said and wrote empirically, the three causes of houselessness in los angeles, housing affordability, housing availability, and poverty. they said 70% are houseless because they can't afford housing. only 29% is houseless as a result of their addiction or mental illness. >> although we're hanging out on skid row, this is a national crisis. over the last ten years, while the nation's numbers have gone down slightly, those numbers have skyrocketed in the least affordable places like seattle, where i live in the bay area, denver, chicago, d.c., new york, boston, and many other cities

across the country. this surge is economic. in many cities, these tents are the new normal. >> so when you see these tents, they're legally allowed to be on the sidewalk. >> this is what started the whole thing on skid row around tents, the right to be in public space. >> we've sued and been victorious. one of those, jones versus the city of los angeles, we showed all the missions were full, the shelters were fulfill you didn't have no houses for people to go. to people had no choice but to go to the sidewalk. part of the settlement agreement was that houseless people in the city of los angeles were able to camp on the sidewalks from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. every day. and they would be able to do that until the city of los angeles build 1,200 units of

housing. >> isn't enough, obviously. >> obviously. that was 14 years ago. and the city has yet to build 1,200 units of permanent support houses. but look, they're building houses. they're building a whole new city of nothing but condos. lofts. they're building so much and so fast, they have a vacancy rate right now. >> it's easy as you roll by in your car to think you know all about the people in these tents. and it's easy to create a story in your head, they're lazy and didn't read the secret. but the real secret is we don't all start in the same place when we're born. while obviously anyone can become homeless, black people end up homeless at a rate that is four times higher than white americans. look at l.a. county overall, it is around 9% black. the county's homeless population is 34% black. i can do that math. it adds up to racism. >> you can't talk about homelessness without talking about deindustrialization. in south central los angeles,

you're going to see bethlehem steel, the rubber plant, all of these factories that used to be sort of the places where black folks made their money. >> good factory jobs paid good factory wages and had benefits and you didn't have to have a college degree to get those jobs. >> we had boeing, hughes, mcdonald douglas. think about what happened when those places shut down. you go from a manufacturing base and now you have a service industry. and it wasn't kind, quite frankly, to black folks. >> they go from mcdonald douglas to mcdonald's. >> that's right. >> look, we've talked about this before on the show. there is a boat load of historical economic factors that lead to this, starting with the boats. what started with deindustrialization in the late '50s and '60s continued into the '70s and '80s with war

on drugs. we're off to the races. hillary clinton calls it. economics, red lining, these guys, and her, what was he talking about? welfare reform, one of the good ones. ice t gets in trouble with the president, ted cruz, incomes -- ah! it's a confluence of all these things together that hit the black community like a ton of bricks. >> we've heard this narrative all over the country. the factories shut down. people don't have access to jobs. middle class collapses. does that mean you're excited about trump bringing the jobs back? >> i'm still trying to track when america was great for black people. >> yeah. still working on that. (vo) with t-mobile for business, your business has an easy choice. the largest 5g network... award-winning customer satisfaction... insanely great value. choose. any. three. ready when you are.

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>> what's happening? >> why are you doing that? why are you putting that on me? why are you putting handcuffs on me for? >> what are they doing? >> stop explaining everything, i didn't do anything. >> sergeant, what's the reason she's being arrested? >> it's a matter between the two of them. i would rather not -- [ crying ] >> i'm not going to jail again. this is not fair. >> i suppose that's what they call a smart team. it is supposed to be a especially trained cop who is actually a doctor. they're supposed to come and talk to people. help people out. >> we don't know what exactly happened, but she's clearly in crisis right now. >> exactly. >> hey, why don't you call a smart team if you don't know

what you're doing? >> i don't want to go to jail. >> you don't have to hog tie her. come on, man. you ain't got to hog-tie her, man. cancel that, man. you're hog tying her. >> stop hurting me. stop hurting me. >> i think you stopped them from hog tying her. >> hell yeah, most definitely. >> they had it all ready to go. >> they tried to take her around the side and then you went around the side. >> damn right, you got to be our brothers' and sisters' keeper. ♪ the day is over and the night's coming down ♪ ♪ there's no one else can reach me, i'm on the dark side of

town ♪ >> on skid row the good and bad happen back to back all at the same time. the people down here work hard to make sure that the good shines through. >> i need a picture of you with this. skid row! >> the point is, despite what you might see in the news, there's joy on skid row, too. ♪ >> why do you think it's important for art to be down here? >> it changes the look. it is like beautification. art for one, music, food, creativity always helps, like therapy. >> what's so amazing about the community here, they're overcoming so many obstacles, it is a really beautiful vibrant community.

♪ ♪ houseless not homeless, houseless not homeless ♪ >> this is an artist, activist and a dad who has lived on skid row for 20 years. thelma used to be homeless and now she helps with her organization, the sidewalk project. >> hi, ladies. want some hygiene kits? >> yes. >> obviously, this is an especially difficult place for women. >> women have so much of a harder time on the street. women are more vulnerable than men -- and stronger. >> these women taking ass whipping from men. like football players take a tackle. i'm talking about beat, they're hurting. >> frederica and natasha are mother and daughter who both live here. and even though she's her only child, everybody here calls her mama. >> what is it like to be here with family?

everybody calls you mama but this is your actual daughter. what is it like for you? >> it's nerve-racking. nervous. i'm going to tell you, i would do anything for that one. i would die for her. that's my baby. >> do you live in the same tent? >> oh, no. we're two adult women. >> no, no, no. >> i don't go to sleep until i know where she is. it's nerve-racking. these men, i love you, going to marry her, they say it over and over. it frightens me. >> it's serious. not too long ago a guy came in my tent on, me, on top of me. i was sleeping. he got on top of me and he was in my ear telling me, i love you so much. i just want to be with you. i just got this $20. just let me have it. >> after that, it made me very nervous. i don't mess around. >> something like that happens. do you go to the police? >> what do i tell them? that he came in my tent and he

was laying on top of me? >> they wouldn't be sympathetic to you. >> no, they wouldn't. >> as we know, cities are not generally sympathetic to homeless communities. taking cleaning day, for example. of course we all want clean streets but l.a. has rules about homeless people not having bulky items. in fact all of their belongings are supposed to fit in a 60 gallon container. size of a medium trash can. if they don't, it goes into a trash can. look around your home. you're surrounded by bulky items. if you want to go what the criminalization of poverty looks like, here it is. >> tomorrow, nobody will be here. when we move, you have to move everything so they go set up around the block. then you have to move your things back. >> do you have to move this soon? >> yeah. i have to move it tonight. i try to be comfortable in my space. i try to be like home.

you're more than welcome. >> i can step inside? >> go ahead. it might be a little bit of a mess. >> so is my house. >> i think it is quite comfortable for a tent. you are in my home. you are sitting on my bed. how dare you! >> i'm a married man. >> i'm a married woman. you're sitting on my bed. >> tomorrow you have to move this. >> no, i have to move it tonight. that's why it is like this. i'll in the process. >> so stressful. >> i'm moving everything, losing stuff. and it's really, it's not fair and it is really sad. it's sad. it's sad. the only thing separating me from the world outside is this tent. you have to be wary, you know, i don't know who will cut it open and cut me up. it's scary.

>> in 2018, over 900 homeless people died in l.a. county for many different reasons. but homeless are 7.5% more likely to be murdered than people who are housed. the thing that makes people live indoors confident is they can lock the door. some have alarms. some of them have gates. part of being comfortable when you go to bed is the feeling of safety. and being able to relax while you close your eyes because nobody can get to you. and i'm thinking about as the sun is starting to go down, what is it like going to bed out here?

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♪ a white picket fence, a manageable commute, a cozy slice of the american dream. while other cities built up, l.a. built out. as a result, l.a. has some of the most inefficient land usage on some of the most expense ive real estate in the entire country. this is just a part of the factors that affect housing affordability in the nation.

let's be clear. yes, drugs exist. yes, mental illness exists. what primarily drives people to the streets is math. enter zillow and the almighty algorithm. meet the nerds. >> it's all about the algorithm, isn't it? >> exactly. >> i didn't know that word until the 21 century. >> we built a statistical model to understand this relationship between the percentage of one's paycheck that goes toward the rent. >> chris glenn is an assistant professor in statistician at the university of new hampshire and paul casey is an adviser for zillow, a real estate adviser that kell the you how much your neighbor paid for their house, giving you another reason to hate thy neighbor. with all the information they decided to commission a study on the u.s. housing crisis. >> we fundamentally believe that good data will help craft good policy and good policy will make

for good, well functioning markets. >> the goal is predict when and how much the homeless population of a city will -- housing affordability at the aggregate level. you think about the measure of housing affordability as the percentage of a paycheck that goes toward housing costs. as that increases, and specifically as it goes to about a third of income, once communities exceed that 31, 32% threshold, we expect the homeless rate will significantly increase in that community. if you're a city like chicago or dallas or houston where the housing affordability number are approaching 30%, you should be prepared for a significant increase in the homeless population as that housing affordability metric grows. >> start implementing policies to stem the tide of this. >> it seems like the wrong move is like, we'll just wait until it hits 33%. then we'll have a plan for what

to do with all the people on the street. >> currently, housing affordability in the los angeles metro area is about 46%. so if it were to deteriorate to 48%, we predict that an additional, about 4,200 people, 4,200 people, would experience homelessness. >> i know they're throwing a bunch of numbers at you. let me bottom line this for you. it's bad and it will continue to get worse. but in los angeles, we're talking about 60,000 people. you can fit 60,000 people into $4.9 billion stadium they're building, and still have room for the l.a. chargers fans. or the $4.5 billion could help place people in the 110,000 empty housing units in l.a. l.a., you can fix this if you want to. >> for us as housing organizers, our strategy was rooted in

the old paradigm, well, somebody owns it. if you can't fill it up, you have to bring the rents down. then maybe one day those buildings will be for us. housing is no longer built for people to live in. it is now a commodity. it is traded on the stock market. it is a place to park capital. >> 70% of the people who are houseless are here because of housing inaffordability and housing availability. california is 500,000 units short as it relates to affordable housing. this is a microcosm of what is going on around the nation. >> pastor preaches biblical scripture with a mix of hip-hop and social justice activism. you know, just like jesus would do. ♪ ♪ don't make me put these on

you ♪ every friday, he's right here at the church without walls on fifth and maple. not only is he speaking truth to power, he's doing it with a p.a. system so power can hear him. >> 13 years ago, came here to skid row. we started doing this thing called a church without walls. we want to be here. a lot of times people say, get people out of skid row. when we get them out, what are they going to do? gentrify. we don't want to get them out. we want to elevate the people and empower the people. ♪ >> k.o. is a musician and a resident of skid row. after growing up in detroit he came to l.a. to pursue his dreams. >> he came to l.a. doing music and casting and other areas. and i got ill. i was in the hospital. and when i came out, i had no

jobs. people don't realize, when you're a contract worker, you don't get health insurance. so i was mounted in medical bills. i'll never forget walking out of my hospital room and going back to my house and seeing my stuff on the grass. and i was baffled at what to do. eventually, my 2012 car got towed. so not only was i now homeless. i had no vehicle and i was othered. completely othered for the first time in my life. >> someone who is your circumstances. >> that's right, man. at what point was your dirty clothes or the fact that you haven't had a shower make you lesser than a human being? at what point in our society did we say that's okay? this system is not just not built for us. but it is built to take us out. >> it's built against us. >> that's right, man. >> and it's not broken. >> that's what i hear, the system is not broken.

that's the way it was designed. >> how do we explain to people who only think of skid row negatively, it is part of our duty to help everybody. >> in order to deal with poverty, we need to deal with it with public policy. folks think that you can inherit wealth. you can't inherit poverty because of the policies this nation inflicted on black folks. building freeways through eminent domain. displacing folks, creating ghettos intentionally. because of that, we need to dismantle the system. work outside the system. >> i think we're trying to get a seat at the table. we need to be making the tables. >> come on now. >> quite frankly. that's the thing. we have to stop the mindset that somebody is coming to save us. we are all we got. >> damn straight. we're all we got. sometimes, that ain't enough. ♪ >> even though the people of

l.a. voted to raise their own taxes bypassing measure hhh, a $1.2 billion bond to build 10,000 units of affordable housing, in the three years since, not only have no units been built but l.a. has cut the promised delivery to 5800 units. in that time the homeless population has grown 30%. people want to help but politicians, what are you doing? i'm looking at you, mayor. behind every 2020 census taker's mask is a friendly neighbor. they're teachers, retirees, vets, people committed to doing right by getting the count right. if you haven't responded yet, they'll be stopping by to ask some simple questions that will inform how billions in federal funds are spent on local services every year for the next decade. so when they come knocking, say hi from a safe distance

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♪ there is this saying that i hate with all my heart. perception is reality. that's not true. most people's perceptions are laced with their biases toward one group or another and that's wrong. we have to look at things from a nonemotional place so we can see what is really happening. >> officer joseph's presence on skid row is as big as his chest. he's worked the row for the last 20 years. he's seen some things. and he has his own views on the issue. >> because of systemic failures way, way above our head, we're the last -- well, now the first resort in dealing with this issue. i a police officer, 100% agree, that we should not be. here are the systemic failures.

the american system of trying to help the mentally ill, closing down the facilities, now they ask us to sprinkle pills on them, kick them out to the streets. they get their prescribed medication and then they sell it because it makes them feel down and lethargic. they want to feel up. so they start taking the illegal stuff like cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs which exacerbates their condition when they're in crisis 100 fold. hey brother, good to see you. being bipolar, schizophrenic, these are not police problems. >> how the hell did our country's mental health issues become the responsibility of law enforcement? as much as many of us like to blame this on reagan, the unraveling started in the '60s with president kennedy. he shut down the asylums which made sense because apparently "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" wasn't far from the truth.

but with no real replacement for many of those, huge numbers of people dealing with profound mental illness being turned out on the streets in the 1980s. so today when someone has been picked up off the street. they go straight to the l.a. county jail. and l.a. county jail is massive. they're about 17,000 inmates on any given night with about a third of those dealing with mental illness. not only is at this time largest jail. it is also the largest mental health institution. most folks ends up back on the street without getting any treatment and the cycle repeats. >> the reality is, if you really care about fixing them, here's what you do. it has to be six weeks. six to eight weeks. why? it takes about six to eight -- how are you doing? it takes six to eight weeks for the medication to take effect and stabilize them. >> and i appreciate that. i think the thing that people who are not police officers have issues with -- >> hey! >> how you doing man. >> walking around with the mayor.

anyway, how come you cops are so unpopular? whether perception is reality or not, and i think it is, he has very different opinions from what i've learned so far. homelessness is a complex issue. the people living it are complex. and the views to fix it are equally complex. >> right now the narrative is, everybody is in the streets because of high rental. that's a lie. most people are not here because of the housing crisis. i've been in skid row since 1997. i've been seeing some of the same faces since 1997 because of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and mental illness. >> a lot of drug problems in that part of l.a., too. you know what i mean? >> yes. i know there's probably more drugs in beverly hills than skid row put together. difference is mode of operation. in beverly hills, they keep everything on the outside -- >> and they have enough money the drug problem can't necessarily destroy their finances. >> yeah. they have buffers. over here, the criminal effort does everything in daylight

which draws the police. that's what draws them, it is the statistics. not the race of the people that draws us to the community. so it's not their skin that's the problem. so yes. nine times out of ten, it will mirror that community. not saying we're targeting black people. disparity doesn't equal bias all the time. it doesn't. >> i can't separate the race from this stuff out here. the history of racism in america, the situation from the time the slave ship landed to us standing here now. so the economic forces, the law enforcement, the institutional forces on black people in this country, it helps pull us down. then if we have a bad day, just ends up worse than a white bad day. >> i know systemic racism. don't believe i don't think it exists. i've been a victim of racism. when i see a crime, not seeing black people doing this or that,

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i pledge allegiance to this land for which it stands, the republican clan against the black man. check it out, check it out. look and see, cannot trust it. it's a part of life. like a toss of the dice, 7/11 or snake eyes. no surprise. the ones involved in politics. no. poli tricks. a systematic man of action. medicare. gr beware. flimsy, sloppy, you better copy. >> thank you so much for waiting. we got the tickets, we're going to sign you up for haircuts. do not worry, we have enough food for over 700 people, okay? hello! how are you? sorry! >> don't be sorry. you got stuff to do. >> lot going on. >> i'll follow you. this is shirley.

and this is her creation. beauty to the streets. while l.a.'s leaders squabble over bureaucracy, shirley and an army of her volunteers built a it is l.a., after all. >> come on, randy. let's get your haircut. >> it's an opportunity for people to get a new cut, a bite to eat, and maybe equally important, some tlc. >> yeah! >> over 500 people are expected to turn out today, so needless to say, shirley's busy. >> that's all your barber stuff. >> not too busy to give out some hugs. >> hey, mama. how are you doing, love? >> so just to be clear, this is all independent. this is all came from you. >> this is all me. i was cooking for all these people before at my tiny home. for everybody on top of doing the water and all of this. all right, y'all, the food is coming out now, okay? we're going to open up the line, okay? it's important to let people know they're not standing in line in vain.

you would never want to stand in line, i wonder if they have enough. i wonder. it's important to let them know their time is valuable. they may be homeless, but their time is valuable. >> how do you know how to do this? >> i learned. i've been out here for three years. >> you weren't trained for this? >> well, i'm i mother. kind of trained for this. i have six kids. >> this is only slightly more work than six kids. >> i'm actually going to have kamau wash you, okay? >> that's me, right. >> that's you. >> okay. we're going to go to this rinse station over here. let me show you where you'll go. >> because you looked at me and said expert in hair, right? >> yes. afro, expert in hair. you got the pump going. lean back, ms. darlene. stop eating. >> i got it. >> all right. >> you're doing good. >> i got three girls. >> oh, look at you. he's doing a great job. he hasn't gotten any water in her eyes. >> you like that, darlene? better than my hands, huh?

>> i don't know. ♪ >> for many of these folks this may be only day of the week that they can actually sit back, close their eyes and relax. momentarily letting go of the stress and trauma that they experience out here every single day. >> you didn't live on these streets down here? >> no, i didn't. i was fortunate enough not to live on the streets. i buried one of my children. and just trying to heal from that pain for numerous years i was like, oh, my god, what do i do with this pain? you know what? i have so much pain, i can help other people with pain so i decided to come down here and help people. >> people understand the idea of people needing food, but why do they need makeup and haircuts? >> i think it boils down to self-esteem, and hopefully they look in the mirror and see something of value and this makes them feel better about themselves.

this is not going to get them off the streets. a lot of criticism is there are more important things than makeup and hair. there probably are, but this is all i have to offer. this is what i can provide. >> yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> i'm not sure if it's the hair. i'm not sure it's the makeup. i don't know it's the physical touch and the conversation. who's to say what it is, but something we're doing works. >> something happened. >> yeah. >> and thank you for the other thing you taught me, apparently i got skills as a hair shampooer. >> you all right. no water in the eyes. >> three daughters. i trained from that. >> i'm not going to pump you up too much. if you make a mistake, it's not going to be on me. pretty good. >> pretty good. i was trying to give myself an "a" and you say i got a "c." >> a-my us iinus. but you still in the a's. you did so good, love muffin. very proud of your hair skills. you did an amazing job. you're welcome back any time. >> okay. >> okay? okay, baby. >> thank you. tums versus mozzarella stick

(bell rings) when heartburn hits fight back fast... ...with tums chewy bites... beat heartburn fast tums chewy bites

♪ after everything shirley has done, her day is still not over. she has one more thing to do. she's got to take care of her oldest and dearest friend down here. >> hey, qq, how are you, baby? okay. so we got some food for you. so i wanted to introduce you to my friend. fist bump it out. >> hi, hi, hi. good, how are you doing? >> i'm good. >> q has lived on the fringes of skid row for 22 years due to the same hateful shit that people deal with all over this country.

i notice that you're over here away from some of the other part of skid row? >> yes, this zone is -- to me, it's much more nicer. >> safer for you. >> safer for me. where we were in skid row, there's not a lot of trans or gay down there. it's very territorial. so for q and her protection, all the trans pretty much or gays live back here. a lot of the vets stay back here. older people who can't defend themselves. if you can't protect and defend yourself, you don't go to the row. >> back here? >> i started with the gay and transgender community. that's how i actually started. >> shirley's my best friend. she's my angel. god points angels to each and every one of us some type of way, and he pointed shirley. >> oh, i love you. you know i love you. >> so shirley makes sure you take care of yourself. >> she stays on top of me. >> like a mother, huh? >> she's positive. there's a lot of positive people back here. you've been positive for how

long, q? >> almost 20 years. >> so you were positive when you moved down here? >> yes, i caught hiv down here. >> okay. >> i always hear that hiv is -- you can live with it today. not if you're homeless. but your life is not replaceable. >> no, i love life. i love life. >> you love life? >> i love life. >> i think that's probably hard for maybe people who don't live down here to understand that people who live down here love life. >> i just the smell of nature, the fresh flowers, plants. >> mm-hmm. >> you know, i'm just in love with that. so in tune with my spirit. >> what do you wish people who didn't live down here who weren't down here knew about this life? >> this is a world, too. we might not have the luxury things that they have down there, but we're humans just like they are. we bleed the same blood and we love, we cry just the same as you. because we're all the same. we're all the same.

♪ >> i think that people are so disconnected they feel like this can only happen to a drug addict or an alcoholic. >> most of the people actually don't have a substance abuse problem. mental health issue. but when you come down here, you can get one quickly. >> this happens to battered women. this happens to our vets. this happens to single mothers. this happens to people who get laid off. at any time, this could be our story. ♪ >> it's about putting some light and learning how to fix a situation instead of just covering it up. >> yeah. >> you can cover it up, but then it builds more of an infection and then it spreads because you never find a solution to fix your sore. you know, because this is a sore for america. >> yeah. >> this is not just an l.a. story. we think of