the. you. do. not. stay room basically. and they say oh. this is good in big question things here that you've been experiencing shit that there is just no way i mean it's no movie it is no book there's this is

a real life experience i see people get beat up every night people get robbed a bus ticket because. i seen people get hit by a car you don't pay b.o.'s you don't notice you don't pay a car no arrest you have no responsibilities were not here because where homeless just less of a home baby my reality was that i was there you know skid row is the last house on the block at g.o.p. with just in my neighborhood you know i. basically almost slept on every street down here at one time or another i think i would never ever live in a way else you know skid row is my home. as many as eleven thousand men and women make their home on l.a. skid row. about two thirds struggle with mental illness track addiction or both but it wasn't always this way. i came to skid row it was more like skid row's we identified old drunks. old drunks on the street.

it used to look terrible he's old krystle incarnation of drunks. and when it was really safe because they were not very aggressive now we have young strong crack addicts who are many times are willing to take a chance at rolling stone to get their money to get some more crack it's a different addition. there's always been efforts to get rid of skid row in their war room for people who are unable to live in the world and they would give me the try to move through again and again but i just moved into a different area when big money to fellow purse began to revitalize downtown the flophouses got new neighbors and penned houses and high end lofts. there are not many places where the gap between rich and poor is a striking as it is here. literally there is just a block or troops operating those two things and i'm cruising where there's nothing separating those two things i was transferred to julian over to come to skid row

this is a newer proven i still to back feel we would have been robbed if people didn't come down to see him to do this while the air without three of you know all this is dirt fields and burn barrels and they will cut your throat down to your people become past main street you doing dishes call the pit spec down. the people are told are different for us a whole generation. is good rosenau just seem potential real estate it's really the ground troops here that people are interested in a lot much interest on the people who are on the ground everyone who lands on skid row has a story to tell about how they got there for many it's the last time after losing everything for some the fall especially term aspect my life you know prior to coming to skate row was. in some ways like most people. no i i

was born in compton grew up there with five brothers and sisters lost my dad when i was three my mom when i was fourteen at that point i moved out to california and i was an athlete in high school and decent student and started smoking weed you know in high school at the age of fourteen after my mom passed away yet and still you know i was good enough athletically to earn a full scholarship to university of iowa state university where i was a national champion in track and field and also i was able to go and qualify for the olympic games in eighty four where i actually competed in one of so many medals so at eighteen years old you know obviously going into the olympics a year out of high school was very exciting i had a lot of emotion going on. you know nine hundred eighty eight i started to experiment with other drugs they ended up you know getting involved with cocaine and i freebasing cocaine and that was the beginning of

a twenty year journey for me as an addict i had lost everything i had lost my shoe contract i had lost my house i lost all the financial means that i head was really on the street. sleeping on the street for the first time and actually laying down on the sidewalk you know and trying to close your eyes and next to go to sleep when you're outdoors those are the things that as an addict that most people don't really talk about so the first time i came down to skid row i was pretty much our five. i was amazed at the number being lower down here i was amazed and where some of the people had come from. the midnight mission first opened its doors and nine hundred fourteen cents and thousands have passed through it's drug and alcohol treatment program. two hundred

forty four. occupy this space here at the mission and we're going to go and see where i got my humble beginnings in recovery this is the residence when you first come into the midnight mission everyone that comes in has to come through this dormitory first. so this was my big c three up and you can see this in the this is just the way it was when i when i got here i did a lot of soul searching this bit right here i had to make up my mind whether or not i was going to try to stay sober what the program was for me what i was really doing here you know at forty one years old what are you going to do i mean at that point for me it was either you go forward you know what the other lifestyle or you try to pull back and do something different. any time you can fall from grace or you fall from from lofty heights if you want to use that word.

the area has always attracted outsiders. some stay for a. while others never. come albert olson but everybody calls me bam bam i'm a punk new yorker my story starts way back when i was a kid unfortunately. nursery school would be my teacher would share i was thrown out of every school if you want to have been seeing elucidating and hearing voices i was in so i was a kid. bipolar schizoaffective have anti-social personality disorder p t h d i have intimate rage just sort of a major nightmare the sort of i also have a gender identity disorder where i'm taking hormones for a transgender issue for sexual reassignment to get my heroine down the color of their good spot to some of the best era when it's. cracked up bad and we'd man's on

the next block. hollowing most two years ago this only to be two years for me so i spent a good two years down. the jet i think i'd ever do again at their commits suicide next time. i mean it's so nasty horrible and everything's all over the place it makes you you know makes you want to do something with your life size doing this because this is really rough to do this and i went to the service i got from out of the service for bad conduct one thing is really stinks the fact doesn't rain here it doesn't wash the urine in the way it's a smell just gets worse and worse i beat up my mother and my sisters and i took my kid and by losing my kid and everything else i really really really smart and i was where i first became homeless because i couldn't rationally. deal with where my life had gone i've been electrician for all these years are always worked. back in the mid seventy's through the mid

eighty's we didn't call them homeless back then we were emptying our mental hospitals by basically saying now we have them instead of help you and you can also get on disability so go forth and take care of yourself the predominant population on the row at that time and continues to date are the homeless mentally ill obviously many of them are also involved with addiction and and sometimes you can't figure out which came first and that doesn't even matter the fact is they've got melanoma serious mental. because the institutions don't exist anymore reagan closed down all those places and they took all the mental people they gave it. and then where do we go you either get committed and get locked in and smoke a cigarette three times a day and when they tell you or you sit on the street you become homeless and you can at least have your own life to some point. in many ways it's an open asylum for

the mentally ill we don't have closed asylums anymore except for our jails in our prisons l.a. county twin towers jail is the largest mental institution in the united states. because we no longer hospital wards are mentally ill so we criminalize because of their behavior on the streets people were really questioning me like how can you open a place just for people who are crazy isn't that really stigmatized. and i said no i think we're going to be just a. drop in center we're going to have the best food we're going to feel like a family we're going to just make it a place people want to come to. so that people had a place to stay at night. by like two thousand and two we had one hundred employees

half of them were members we also set up our own. i came we can take with some of the most beautiful people. we're. family. you know we. play cards together we sing karaoke we. deal with all types of people. first. place i mean all types of people all types. and. people just like me depression was one of my biggest things. seven years ago a lot of this it all was. i do it in a way every time. i have. this.

girl in. my body. i know my. body i had my breast. so i'm trying to be strong and i'm trying to be you know. what i have right now what i'm doing right now is. taking care of my business no matter how much pain and i got to do.

that. and the rest. will be if we call the. police. wealthy british style. market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our.

mission free accreditation free transport charges free. range from and three kids free studio type free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects free media oh god our teeth dot com. those holes for fourteen years by choice. was a cause i couldn't get in this because i didn't want to go in. and do funny. stuart who came to me in a suit really really become of history no say yes and he would have. come from a home a very good home you know. very good home but i want to do a long street be wow. i learned i learned i would store school knox because that's what this is mission very wise to life and people. can read right away.

away. i mean the death bitterness where you get. well everybody. i just said. are. the people. who know right here. those canucks in the spring and these kids i was born in the trailer house over here in san pedro my father was in the service in world war two when i was released in new mexico where my grandmother was born i'm from the men of clan it's a rich and powerful clan and new mexico it isn't i would put four years old and give there in arkansas and i put the last twenty years in jail but arizona.

i had my first cats when i was three years old even though i've been feeding these for over five years now i had to pay for fifty a month or kept food i couldn't get to cheap get food but you forget that i had to pay two and three and four dollars a night for star phone containers and a body like eight dollars for just a few those thing that struck me worst when i saw the skid row was there was no clean fresh water for the birds and kept they let caustic solutions and all kinds of poisons go and psych drugs in the waters to kids on the verge of drinking and no clean food supply for them to know by now it isn't much of an unfair case carefully before a lot more contact the ok. kid who can't get a sick kid again say it's a law and there's them this now this is not a problem the uniform know this no this is the one that had the signs can right here. the month including and it looks like the rattle of the smashed face i got it

to a murder. only hopefully will have wore. yellow kill them we once had a lot of red in a while. or war it really is yeah that meeting though careful anything read no clue move in a room there was no current focus or they're grieving the cast of cats are going to be for now at the end of that rank level as muumuu last final moulin allowed in purple k. and less than last night. and as a psycho a little insight to someone on the sun like out of the light he sits around in moon let alone a law and her rightful rule sexually harassing. the sex of the press. thank our i felt like no star carolyn is out cycle level or anything. like bona to that land our way the round unless they're not here so no. to really what i meant

of her does a guy was bothering her one day and i just don't like. people who take advantage of oh people. when he was taken advantage of or sawyer intervened and she did for good enough there she just kind of adopted me as her fiance and i've been her fiance or since that's been nine years ago but did i started to like her as a person and i start to understand her who she is right here in her. mid to eunice with the collection of tray a she she has stored just full of cash like three different was just completely piled up that she paid every month nothing but. but that's who she is and i take her just who for who she is it and that's why she loves me and i love her for that. except to fred i guess that's how i get my blessings from god. you know because in the beginning was like that but i truly i would defend her with my life

you believe that i'll die behind this will lead you right here. if you. license. love life is a conundrum it could be a good. so story. everybody down here knows that if they bother her very they're going to have to deal with me so they basically don't bother with all. the haters she carries all the church. richard be a long time to people off the street or why you don't or should be warned she doesn't want to see people understand you have to let them be who they are when she's ready to go inside. you she wants to live almost should you have to live their lives or slots or should i still live i'm sure even though she has little or . she needs a truly large ones they were she grew. even though as mothers will set the money he she gave him he spent on drugs and in these people giving one drug no one else to

buy more they keep psyching him. and he almost finished his psychology course and with three years of medical school and a drop out medical school it crackle i can end up so bad can memory sing and now i sing about one back to medical school even though he has pancreatic cancer which is really a sick move. he is she is a lot of ways and he caused me a lot of grief. as ok we have family who will pay lower life. well i just feel bad. this is not how. i was sleeping i was enjoying a blanket. a. real close friend. sometimes i still was sad to sleep. sometimes

inside it reminds me of why the hell out of there at the age sixteen. i tried to have myself committed to a hospital because i wasn't going to acting with other people a healthy way i didn't feel connected to anything i remember feeling very depressed and. i thought wanted to save the world in myself you know a headache if i go in at sixteen then i never have to come back out again but they would accept me. they would be really bad place to be you know i ran away from home at seventeen years old and i actually got a job paid writ in my school. that married at the age of twenty one had my daughter my first daughter it was twenty two then and my other daughter and then my last dollar baby. their father divorced me

at that point i mean. there was nothing healthy about. everything with the store it. was. our own how to do that i don't know how i raised those three girls like that. but he said that my father passed away that hurt me really bad i lost everyone in my life that i cared about they're gone and then it happened i came to skid row. i developed a real bad drug and crack cocaine and came here. and i really did him and never thought about it i just knew when you were wrong doing roman doing your body spoken that's what that's what i'm going to do. but. that's what i wanted

at that time and i just remember saying to myself sitting here long enough and keep doing what i'm doing it's going to happen because i just knew i was glad it's. to san julian and the dials and roll. is very good to me you say oh he's used down here now been through most turbulent times now here. in this interesting story part of my addiction is a drug addiction crack cocaine also addicted to the lifestyle of downtown where. no one judge a single. grew up in compton ride horses i would ride horses i was three years old. the people force they have horses in the back yard i did never roll i just are going to be forced to take them out no you don't buck ya didn't ride to miss it you wrote in the first. row i do i had talent for ride horses i

knew they had like a four and i had a stand into the whole why you like it so look what you did before i land they they spark me yeah that's what i want to know too that i like the smell of eleven when they spark me ok they call already tell me. that's how i like horses they spark me to sign what my dream would be to never ranch. be were horses you know. just to be around smell them walk ride a baby. teach people about. the horses i believe that. i know if they get it because of the house arrest so many people you know. used to get paid the wall of wall people up and down the whole block and you. card could be the pen pal of everything on our everybody is

either in jail or they all want to santa monica or venice hollywood or somewhere else we don't need more jails we have woman two institutions and we need more doctors to come down here so the more people pass now sandwiches that's what we really need we need more understanding we need the awareness that we're not told drug addicts three days. things impact our central nervous system the environment that we grow up in and that we live in our d.n.a. basically what we're born with our genes and drugs. i don't mean is the reward neurotransmitter i mean it's what you see you see and release is from our brain cells when we are sexually aroused when we smell something good we'd like to be when and. we smoke crack the brain of

a schizophrenia person untreated unmedicated is a wash with don't for me more sold on the brain of a person who doesn't because frankly the scripture frank brain cannot filter out the noises the heat. the vibrations the other people talking to you it's all coming in at once so the medications that we give people for schizophrenia reduce the don't for me unfortunately they reduce it too much and they feel good in some states don't get to feel pleasure any more. these folks wake up every morning and have to face another day being a stigmatized marginal person in the world and have to make decisions about using street drugs or using prescribed drugs street drugs or easier to get their

prescribed drugs street drugs feel better prescribe drugs don't particularly feel better in their hands everywhere it is mentally ill people there's always a major margin it's because we need them there it's on medication for self medicate so be it how else we're going to do it what else would you like to do i can't even get my mobile telephone i am i supposed to get my medication so get drugs soup on the street and be who i am. try to make it. for it. will go to the future. show thirty four can just bend over fifteen billion euros of pulte head says to each one hundred fifty million degrees with one talk a much fuel to sell from st petersburg to france we travel in search of the song. knowledge update we've got the future covered.

one of the wonderful drama was the polish face i think people. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure. look at this so i understand it's go back to libya because for all the criticism that you have about russia and syria russia doesn't want to see syria explode everyone thinks it's russia trying to protect its friends by geopolitical i just know it's about a region they could explode and they explode in a really vicious fashion it's a way for the outlines of this war is because we're not doing killed in

a civil war is that your position no matter who is it is you're saying if we just want to show people that doing something as simple were doing nothing and only one hundred in a lodger to achieve your policy is ok or that is worth even across the political. will you tell me the rest ok i'll give you good finish the russian oil oh my god my line of peter lavelle to my mind. his lover into an amazon. that had been my dream for so long. but he couldn't hold on to there is such a thing as teacher now she runs her own muslim factory throw down a challenge to me there's no alcohol or smoking and even coffee is forbidden they worship the sun and water.

will he ever be able to win back man versus woman. torch is on its epic journey to structure. one hundred twenty three days. through two thousand and nine hundred two cities of russia. really by fourteen thousand people or sixty five thousand killing. in a record setting trip by land air sea and others face. a limp torch relay. on r t r c dot com. we're not psyched to have active camp at guantanamo where patients are forced that is the aftermath of our strike never turned the world's attention to the place that

some gulag of our time. eavesdropping on allies the latest nic leak shows the agency's been monitoring with german chancellor cell phone for over a decade adding fuel than to europe's frustration over u.s. surveillance practices also this week. i remember flying out of the window and suddenly i was on the street and in a panic. talk to survivors of the suicide bus that hit a crowded bus in the russian city of volgograd. america's killing machine is still condemnation from amnesty international and human rights watchers say the drone strikes in pakistan and yemen may constitute war crimes. the syrian government presents a full list now of its chemical.