i just. probably would be described as angry i think i'm a strong you know. i or single.

skid row is a neighborhood of fifty plucks which does not appear on any map of los angeles. you. would. stay room basically. and

there's still. this is good and bad when i see things here that you've been experiencing shit that there is just no way i mean there's no movie there's no book there's disses a real life experience i see people get beat up every night people get robbed us of people to step us and i've seen people get. paid b.o.'s you don't know if you don't pay a car knows you're no response to release we're 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. but 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 in l.a. scattered around. about two thirds struggled with mental illness trying to texan

or both but it wasn't always this way. i came to skid row it was more like skid row's we identified only drunks old drunks on the street. it used to make terrible he's old presumed garnishes 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 addiction. there's always been efforts to get rid of skid row it was a warning for people who are unable to live in the world and they were given the tried to move through again and again but just moved into a different area when big money developers began to revitalize downtown the flop houses 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 two separating those two things and i crossing where there's muscles operating those two things i was shocked for patients really overtight i'm scared wrote this is a newer proven i still to back you were to drop it people didn't come down to see and it don't tell you this while the air without sleep and of all this is dirt fields and burn barrels it and they will cut your throat down to your people to come past main street you doing dishes call the pit spec down. the people who told me different if it was a whole generation. its good rosenau just same potential real estate story of a ground troops here that people are interested in not much interest on the people who are on the ground everyone who lands on skid row has

a story to. all about how they got there for many it's the last stop after losing everything for sun the fall is the specialty term magic my life you know prior to coming to skate row was. in some ways like most people in other ways it was a little bit different you know 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 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 one nine hundred eighty eight i started to experiment with other drugs i ended up you know getting involved with cocaine 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 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 numbering where we're 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 its drug and alcohol treatment program. two hundred forty four men 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 bed 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. it's humbling. the area has always attracted outsiders. three. some stay for a. while others never. come albert olsen but everybody calls me bam bam i'm a punky ex 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 ever want to have been seeing elucidating and hearing voices ever since i was a kid i go i'm one of those cases where i'm bipolar schizoaffective i have anti-social personality disorder or p.t.s.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 her way down the color of their good spot to some of the best era when it's. cracked up bad if we demand the next black. hollowing most two years ago this only to be two years for me so i spent a good two years down. the job they got ever do again at their commits suicide next time. so nasty horrible and everything. over the place 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 pool 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 were 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 the man said will 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 illness because the institutions don't exist anymore breaking close down all of those places and they took all the mental people and they gave it to society 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 and our prisons l.a. county twin towers jail is the largest mental institution in the united states. because we no longer hospital or 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 stigmatize. and i said no i think we're going to be just the most righteous best. 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. 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. i came in contact with some of the most beautiful people. that one could ever you know we're . a family. you know we cooked it together we play cards to gather we sing karaoke number close and deal with all types of people. first never in any place i mean all types of people all types when i decided to come down and. i saw people just like me depression was one of my biggest things. seven

years ago i love that i was on the pill i do it in a way every time. i have. where there are a girl in and out around the city nurses. my body. i know my. own my body i had my breast removed dealing with cancer so i'm trying to be strong and i'm trying to be you know it you know and just enjoy my life what i have right now what i'm doing right now is. loving myself. taking care of my business no matter how much pain i'm me and i got to do.

a chance. to. finish line a marathon. why has it been handed down. by one. over to digital the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy trek albus. role. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of

our government and a crest of a we've been hijacked like handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built up my job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem of trucks rational debate and real discussion critical issues facing america ready to join the movement then walk a little bit of. those holes for fourteen years but sure. it wasn't because i couldn't get it it's because i didn't want to go with. the new funny. steward who came to me to suit the really become of history no c.e.o. should be made into. a car from a home a very good home. very good home but i want to live on the street be wow.

i learned i learned i went to the horse school knox because that's where to see this issue very wise to life and people are can read right away. our way and i'm way here i was kind of screwed a dummy with this bitterness where you just put everybody where the admittedly not i just admitted you are saying. with horns on one side and the halo. are. the people. who know right here. that those canuck. things can 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 in new mexico it and i would put four years altogether in

arkansas and i put the last twenty years in hale but. 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 cheap or get it i had to pay two and three and four dollars a night for star phone containers and a body cost 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 caps they let caustic solutions and all kinds of poisons go in psych drugs in the water stood to camps on the verge of drinking and no clean food supply for them to know by now is over my chimney where this cat food with a lot more contact with the ok. kid you can't take it again say it you know and there is none of this now this is

a problem the you know no this no this is the one that had the signs can right here . the month in kitty and it looked like a rat well this last race i got it to a marine here. when we hopefully will have wore. yellow kill them we once had a lot of red in her war yeah that means anything rev moon. oh no her focus or their grieving of the cast of cats are going to be for now at the end with that ransom with lulu and final orlando logan purple k. and less than last night. and as a psycho a little insight when someone out of the sun thank you have a license around and won't let the law and your rifle rule sexually harass whole. sections of press. thank our don't like don't stack our windows out psycho level or

anything. let alone a take that way and our way the round unless they're not here so no. to really what i meant of or just a guy was bothering her one day and i just don't like. people to take advantage of oh people. when he was taken advantage over so i intervened and she 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. mental illness with the collection of tray a she she has storage is full of cash like three different ones just completely piled up to she pay 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 for 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 to believe that i would die behind this will lead you right here. to. life of. love life is a conundrum it could be good. so story and everybody down who knows. you don't have to deal with me so they basically don't bother her at all . they hate it she carries all the church. dresses she likes. richard be a long time the people why you are off the street or why you don't she won't she doesn't want that see people understand she you have to let them be who they are when she's ready to go inside she'll bortsov you she wants to live on the street you have to let her live her slots or should i say live on the street even though she has a horse. she needs

a trail like linus there were she go. even though his mothers will set the money he she gave him he spent on drugs and these people give me wonder and no one. it here almost finished a psychology course in which three years in medical school it dropped out medical school it cracked like an end up so bad. and now i see about one back to medical school even though he has pancreatic cancer which is really. yes she is a lot of ways and he cause real lot of grief. and ok well we have family who are paying for life. well you just get. this. i was sleeping else and drooling in a blanket. real close friends. sometimes

. sleep. sometimes inside it reminds me of why the hell out of there at the age sixteen. i try to have my so committed to a hospital because i wasn't connecting with other people and healthy way i didn't feel connected to anything i remember feeling very depressed and. i thought wanted to save the world to myself you know headache if i go in at sixteen then i never have to come back out again but they would accept me. they would be a bad place to be you know i ran away from home at seventeen years old and i actually kind of paid. school. married and.

had my daughter my first twenty two. my last dollar. their father divorced me at that point i mean. there was nothing healthy about. everything with distorted. and i was so restless. outlined 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 happened i came askin well. i developed a real bad again i came and came here. and i really did him

and never thought about it i just know when you are wrong doing roman doing your most folk and that's what that's what i'm going to do. but. that's what i wanted to tom and i said remember saying to myself alas sitting here long enough and keep doing what i'm doing it's going to happen because i just knew i was a little from glad as to say enjoy it and maybe dials and your old. grudge is very good to me scare me so you always use down bring through most turbulent times now the. geos in your situation is true for the mud dish it is a drug addiction crack cocaine also addicted to lifestyle of downtown oh we're. no one judge a single. grew up in compton rod or southern one or so i was three years old. people forced to have horses in the back yard. i just are

going to take them out no but you got to be right in this if you. tell. 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. they they sparked me yeah that's what i want to know too that i like the smell of eleven when they spark me based on the warranty tell me i was or was. just more like horses they sparred with the sun like my dream would be to neverland ranch. be were horses you know. just be around smell them walk ride a bagel. teach people about. when to come the horses i believe that. i know if they get it because of the castle rescue so many people

you know i. used to get paid to be wall to wall people up and down the whole block and you can hardly walk up and down the street cars could be a valid have everything on our everybody's either in jale was always the santa monica venice or hollywood or somewhere else we don't need more channels we need more mental institutions we need more doctors to come down here so the more people place now sandwiches that's what we really need more understanding we need the awareness that we're not told troi got x. three. 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 seems 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 souls in the brain of a person that 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 anymore when. 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 them prescribe drugs street drugs feel better prescribe drugs don't particularly feel better in their hands everywhere is mentally ill people there's always a major because we need them there it's on medication for self medicate so be it how else we're going to do i can't even get my mobile telephone i am i supposed to get my medication so get drugs suparna. before hand. trying to make it. known to the. science technology innovation called the least i'm elements from around russia we've got this huge area covered.

i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question more. this

is a classic. over by the if you're in the film did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution which says that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck help us. to make you know i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying the truth rational debate real discussion critical issues facing the book ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. but i'm sorry to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture.