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 slipped on every street. i am one now that 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 elements get round. 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 identify old drunks old drunks on the street. it used to look terrible he told chris 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 of 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 it was a war and 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 sites i was. really over tight i'm scared rural this is a new or through my still turn back here would be rob if people didn't come down to see into downtown for just swell the air without sleep and of 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 a different also a whole generation. it's good to see potential real straight through or ground troops here where people are interested. in 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 stop after losing everything for some to follow suspects later magic my life you know prior to coming to escape. in some ways like most people and i know ways it was a little bit different you know 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 was able to go and qualify for the olympic games in eighty four where i actually competed in one of so medal so 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 the drugs that 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 had 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. get roe i was pretty much our five. and i was amazed at the numbering level down here i was amazed at 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. the more 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 in this period 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 you fall from grace or you fall from some lofty heights if you want to use that word. it's humbling. 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 ever went to i been seeing elucidating and hearing voices i was since i was a kid i guess i'm one of those cases where i'm bipolar schizoaffective i have anti-social personality disorder p t h d i have intimate rage just sort of i have 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 corner there could spark to some of the first era when it's girls. don't crack up band of weed man the next block came down here following most. two years ago this only to be two years for me so i spent a good two years down. the jet out they got ever do again at their commits suicide next time. so nasty horrible and everything's over the place makes you

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 sister and i took my kid and by losing my kid and everything else i really really really was 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 or always were. 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 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 reagan closed 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 assignment for the mentally ill we don't have close. rooms anymore except for our jails and 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 them 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. 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 know we're.

a family. you know we could eat together we play cards together we see karaoke you. deal with all types of people. first city and never 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 see. this is out seven years ago i love this it always say i'm on the third. i do it in a way every task. i have. where. a girl in and out around the city nurses. my body. i know my. own my body i had my. so i'm trying to be strong and i'm trying to be you know you know.

what i have right now what i'm doing right now is. loving myself. no matter how much pain i'm me and i got to do in. new york london. the whole world is. a father one down the end. of the court that building at the end of the street another one a more transparent society gets the money or the tears become we see military and police forces mobilized against people who blend into the city the city the more people trust electronic devices the more.

fear that has a. hierarchy. the european union likes to think of itself as one of the brighter and fairer parts of the world the european commission report on corruption the first of its kind betrays a very different picture in every single member country there is corruption in some cases on a massive scale so what can the e.u. teach the world. there's a saying when you're. feeling tired feet she looks like a fairly simple shit. people. the real king here is that the polar bear and ice breakers come second. petition to the arctic can be conducted with the russian nuclear powered fleet of ice breakers . operation.

sure. very good home. very good. very wise to life and people. bitterness where you put everybody. i just.

trailer house over here in san pedro my father was in the service in world war two then i was raised in new mexico where my grandmother was born. rich and powerful clan and in mexico it. four years altogether in arkansas and i put the last twenty years in jail but. i had my first cat when i was three years old leaving i 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 the cheaper get it i had to pay two and three and four dollars a night for stuff from containers and

a body like eight dollars for just a few thing that struck me worst. was there was no clean fresh water for the birds and kept. caustic. solutions and all kinds of poisons go and psych drugs in the waters to camps on the verge of drinking and no clean food supply for them who should know by now if those are my children and they are this careful with a lot more contact in the olympics for. kids who can't take it again say it when there's been this now this is a problem the uniform know this no this is the one that had the signs kids were i hear. them learn to kitty and it looks like a rattle of the smashed face i got it to him readers. so we hopefully will have a war. gallows kill them we won't have a lot of red in the womb or rear yeah that means i don't care for anything rev moon

in a room they'll throw purple to support their group of the cast of cats are going to be born knowing that the moon with ransom was muumuu last final new man alone for k. and this then last night. and guy's a psycho it will incite them some loner will still run like a man with like he sits around and do nothing all day long and her rifle roof sexually harassing. things are right there was no star carolyn was a psycho level looney thing when one to take that land our way the round that you're not here so no need. to really what i meant of address the guy was bollinger one i just don't like. people who take advantage of those people. when he was taking advantage of. you to be she if you're good enough there she just kind of

adopted me as her fiance and i've been her fiance or sees this me nine years ago reduced or two to like her as a person and i start to understand her who she is wrong. here in her. mental illness with the collection of tray she has a store just full of cash like three different ones just completely piled up there she paid every month nothing but. that's who she is and i take her just who for who she is and that's why she loves me and i love her for. accepting that i guess that's hard to my blessings from god. you know because in the beginning was like truly i would defend her with my life you believe that i'll die behind this will lead you right here. life is. love life is a conundrum to be. so story and everybody down here

knows that if they bother her today they're going to have to deal with me so they basically don't bother her at all. they hate that she cares all that church. richard b. a long time to people why you are off the street or why you don't or she wanted to doesn't want that see people understand you have to let them be who they are when she's ready to go inside sure gortat you she wants to live almost should you have to let her live or should i still live on the street even though she has a whore. she's a trail large lines everywhere she go. even those mothers will send the money he she gave him he's been on drugs and these people give me one drug no one has to buy more they keep psyching him. and he almost finished his psychology course and with three years of medical school ended up at medical school it crackle i can end up so bad can memory sing and now i sing that one back to medical school even though he

has pancreatic cancer which is really a sick move. he is he is a lot of ways and he caused me a lot of grief. and ok we know we have family home. hey lorelai was. well it was a rather. this. i was sleeping also enjoying a blanket. real close friends. sometimes i still go outside and sleep. sometimes when i'm inside it reminds me of why the hell out of there at the age of sixteen. i try to have my so committed to a hospital because i wasn't going to acting 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 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 a bad place to be you know i ran away from home at seventeen years old and i actually kind of job paid real school. that mary and twenty one had my daughter my first daughter it was twenty two then my other daughter and then my last dollar baby. and their father divorced me at that point i mean. there was nothing healthy about. everything with distorted. oh how

i don't know how i raised those three girls like that. when he said that my father passed away that hurt me really bad. everyone in my life that i cared about they're gone and then happy i came to skid row. i developed a real bad drug and came and came here. and i really did them and never thought about it i just know when you are wrong to do a nearby spoke and that's what that's what i'm going to do. but. that's what i wanted at that time and i swim say to myself sitting here long now and keep doing what i'm doing is going to happen because i just knew i was a little from glad as to say enjoy it and maybe downs and old.

grudges meant good to me scare me sorry always years down through most turbulent times now to. your situation is too short a mud dish it is a drug addiction crack cocaine also addicted to lifestyle of downturn we're. in no one's religious no. grew up in compton rug or southern one horse i was three years old. and people forced to have horses in the back yard but they'd never roll i just are going to be forced to take them out no you don't buck ya get him in writing this and you wrote him was a. challenge for a 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 spark me yeah that's what i want to know too that i like the smell of the eleven when

they spark me like a baseball or to tell me i was or was. just more like horses they sport we decide what my dream would be to live on the ranch. be were horses you know. just 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 castle rest so many people you know yourself off. to get by the wall of wall people up and down a whole block and you can hardly walk up and down the street cars could be a valid option everything on our everybody is either in jail or they all went to santa monica or venice or hollywood or somewhere else we don't need more channels we need more mental institutions and we need more doctors to come down here so the more people pass 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. don't i mean is the reward neurotransmitter i mean. what you see you see and the lease is from our brain cells when we are sexually aroused when we smell something's good we'd like to be when and. we smoke crack the brain of a schizophrenia person untreated unmedicated is a wash with dope for me more souls in purgatory and 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 running 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. 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 prescribe drugs street drugs are easier to get than prescribe drugs street drugs feel better prescribe drugs don't particularly feel better in their hands everywhere it is mentally ill people is always a major margin it's because we need them there it's on medication for self medicate so be it how else would one do it what else would you like me to do i can't even

get my mom would answer the telephone what am i supposed to give her medication so get drugs suparna street be who i am trying to make it. such a twenty four in promises we alternate and exhilarated winter sports in our city it's here it's just me and you so now if i make heaven oh and on the bus tomorrow let me take you same for sochi twenty four take. it on. the plentiful supply was a terrible mistake now i'm very hard to make out to let alone to get along here is a plot that never had sex with her make their lives let alone.

lifts a little i'm living. a. no the flame. the olympic spirit travels with the flame from its birthplace in greece. joining james

brown for an elemental and a big journey around russia and beyond. where i. play. is obviously more for the latest because it's pink. when they wanted to avoid rate they really needed to buy guns and burn how to use them. this is the one that i want to go with them once again it's the fear from when the definitely the target of the gun lobby and you don't kill them when you kill anybody but if somebody would you would just prefer. i know to say more and more if that's really scary marketing tactics which implies that women have some sort of moral obligation to own guns to protect their family and young girls shoot

out here too so we do have a pink or. more kids young kids choke on food than are killed by firearms if being armed made us safer in america we should be the safest nation on earth we're clearly not the safest. by.

the sochi games are on the housing picture with a dumpling shot and honestly it's not finding the funds from a record holder nice eight sets of medals bronze in fifteen discipline. parties keeping abreast of the winter olympics with its special extensive coverage from our very own sochi studio. also the saab owes me a how to go even a singleton street violence with crowds clashing with police and torching government buildings across the country fear is that soaring unemployment and corruption. in the hubble terra thousands of foreigners are reporting they recruited by a hardline islamist in syria and trained protestants as they would outrage result.