this is good in big question things here that you experience things that there is just no way i mean it's no movie it is no book this this is a real life experience some people get beat up every night people get robbed us of people just. seen people get hit by a car you don't pay be used i don't know if you don't pick or noticed your new responsibilities are not here because where homeless just less of home maybe my reality was that i was there you know skid row is the last house on the block at g.o.p. we're 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. skip around. about two thirds struggle with mental illness target action

or both but it wasn't always this way. i came to spirit it was more like skid row's we identified only drunks and old drunks on the street. it used to look terrible he told prison guards of drunks. and believe 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 work crack it's a disparate 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 need to try to move here again and again but it just moves 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. tween rich and poor is

a striking as it is here. literally there is just a block or two of separating those two things and i'm crossing where there's nothing separating those two things i was struck for tertian joy and over time i'm scared rural just like the new are proving i still turn back here we would have been robbed and people didn't come down to see him to do a joke or just well the heroin addicts leo you know all this is dirt fields and burn barrels and they were cut your throat down to your people to come past main street you doing this is called the pits back down. the people told me different for us a whole generation. just seeing those potential real estate through river ground troops here people are interested in learning 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 sun the fall is the special a turn at 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 am i was born in county and 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 nath laid in high school by a 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 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 and want to so medal 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 the drugs that 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 had lost all the financial means that i had and was really on the street. sleeping on the street for the first time and actually laying down on the sidewalk you know in 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 horrified. and i was amazed at the number of the military 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 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 bit 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. 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. a melbourne olson but everybody calls me bam bam i'm a punky ex new yorker my story starts way back when i was a kid unfortunately. in nursery school i beat my teacher with a chair i was thrown out of every school ever went to i've been seeing elucidating and hearing voices ever since i was a kid i guess i'm one of those cases where i'm bipolar schizoaffective i have antisocial. p. t.h.d. i have intimate re just sort of a major nightmare the slaughter 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 give. and crack a bed of weed mans out a next block. hollowing almost two years ago this only to be two years for me so i spent a good two years down. they got over do it at their commit suicide next time. so nasty horrible and everything's 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 it doesn't rain here 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 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 are always worth. back in the mid seventies through the mid eighties 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 illness because the institutions don't exist anymore breaking close down. places they took all the mental people 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 in our prisons l.a. county twin towers jail is the largest mental institution in the united states. because we no longer hospital 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. make it a place people want to come to.

so that people had a place to stay. like to sound too we had a hundred employees use half of them were members we also set up. i have came in contact with some of the most beautiful people that one could ever know really. really go to. a family. you know we cook together we eat together we play cards together we sing together karaoke number close and deal with all types of people. first city and never in my life anyplace 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. i've been cooking is out seven years old i love this it always say

i'm now on the third. i do it in a way every task. i have. where there are two girl in and out around the city nurses. my body. i know my health. they're going on my body i had my breasts 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. or taking care of my business no matter how much pain i'm me and i got to do it.

think you need the economic ups and downs in the final column months day to deal sang i and the rest because i think it will be everything we own our. own home. the european union likes of think of itself as one of the brighter and fairer parts of the world a 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 a corruption. there's a media leader so we leave the media by the same motion suit your. father your party years ago. in their shoes that no one is asking with the guests that you

deserve answers from it's all on politicking only on our t.v. . sure. very good. very good. very life and people. bitterness where. i just.

trailer house over here in san pedro my father in the service in world war two then i was raised in new mexico where my grandmother was born. rich and powerful plant in new mexico it put four years altogether in arkansas and i put the last twenty years in jail but. i had my first cats when i was three years old leaving 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 keep get food but you forget that 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. worst i saw this skid row was there was no clean fresh water for the birds and cats they let caustic solutions and all kinds of poisons go and cite drugs in the waters but to cats on the verge of drinking and no clean food supply for them who should know by now if there isn't much of an unfair this campaign there's a lot more contact in the cab for. cutie kinking to get again saying to one there's them this is now this is a problem the uniform know this no this is the one that had the signs can right here. the month to kidney and it looked like a rat well the slash face i got it to him readers. so we hopefully will have wore. yellow kill them we once had a lot of red in her war yeah that means i don't care for anything red and blue in the main room they'll throw purple to support their group of the cast the cats are

going to be born knowing that the mean man with ransom was muumuu last line louann a lawyer for ok and less than less money. and guy's a psycho and will incite them flown around the sun like come out of it like he said to around and do nothing all day long and her rifle roof sexually harassing. one guy right there was no starker when there's a psycho level would anything man was born a tick that way and i waited around that you're not here so no. room to room but i meant average as a guy was bollinger one i just don't like. people who take advantage of low people . when he was taking advantage of a store. she knew for good news there she just adopted me as her fiance

and i've been her fiance or sees this but. nine years ago we did i started to like her as a person and i start to understand her who she is right here and her. mental illness with the collection of tray she has storage is full of cash like three different ones just completely piled up there she pay 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 the. different 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. to. life and. life is a conundrum to be. so story and everybody down who 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 the chairs. you see large where. richard be a long time to 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 sure bortsov you she wants to live almost should you have to live her litter slots or should i still live i'm sure even though she has a board. she's a trail are going to or should go. even though his mothers will send the money he she gave him he's been on drugs and these people giving one drug no one else to buy more they keep psyching him. and he almost finished his psychology course in with three years of medical school ended up at medical school and 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 she is

a lot of ways and he caused me a lot of grief. and ok we know we have family how this will paying our law. well because you read. 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 myself committed to a hospital because i wasn't going to acting with other people in 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 would be severed as a bad place to be you know i ran away from home at seventeen years old and i actually got a job paid rit in school. that married and twenty one had my daughter my first daughter at age twenty two then my other daughter and then my last dollar baby heard. their father divorced me at that point i mean. there was nothing healthy about. parenting with the stored it. was. oh my god

i don't know how i raised those three girls like that. but he said that my father passed away that hurt me. really pan out most everyone in my life that i cared about they're gone and then it happened i came askin well. i developed a real bad drug and came and came here. and i really didn't and never thought about it i just know when you are wrong doing rome is doing your most folk net so that's what i'm going to do. but. that's what i want to tama nice when i'm saying to myself sitting here long man in keep doing what i'm doing is going to happen because i just knew i was the love i'm glad is to say enjoy it and maybe a down syndrome. road

is meant good to me you say always use down bring through the most turbulent times down. geo's new situations to part of it is a drug addiction crack cocaine also addicted to lifestyle of downtown we're. in no one's religious mood. grew up in compton raj or something one four stars three years old. people wars they have horses in the back yard but they've never oh i just are going to be forced to take them out no i didn't ride in the city. i do a challenge ride horses i do like the floor and i don't stand to the old old why you like it so much what you did before i will say they spark me yeah that's what i want to know too that i like the smell of eleven when they spark me like

a baseball award for. best all our horses they sport we decide what my dream would be to memory and. be were horses. smelled welcome raw to. teach people about i'm. going to come of course as i believe. so far that there's no you know if you're going to pick our city after the rest of so many people you know by love got yourself off. to good place to ball all your four up and down a whole block you could hardly walk up or down the street cars could be a hero after everything. everybody's either in jail or the santa barbara venice of hollywood or somewhere else we don't need more jails but if moments all institutions we need more doctors to come down here so the more people pascal sandwiches that's what we really need we need more understanding we need the

awareness that we're not all drug addicts three things. 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 it's what scenes and release is from our brain cells when we are sexually aroused when we smell something good that we'd like to be when. we smoke crack the brain of a schizophrenia person untreated unmedicated is a wash with don't permit more cells in the brain of a person that doesn't because frankly the skin 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 to don't for me unfortunately they really. too much and they feel danny and some steak don't get to feel pleasure any more. these folks wake up every morning and have to face another day being a stigmatized a 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 is always a major module 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 mobile telephone but am i supposed to get my medication so get drugs suparna

street. try to make it. new york london. the whole world. of the original one a father one down the end. of the court that building at the end of the street another one the more transparent society gets the money or the public tears become we see military and state unfairly falses mobilized against people who blend into the city hobbit the city the more people trust electronic devices the more defenseless they are the fear that has a thousand on. on our key. the

flame. the olympic spirit travels with the flame from its birthplace in greece. join james brown for an elemental and epic journey around russia and beyond. my own. life. there's a saying when you're in the arctic you have feel entire world at your feet. she looks like a fairly simple ship but really she's not simple little billy

a handful of people ever have access to the nuclear icebreakers the real king here is that the polar bear and ice breakers come second not a single complex expedition to the arctic can be conducted without the russian nuclear powered fleet of ice breakers we've undertaken a unique operation. the northern sea route russia's optic icebreakers. this is obviously more for the ladies because it's pink. when they wanted to avoid rape they really needed to buy guns environ how to use them i'm. sure this is the one that i want to go with them once again it's the fear for. women are definitely the target of the gun lobby you don't kill them when they're killing money but if somebody would he would piss with her. i'm noticing more and more and that's really scary marketing tactics which implies that women have some sort of moral obligation

to tell 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 were clearly not the safest. surveyor. the location of a boy still remember. how to do it well there's of the ten thousand said you would stop this storm we might be more my people will die.

the host nation wins its first medals outside the g twenty fourteen with russia's figure skating team taking gold but aside from the celebration of the winter olympic sports. the threat of something bad happening in sochi the western media. the launch of criticism raising questions about whether the hype and panic had justified. the week's other top headlines on international. and you know. the message reportedly coming from the u.s. assistant secretary of state as a leaked phone call reveals the depths of washington's involvement in ukraine's political turmoil. in switzerland votes narrowly in favor of a controversial plan to put a limit on immigration this inane.