skid row is a neighborhood of fifty plucks which does not appear on any map of los angeles. do you mean.

do you. still room basically. and that still. 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 is this is a real life experience i see people get beat up every night people get robbed bus ticket because. i seen people get hit by a car you don't pay b.o.'s you don't know if you don't pay the car noticed your new responsibilities are not here because where homeless just less of 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 am. basically almost left 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 struggle with mental illness track addiction or both but it wasn't always this way. i came to scared. identifying old drunks old drunks on the street. it used to look terrible he's old 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 at rolling stone to get their money to get some work 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 would give me the try to move through again and again but i 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 troops operating those two things and i'm cruising where there's nothing separating those two sites i was shocked for tayshaun julie going over to. skid row this is the new or through my still to back you were to drop it people didn't come down to see into downtown just swell the air without three of you know all this is dirt fields and burn barrels in and there were cut your throat down to your people become past main street you think this is called the pit spec the down. the people

have told me different for us a whole generation. just stand potential real estate it's really the ground for it's clear that people are interested not 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 the fall especially term aspect of my life you know prior to to coming. skid row was. in some ways like most people in other ways it was a little bit different you know i am 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 iowa state university where i was a national champion in track and field and also i was able to go in qualify for the olympic games in eighty four where i actually competed in one of so medal so to 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 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 had lost all the financial means that i had 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 number of english were 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 treat. program. two hundred forty four men occupy this space here at the mission then 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 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 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. 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. in nursery school i beat my teacher would have chair i was

thrown out of every school with a one two i been seemed to loose nathan 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 of 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 harley down a car they're good spot to summon a festering want to give old. crack a band of weed mans out an x. box i came down here following most two years ago this only to be two years for me so i spent a good two years down. gentle to god ever do again thing i commit suicide next time for. being so nasty horrible and everything's 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 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 when i first became homeless because i couldn't rationally. deal with where my life had gone i've been electrician felicia's are always worst. 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 meds that 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 a 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. cigarettes three times a day and when they tell you or you sit out 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 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 the most righteous best 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. that's how we grew land 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 permanent housing i came in contact with some of the most beautiful people that one could ever know mere weirdo bless the food. family. you know we cook together we eat

together we play cards together we sing it again the karaoke i learned under class and now deal with all types of people. first city and never in my life in any place i mean all types of people all types when i decided to come down and o'toole i saw people just like me depression was one of my biggest thing. i love that. i do it. every. girl in and around the city nurses. my body. my body. trying to be strong trying to be you know. right now.

is. loving myself going to adopt taking care of my business no matter how much pain to me and i got to do it. i think. i would like to go did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution chicago that's because a free and open process is critical to our democracy right albus. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across a cynical we've been a hydrogen lying handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers one school class i'm tom hartman and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on on the world we go

beyond identifying the problem trucks rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america five different feel ready to join the movement then walk a little bit but. i've got a quote for you that's pretty tough. if they were it's not story. let's get this guy like you would smear about john stead of working for the people both issues the mainstream media are working for each other bridegrooms division by zero it's. a dead run it won't. won't be. science technology innovation called in these developments from

around russia we've gone through huge earth covered. sure. very good. very good. very wise to life from people. bitterness where. 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. so rich and powerful plan a new mexico it put four years all together in arkansas and i put the last twenty years. i had my first cat 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 that 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 those things that struck me worst. was there was no clean fresh water for the birds and caps that cost. solutions and all kinds of poisons go and psych drugs in the water start to camps on the verge of drinking and no clean food supply for them who should know by now if those are my children in here to scaffold with a lot more contact the ok. kid you can't get a sick kid again say if you know there's been this now this is a problem the uniform know this no this is the one that had the signs kids where i hear. them learn to kill me and it looks like a rattle of the smashed face i got it to a murderer. so we hopefully will have war. gallows kill them little ones have a lot of red in her war yeah that means i don't care for anything red and blue you may have wound they also purple to support their group of the cast of cats are

going to be born knowing that the moon then with ransom was muumuu last time moved to new land logging for k. and this then less money. and buys a psycho it will incite them so i won't miss out on they come out of it like he sits around and do nothing all day long and your rifle roof sexually harassing. six of us. then you are right there was no start from within the cycle level will anything when one phone a tick that is our way the round unless you are 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 taken advantage of or swore to being the chief are good enough there she just kind of adopted me as her fiance and have

been her fiance or sees this been nine years ago we do last or two to like her as a person and i start to understand her who she is row. here in her. mental illness with the collection of trash 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 and that's why she loves me and i love her for that. except a friend i guess that's how i get my blessings from god. you know because in the beginning was like i truly i would defend her with my life to believe that i would die behind this will lead you right here. life is. life is a conundrum if you believe. so stories 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 carries all the chairs. to see. richard be a long time to people why you are off the street or why you know she wanted she doesn't want that see people understand she you have to. should you have to live our lives. even though she of the board. is a truly large. group. even though as mothers will say the money he gave them he spent on drugs and these people giving one drug no one else to buy more they keep psyching him. and he almost finished a psychology course and with three years of medical school and a drop out medical school it crackle i can end up so bad commemorating and now i see 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 cause real lot of grief. and ok well we have family how. things are like. well this is. this. i was sleeping also enjoying a blanket. real close friends. sometimes . sleep. sometimes inside it reminds me of why the hell out there at the age of sixteen. i try to have my so committed to a hospital because i wasn't connecting with other people healthy way i didn't feel

connected to anything i remember feeling very depressed and. i thought wanted to save the world in myself 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 as bad for. you know i ran away from home at seventeen years old and actually got a job paid writ and in school. that mary at the age of twenty one had my daughter my first daughter it was twenty two. and my other daughter and then my last dollar baby heard. their father divorced me at that point i mean. there was nothing healthy about. everything with the stored it. was rest of. 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 happy i came askin well. i developed a real bad drug and crack cocaine and came here. and i really did him and never thought about it i just know when you are wrong doing roman doing your body spoken that's what that's what i'm going to do. but hey if. that's what i wanted at that time and i said 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 a little from glad as to say enjoy it and maybe a down syndrome. road

is mine good to me scare me sorry always use down bring through most turbulent times now that. your situation is too short a mud dish it is a drug addiction crack cocaine also addicted to lifestyle of downturn oh we're. you know one judge a small. group in compton drug or southern one horse i was three years old. and people force they have horses in the back yard but they've never rode i just are going to be forced to take them out no go but you are getting me riding this if you rode him was a. challenge for riders that knew they had like a four and i had a stand in to the hold oh why did i cancel 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 another of eleven when they spark me like

a baseball or to tell me. that's more like horses they sparked me to sign like my dream would be to live on the ranch. be were horses. just be around smell them walk ride a baby. teach people about. when to come the horses believe that they don't work. i don't know if they get it because of the cost of the rest or so many people you know by love got yourself off. to get place in the wall of wall people up and down a whole block and you can hardly walk up and down the street cause could be a pen pal or after everything gone are everybody's 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 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 troi gothics 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 are genes. and drugs. i don't mean is the reward neurotransmitter i mean it's what c.s. and release is from our brain cells when we are sexually aroused when we smell something good we'd like to be when. we smoke crack the brain of a schizophrenia person untreated unmedicated is always wash with don't permit more souls in purgatory and a person that doesn't because from. the scripture frank brain cannot filter out the noise is the heat. the the vibrations.

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 to me and 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 is mentally ill people is always a major manager 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 to do i can't even get my mom would answer the telephone what am i supposed to give my medication

so get drugs soup on the street be who i am trying to make it. 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 r.t. question more. the american

take the i'm very hard to make going to lead to get along here is a club that never had sex with the earthquake there's no lives let's play. lists the i'm . one of the subjects. of. luck let. the american.

led. it's a classic. over by the way to do its job did you know 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 attract office. told. them you know i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on and we go beyond identifying the problem to try to fix rational debate real discussion critical issues facing a family member ready to join the movement then welcome to the big city. oh i'm sorry but i washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture.