This week I decided to focus on The Los Angeles Times article part of the blog assignment. The article I chose was Street Conversation with the Broken Down Street Brigade by Stephen Lopez. This article is part four of a Los Angeles Times series called Life on the Streets. This series chronicled the Lopez's week spent on Skid Row. He interviews the lives of many homeless people and the residents of the area. He also followed events such as shooting and others acts of violence that occurred during his time is this struggling area of Los Angeles.
You can read the article: Here
This specific article follows the stories of 10 people living on skid row, all confined to wheelchairs. Many of the people have shown signs of mental illness or disease. Nearly every story demonstrates how after these people were injured in conditions such a car accident or disease, they became unable to support themselves and had to start living on the streets. The most poignant aspect of the article that relates to social difference is how several of these people were people of color and were already impoverished. Their previous lives were already lives of struggle and poverty. One interviewee, even owning his own business before being hit by a car. Essentially, many of these people were living in the large eastern LA area, that were inflicted with harsh conditions that resorted them to be living on skid row. When people living in poor areas are injured, it does not become a situation of how are they going to get healthcare, but a matter of how are they going to live by even the most modest means if they choose to receive it.
This leads to the journalist's main concerns; is this LA's solution to the problems of the homeless and mentally ill? Just segregating part of the city for people that are deemed undesirable or dangerous? The city can just simply turn it's head on this area and just let it run rampant. Lopez often reported having people shoot up heroin or smoke crack right next to him while he was interviewing people. There was shootings several of the nights he was there. One night he even brought the mayor of LA to speak to people, they did not mind doing drugs in front of him. This apathy to the city government elucidates the sentiment that this area is forsaken and the patrons of these streets are well aware of it.
In terms of what we have learned in class, skid row is a archipelago. This area essentially is a refuge for the homeless, drug addicted, and mentally ill. Just like the California prison system, these areas serve a monitored "ghetto" that allow these societally problematic citizens to exist without harming other more "favorable" areas of the city. This vast disparity between the rich areas and the horrific conditions of skid row is the physical manifestation of social difference. These areas receive little attention or attempt at social programming.
Homelessness is a problem that exists all throughout Los Angeles, but Skid Row is the only area that is consciously structured by the city to accomodate these people. There is minimal commerce and business and pretty much a holding tank for social ills that the city has little desire in fixing. This leads to the question of how a city can fix such a social disparity...and this answer requires much more thought than what I could gather from an article.
Here is one photo from the series of photo that came with the article, if you would like to look at the whole album; click here
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