- [Interviewer] Luke. - Yeah. - [Interviewer] We're here in
Los Angeles, you're homeless. Tell me about it. - Well there's a lot to tell. Los Angeles is a very, very crazy place. I came here with my wife. Her family said come on. We got on a Greyhound bus, we're on our way, we started
calling the first day we left and nobody answered. We figured just a fluke. Called the second day, no answer and then from then on no answer. We haven't spoke to them since. You come here and you get stuck and if you got no where to go and no more family to bail you out, which me and my wife don't have, you are kind of are
forced to go to Skid Row. Skid Row is by the bus station, it's where all the shelters are, it's where all the food is, it's where all the resources are located but Skid Row is a very nasty place. - [Interviewer] Yeah, go on. - It will make it so you
are constantly just worried about what you need to survive because everything's being taken from you. You're being taxed for
living on certain streets. You have to pay. Basically drugs run most
of Los Angeles itself but especially Skid Row. Skid Row hurt me in ways
that I can't ever explain and made me do things, it made me see things that I
wish I never would've seen. It's amazing what people
can do to other people. - [Interviewer] You're gonna have to, I can't hear you with the traffic. - It's amazing what people
can do to other people. I especially feel bad
for the females here. They get used up in a whole different way. My wife experienced that. But ultimately I've seen some
great acts of kindness here. I see some great things. The problem is you get trapped here and people say I panhandled for money. People say get a job. Okay, well, if I had
somewhere to rest my head, where my stuff wasn't stolen, where I didn't have to
worry about blankets, where I didn't have to worry about food, I might be able to get a job. But then also I have been
seen this entire town now and now I'm known as homeless. So to get a job I have to leave the area. I have no where to shower daily, I have no where to keep work clothes. It's not as easy as "get a job," you know? - [Interviewer] And you
don't get much sleep. - No, right. - [Interviewer] 'Cause
you're in survival mode and the other night I met somebody and his shoes were stolen
while he's sleeping. - Yeah, right. Yeah, well, that's a very funny thing. Your shoes get stolen a
lot while you're here. And who steals a homeless man's shoes? Your shoes can be completely worthless and someone still takes 'em and that's a really hard thing 'cause you wake up in the
morning and you got no shoes. Now you gotta walk around where
people throw broken glass, people piss on the ground, cockroaches and you gotta look for shoes and that's very disheartening. That's one of the strangest
things I've come across here. I have had shoes that
are completely worthless and stink so bad, something wrong, and someone still takes them. But it's also sharpened
me, I don't miss a beat. There isn't too much, I'm pretty in-tune with
everything and everyone around me. I'm a lot more aware
than they are, I assume. - [Interviewer] People who
have spent time on the streets, they're very aware of their surroundings. - You have to be. You have to be 'cause if not
your surroundings will get you. You know, especially on Skid Row. You know, I don't go there at all anymore. I broke from Skid Row about six months ago and I haven't been there
for a single thing. I broke from there for a reason, somebody started trying to tax us just on panhandling, bringing money back. They wanted us to give them a percentage and then they started
doubling it and doubling it and doubling it 'til the
number got so astronomical that there's no way
anybody could ever pay. - [Interviewer] And it's extort, they're. - Extortion, yeah. - [Interviewer] They're
threatening violence or whatever. - Right, right. - [Interviewer] If you
don't pay the taxes. - They'll burn your tent up. You know, I've had 13 whole tents stolen. I just got jumped the other day. I've been jumped 13 times, 10 of which I don't know the person or the person's completely,
absolutely insane and I still don't know them or I've never even see
the person who hits me because they're robbing me in an alley, you know, and it's been hard,
you know but you survive. You find things like God. You find things like yourself. You find what you're made of, you know? You can't break me, you
can't break my faith. - [Interviewer] Is anybody helping you? - Yeah, not really, not really, really. People throw me some money here and there some food here and there. Socks, as you did. But things are so expensive here as well, like a hot dog behind me, $7. You know how long it takes
me to sit down and make $7? You know? Everything down here's a
lot more expensive too so. - [Interviewer] People think you make all kinds of money panhandling. - There are days I do. There are days I do alright
but that money goes really fast because it costs a lot to live. You know, especially with a wife. You know, three meals a day. You know, we splurge
sometimes, socks, new clothes. You know, a shower's a really hard thing. - [Interviewer] What
people don't understand is, you know, this is not a job
that gets you self esteem. - Yeah, no. - [Interviewer] Panhandling,
I heard people spit at you. - Yeah, oh yeah. - [Interviewer] Call you
names, pour coffee on you. - Yeah, right, right. But you have to be ready for that, like it gets to the point
where it doesn't even matter. You don't care because you need it so bad, you know, and survival comes first and we, as human beings will do anything to survive, you know? - [Interviewer] Now like
when I said anybody, any service providers, any homeless or? - They try but I can't keep a cell phone because it gets stolen. I can't keep a cell phone
charged when I do buy it. There are people that stop
by every once in awhile and take down my name and my information, say they're gonna help
and then I see them again maybe two or three times here and there or I see them again and
they turn their head and walk the other way and feel ashamed that they didn't help me, or couldn't help me, I have people that throw me $10, $20 and think that's gonna solve everything and next time they're mad at me because I'm not off the
street 'cause their $10 or $20 but I'm at a point where I'm stuck. This is what I do. I've become comfortable with it. I don't see no other way out. Like I said, I feel like I'm falling and never hitting a bottom or at least hitting a bottom that's false and every time I go to try climb up that bottom's pulled
from me and I fall more. If I could reach an absolute, solid bottom I might be able to climb up but there is no more bottom because it's always being
pulled out from under you. You're always falling for. - [Interviewer] What's your future like? - I'm not sure. That's in God's hands. God's in my hands, you know, 'cause I do choose what I do, you know, but the opportunities
that are out there are harder when you're
only seen as homeless and you have to do this
all day just to eat, you know, my story goes
a little deeper than that my wife got pregnant to a prostitute, she's a prostitute, she got pregnant. At the end of her pregnancy
she started having seizures so she got diagnosed with brain cancer so and she's scared to
death of the treatment and treatment's like 80%, 80% risk of death, it's
just, it seems like it can't get worse, it
only seems to get so bad. I've been jumped by the Cubans. I can write a book. I could honestly write a book. You know, the only thing I
really have to say to anybody is just appreciate family because family is the
one thing I don't have that might save me from this because when we mess up,
when we make a mistake most people got family to bail them out. I don't because of my wife. So we gotta eat this one ourselves. We gotta fight our way out ourselves. So appreciate family, their
the most important thing and don't judge because
a lot of these people are two missed paychecks and their family away from being right here, you know? And it can happen really
quick, it really can. Before you know it and
you're stuck, you know? - [Interviewer] If you had
three wishes what would they be? - That's hard, that's hard. I haven't wished for anything in so long because I'm just worried
about getting what I need. That's a hard one. I wish my wife to be better. I wish I had family. And I don't know what I
would do with the third one. I might give it away. - [Interviewer] Thank you
very much for talking to me. - You're welcome.
God, the end when all he wished for was that his wife would get better and that he had a family broke my heart.
Heartbreaking. "Beautifully said" is probably not the best phrase to use here, but he did an excellent job putting his situation into words. I hope things get better for him.
For some history
Repost from /r/urbanplanning:
My girlfriend and I visited LA awhile back for an Opeth show. We were walking around and found ourselves in Skid Row. It wasn't until I was asked if I wanted to buy meth then quickly asked to buy the same guy lunch, that I realized where we were at. We called an Uber and the first thing he asked was what the hell we were doing there.
Does anyone know why he was periodically raising his arm and making something beep? What was that?
I really liked what he said about people being only two missed paychecks and a dead/estranged family away from living the life he lives. It reminded me how lucky I am to know if everything else went to shit, I could just move in with my mum or dad until I got back on my feet.
No one chooses a life like his. Anyone who simplifies the issue of homelessness as 'laziness' clearly can't see outside their own narrow experience of the world.
When he asks what they would wish for they always tear up. I feel like they are remembering hope again.
This almost certainly wasn't a good idea, but as a Freshman in college, my buddies and I would buy some tacos then go down to Skid Row to hand them out and talk to people. Skid row is a sketchy place in the day. But at night it is fucking unbelievable. I mean that literally, as in I question my own memorize because I find it difficult to believe.
I saw block after block where the streets were lined with people sleeping. There was no sense of control or order. People were openly doing drugs on the street. The very first person I talked to was high on some sort of hard drugs, sitting in a cardboard box shivering and sweating. Other people I talked to were very well spoken and talked about having university education but just hitting on hard times. They were all setting up sleeping bags and makeshift tents out there on the streets of LA.
It felt like something out a post-apocalyptic movie, not from the nation with the highest GDP, and at that one of its major cities, and at that just a block or two away from that city's downtown wealthy business sector.
That pause he makes after the man asks him if he had three wishes what would they be is almost as heart breaking as his response.