“Skid Row hurt me in ways I can’t ever explain. It made me do things and made see things I wish I would have never seen.”
Luke story of living homeless on Los Angeles’s Skid Row is powerful and heartbreaking. No one should have to live like this. No one should have to fight just to survive for food and shelter and live in constant in fear!
Luke came to LA with his wife. Her family invited them to come to live with them, so they jumped on a Greyhound bus. They started calling, and their family never answered. When they arrived in Los Angeles the couple was forced to go to Skid Row where they are now stuck!
Skid Row was created by intentional urban design. The decision was made to place most all of the city’s homeless services in that one area. The theory was that by having all of the resources in one location that it would contain Los Angeles’s homeless crisis.
“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” Luke shares in this interview. He goes on to say Skid Row will make it so you are just constantly worried about what you need to survive because everything is being taken from you.”
Luke talks about how gangs tax homeless people in Skid Row for living on the sidewalk or in a certain area. If you don’t pay, they beat you up or burn down your tent with all of your belongings in it.
For those of you that are going to judge Luke for being on drugs, you need to understand that people use drugs to escape pain. It’s nearly impossible to stay sober while homeless and if you’re stuck in a place like Skid Row, drugs become a way to cope with life. Luke’s wife had to resort to prostitution and ended up pregnant. Near the end of her pregnancy, she started having seizures and was diagnosed with brain cancer. Luke was beaten 13 times since living homeless on Skid Row.
I pray Luke’s story messes you up like it did me. We cannot continue to look the other way and ignore the growing homeless crisis in America.
