The Progressive | A Raymo
In downtown Los Angeles, roughly fifty square blocks make up Skid Row, a dense landscape of makeshift shelters that has become both a refuge and a flashpoint. Skid Row is home to some of the people most failed by our systems: veterans, the elderly, people with physical disabilities and mental illness, and survivors of compounded trauma and incarceration…. In February and March, ten people living in Skid Row—many of whom I have known for years—spoke with me in a series of in-person conversations across the neighborhood. These stories are not simply accounts of pain and instability, but testimonies of endurance, kinship, and hard-earned wisdom about what safety, dignity, and true support actually looks like. Above: Skid Row