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Inside the Los Angeles Mission and the Union Rescue Mission, you see people who were formerly homeless now studying in a library or exercising in a gym. For my friends Andy, Herb and Ivan in Los Angeles, that arena is Skid Row. For us, that arena is Gateway Rescue Mission. When God calls you to a work, He equips you with the courage and passion to perform that work in your divine arena. God has us here to do His work among the outcast, the depraved and the hopeless in our town. Still, at Gateway Rescue Mission, I feel safe. He earns himself an escort off the premises by our trusty security guard. Another person comes in for lunch and threatens to kill everyone. Yet, a guy comes in for a drink of water in our lobby and exposes himself to us.
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What Would Jesus Do, if He drove past a man in a wheelchair in Skid Row, or in Jackson, or in anytown USA? We can only do as Jesus would if we live a sold-out, filled with the Spirit life.īack in the confines of Gateway Rescue Mission, far away from the ravages of Skid Row, I feel somehow safer. Yet, the blank stare and wandering shuffle of many who come to Gateway Rescue Mission made me feel at home on San Pedro street, Los Angeles. Our homeless population here is infinitely smaller.
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The only difference in the homeless, mentally ill and addicted people walking the streets of Jackson and those of Skid Row is size. That’s because Jackson, Mississippi has its own little Skid Row. The people wandering Skid Row like zombies looked oh, so familiar to me. It is ground zero, the public reminder of homelessness everywhere. Skid Row is to homeless ministry what Calcutta is to the Mother Theresa’s Missionaries of Charity. People come out of darkness and into marvelous light through the Los Angeles Mission’s Jump Start and Fresh Start programs. I believe Jesus is also present in Skid Row.
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Yet, I am inwardly torn sometimes over how to minister compassionately to people who live a self-destructive lifestyle.Īndy Bales, CEO of the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles (and all round great Christian guy) told us that “nobody goes hungry in Skid Row.” He details how the abundance of ministries and relief agencies make sure that people don’t starve. We can’t go back to 1821, and I wouldn’t want to if we could. In The Tragedy of American Compassion, author Marvin Olasky quotes the New Hampshire pauper laws of 1821 saying that “the poverty which proceeds from improvidence and vice ought to feel the consequences and penalties which God has annexed.” Today Christian ministries look different. It’s convenient to blame homelessness on something other than human choice and to assign the role of victim to everyone who winds up on the streets. In homeless ministry, we typically focus on the need for compassion and Christian outreach to the underclass. Skid Row is a proverbial Dante’s Inferno of poverty, licentiousness, depravity and hopelessness. Another man stared at us blankly as he sat among garbage. A city worker scooped sand over a pile of human excrement on the sidewalk. A clumsy moment took place when our group came upon a man passed out drunk on the side of the road. “Don’t stop to talk to anybody”, they said. While touring Skid Row, our trusty guides gave us a warning strange to us who work with the homeless everyday. Nothing could have prepared my eyes for Skid Row. The Los Angeles Mission operates long-term transformational programs for those seeking life change. The Union Rescue Mission operates with the motto that they will not turn away any homeless woman or child. Two of those shelters, the Union Rescue Mission and the Los Angeles Mission are part of the Citygate Network, made up of rescue ministries across North America. Only five shelters exist in Skid Row for the 36,000 homeless folks. L.A’s NIMBY mindset (not in my backyard) makes the city historically shelter unfriendly. But the politicians have done little other than publicly campaign for more shelters and affordable housing. Business owners press politicians to do something about the problem. Gang members rent out tents for illicit activity and collect on their rent, brutally if necessary. I share the following observations and pictures from a recent trip to Skid Row. This travesty exists in a city historically associated with affluence and fame. The latest statistics mark 36,000 homeless people calling the streets of Los Angeles home. Open drug use, mentally ill roaming the streets, and human waste on the sidewalks testify to the demonic rather than the angelic. Whoever named Los Angeles the “City of Angels” never had Skid Row in mind.