- [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.