Spoken by the people on Skid Row. Edited and published by Dare to Struggle. Distributed by Skid Row Stands Up.
Issue #3. February 2025. By Anonymous.
This tent belonged to a man who died after sweepers took away his heart medication, according to Anonymous, a formerly homeless street cleaner.
So I was unhoused from March 2017 to September 2018 and the entire time I lived in Skid Row. I lived in something called Union Rescue Mission. And interesting[ly], they kick people out at 4 a.m. now. [The conditions] were absolutely sub-human, particularly the bathrooms because people had so many health problems. I’m sure that is so illegal. None of these shelters have working bath-rooms. It was very, very unsanitary. I’m surprised people didn’t get sicker. Like, you would just catch things like walking pneumonia in there. I really truly do understand now why people just won’t go in shelters. I never understood until I was in one.
I was able to do it because I was drinking twenty two hours a day, So most of the people that I found in Union Rescue Mission were on codeine or on serious drugs. It was an open air asylum inside the Union Rescue Mission. So, like, I think to cope with that, the people that were not having mental health crises constantly, they just drank and did drugs.
“I think a lot of people who were not drinking and doing drugs, just being in that shelter would eventually break you. You’re not really sleeping. There’s no way to use the bathroom. There’s all things that just eventually, like, break people.”
DtS: So did it feel like a prison?
A little bit. The gates when they closed at, like, 6 p.m. or something when they no longer let people in, it was a bit of a prison feel because you didn’t really get to go in and out. Like, you’re either in at 6 p.m. or you’re out. There’s no back and forth.
DtS: As somebody who has gotten housed, why do you think it’s so hard for others to actually get out of homelessness?
There doesn’t appear to be affordable housing. So that is, like, number one issue that I found why people were literally living on Skid Row: Their Social Security check was, like, $800-900, and they needed to live somewhere where the rent was, like, 74 dollars to, like, survive and buy their medication and food. So they get placed in really subhuman conditions in these SROs.
The second thing I found is when they house people with mental health crises, like paranoid schizophrenic people, they’re housed with no wraparound care. So then soon afterwards, they lose their housing and are back on the street. There’s no wraparound care. There’s no caseworkers. There’s no therapy. There’s no counseling. Nothing. They’re just in a box in a room. It’s really sad.
DtS: We’ve heard about a lot of talk about the sweepers giving people tents, giving people housing.
Never. They’re too busy laughing and using that claw to destroy people’s only protection from the elements. After the sweeps, they don’t actually clean the streets. I think that’s the biggest, like, slap in the face. Like, you and I know they just do it to terrorize people, but that is kind of fucked up.
They don’t even clean the street. Like, they bust out with the claw to destroy people’s stuff, they’re on top of that like white on rice. But if you literally ask them to bring in anything to make the sidewalks sanitary, they don’t even do that. My coworkers do finally get it’s to terrorize unhoused people. They witnessed all the sweeps during the heat wave.
“You’re getting swept, and it’s a hundred and eight degrees outside. There’s caution tape everywhere. There’s sounds. The claws coming at you. They gave you two minutes to gather up everything. ”
DtS: Do you think the sweepers have any empathy?
No. I just think everybody on the crew has absolutely zero empathy. They’re sociopaths. They’re killing people, and they are fully aware of it. They understand that the person could have medication, paperwork for their housing, everything. They know exactly what they’re destroying.
DtS: what do you think should change in how the street cleaning should operate?
Maybe giving people a little bit more notice and time. I feel like they give them, like, two minutes, ten minutes, fifteen. Not enough. They give them a very, very short time to gather up everything they need. So that needs to change. Like, if sweeps are gonna happen, you have to give people more time to gather their possessions. And is the claw necessary? Do we have to destroy people’s possessions in front of them?
And, oh my god, abolish sweeps. I don’t even know. Abolish sweeps. We can’t even reform it. We can’t. They’re so inhumane. Like, every sweep is, like, killing somebody.
DtS: What would you wanna say to the ruling class, these politicians, these landlords, all those?
Oh my god. Eat the rich. I want more money for housing for affordable housing. We have to have affordable housing and pay that matches that housing. They’re absolutely not equal at all. It’s crazy. How am I possibly [supposed to afford rent] that’s, like, $2,000 a month. Like, I make $18.50 [an hour]. It’s, like, a thousand dollars paycheck. Like, how can anybody live off that?
DtS: Ysabel Jurado, a “housing rights advocate”, is the new councilmember for Council District 14, which directly schedules and organizes the sweeps. Is she actually interested in aiding the homeless?
I had always felt like, Ysabel Jurado was like a tenant’s advocates lawyer, so I always felt she would be more progressive. But so, she orders the sweeps that happened in Skid Row because it’s her council district? That sounds like it’s on her. Oh. I really liked her up until this conversation two minutes ago. So pretty much it is her office ordering the sweeps. Wow. That’s horrible. She was so progressive. I definitely helped her with canvassing going door to door, getting, like, an awareness of who she was, especially in Boyle Heights, which is where she’s from.
DtS: What would it take for the people in Skid Row to stop the sweeps?
Just, like, one sweep, you get hundreds of people, and that would just be contagious, honestly. More word-of-mouth so we can make that happen. Maybe even 10 people could prevent a sweep because certainly it looks like three can [make a difference]. I think abolishing the sweeps [requires] getting more people involved to stop these sweeps, so that it’s a nuisance for them to do them.
If we come together, we really can fight these sweeps. That would probably be my number one message to people in Skid Row. Keep going. If we all come together, we really can. You know, they never did sweeps on Fifth and San Pedro because they knew it was a tight knit block. Everybody knew each other. All these tents, all these residents, all these community members were tight knit into proximity. They were not gonna let those neighbors’ tents be swept. It was gonna be a little bit more commotion on that street. So it was very, very, very not swept. So, honestly, the community coming together, ending petty squabbles, and just coming together to unite against the greater enemy.
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