top of page

NO PLACE TO CALL HOME

2013_2_6_PHOTO-593568f1f4baebf8647cbe777

Beverly Hills, shopping, glamour, beach, spectacular houses... Who doesn’t want to live there? It seems perfect right? Well, what happen if I told you that a few kilometres away is Skid Row, an area seized by drugs and violence with thousands of homeless people and many of them with mental diseases or addicted to drugs and alcohol. Now, all those beautiful feelings have become fear, vulnerable, lost, hope…

unnamed.png

By Mar Castán

This is how the man in this terrible photo must feel, there is no place to call home, to be safe. 4.000 homeless people sleep every night on the sidewalks of Skid Row in makeshift tents or under mountains of cardboard and newspapers. In this photo we can see a homeless man who is dragging a supermarket cart with all his belongings probably taken from the trash, objects that some people get ride of and now build the house of this man. In the cart we can see some cloths, plastic bags and most of all cardboard boxes with things that he has been collecting.  The man has a long, straight, dark, dull hair and until seem that he is wearing some dreadlocks. His hands are very dirty too, both of them are shabby because of the poverty of this human beings. He doesn’t have money to have a shower, it has no roof to live in and there is no money to help them. He is wearing an old-fashioned, long, black, leather, wear away overcoat; a huge, loose, beige, cotton trousers and a brown, suede shoes. He is walking alone through a parking located in Skid Row maybe because he doesn’t have any family or nobody to trust. It seems unbelievable that near this place people live his spectacular live taken from a movie. Human beings don’t want to see the problems of others, we all have our issues to attend, but if we don’t help this people, who help them? But obviously, people don’t have time, or money, or desire. The luckiest in Skid Row stay until dawn in shelters set up by charities working in the area. In recent years, Los Angeles authorities have tried unsuccessfully to implement different plans to get the homeless off the streets of the neighbourhood. But they don’t have enough money to help all of them.

10006.png

Poverty affects all people differently. Maybe money doesn’t make happiness but without money, you can’t be safe. In Skid Row the streets are lined with tents, thrown syringes, and a pungent, persistent urine odour. Residents can be Olympic gold medallists, former CEOs, musicians and once-millionaires who lost it all.  We are very lucky to have good family and a house with heating and hot water. Human beings need a house, a roof to shelter from the rain, privacy and security.

housing-homelessness.png

GRUP 2 // Mar Castán, Olga Franch, Sara Ezcurra, Judit Castelló i Roberta Ivanova.

bottom of page