Entering Community Spaces — Skid Row

Driving through Los Angeles you can view sights of buildings, cars speeding on the highway, and tents made up of clothes, tarp, or whatever is available on the street. Homelessness is a notable problem in Los Angeles. Approximately 41,980 people are homeless in the city of Los Angeles. Skid Row is an infamous area housing anywhere from 4,000 to 8,000 individuals — the largest area of homelessness in the United States. Homelessness still remains a prominent issue, despite the city of Los Angeles’s attempts to implement rental assistance programs, tenant protections, and emergency housing vouchers. Black and Latinx communities are experiencing the highest rates of homelessness. Although Skid Row is less than four miles away from the University of Southern California, the two places could not be more disparate. Despite the notable differences that exist between the homeless community and those helping it, it is crucial to put aside biases and assumptions while growing our understanding of the community in order to create positive service experiences for ourselves along with those we are serving.

First, the differences that exist between the homeless community, USC, and myself need to be identified to understand what limitations might occur in our service as well as understand how to overcome them. I personally have no experience working with the homeless community. Many of the problems that people experiencing homelessness have faced are unfamiliar to USC students. Incarceration, substance abuse, and mental health issues are all prominent problems for people experiencing homelessness. The median family income a USC student is coming from is around $160,000. Only around 5% of the student population is considered to be from a low-income family. One individual in Skid Row said that living there “will make it so you are constantly just worried about what you need to survive.” For USC students, surviving is not a to-do, it is something that simply happens. USC students hold many privileges such as being able to pursue higher education, have access to clean water, food, shelter, and opportunities to exercise. When walking around Skid Row, the lack of basic amenities and necessities is clear. Over 90% of Skid Row’s population is made up of adults over the age of 25. 40% of individuals experience chronic homelessness, experiencing homelessness for more than one year. The majority of individuals are male making up 72% of the community. Black individuals make up 59% of the population, Hispanic/Latinx 23%, White 14%, and 1% for both Asians and American Indians. 38% of folks suffer from serious mental illness, 35% from substance use disorder, and 26% are impaired with a physical disability. These numbers show just how drastic the differences are between USC and the homeless community in Skid Row.

Although there are many differences that exist between those in Skid Row, the USC community, and myself, that does not mean it is impossible to collaborate with one another. Conducting background research and familiarizing oneself with the different circumstances that the homelessness community faces allows for a better approach when helping the community. Water Drop LA is a nonprofit organization that distributes drinking water and other necessities to people occupying Skid Row. The shifts that students partake in for Water Drop LA are an example of direct service since we are directly helping the community. According to Mitchell and Donahue’s article, “Ideal and Real in Service Learning”, the ideal service student is white and middle class. However in my experience volunteering alongside other students, the majority of us are people of color. In this space of direct service, volunteers can see directly how different they are from the homelessness community which can cause distance and separating oneself away from the work. Trying to gain an understanding of what Skid Row is and the experiences of people in the area is a good way to prepare for direct service. However, no amount of reading can equate to being in Skid Row and surrounding yourself in the area. Classroom teachings can offer insightful information on a subject, but through engaging in service learning, “Students may see the community as a place of learning equivalent to the classroom or even more valuable than the classroom because knowledge and skills are gained in the context of hands-on use” (Mitchell and Donahue 465). Although I had been exposed to the prevalence of homelessness throughout Los Angeles, being in Skid Row was an eye-opening experience as I witnessed dozens upon dozens of unhoused individuals wandering around the streets.

Growing one’s understanding of the people within the community shines a light on the work needed to be done. It is more than surface level understanding that is needed, “To understand the complexity of a community, you need to move beyond your specific experience, your specific involvement, to larger systemic questions about the economic, political, and legislative histories in which a community exists” (Parks 176). This means digging deeper than learning about what the community is; searching for how it came to be, how society interacts with it, and actively listening to the experiences that contribute to it. By doing so we are equipped with much more knowledge which makes us capable of understanding and empathizing with those we are working with. Having empathy for the people you are helping can allow for greater collaboration without assuming that you have the answers to their problems. However, it is important to note that empathy is not pity. Feelings of pity can cause one to view others as inferior or believe they are not as fit or capable to carry on — that they are in need of dire help. Understanding the experiences and feelings that others are going through helps direct one’s actions and makes us more mindful of how we interact with one another. Having greater empathy by gaining a better understanding of the communities we are in will enable us to conduct ourselves in a better way. Being able to understand the people in Skid Row will allow us to see them as individuals similar to us instead of focusing on the many differences that exist.

When walking by homeless people the automatic impulses are to look away and try not to make eye contact holding as few interactions with them as possible. There is a certain connotation associated with people experiencing homelessness as people who are dangerous, hostile, and detriments to our society. Oftentimes, the blame gets put on the individual for bringing themselves into homelessness. “It’s your fault you got evicted. It’s your fault you can’t find a job.” In reality, homelessness is an issue ingrained in society, caused by factors mostly outside of an individual’s control. A lack of affordable housing, domestic abuse, inadequate mental health resources, and employment discrimination are all factors which lead to putting someone out of a home. We must understand that we might carry certain biases and assumptions about people experiencing homelessness. When it comes to thinking of the community in Skid Row, we must see them as human beings first. They are individuals each with their own unique experiences and perspectives. In direct service, we might overstep our boundaries by looking down on the homeless community or assume we know more about their situation because of our higher education. Having limiting beliefs is detrimental to interacting with those in the community and creates more harm than good. It is essential that we understand that our biases and assumptions can come from a place of misunderstanding. It is only until we become open-minded and inclusive of all individuals that we can dismantle our prior ways of thinking. By being aware of our biases and assumptions, we can enter spaces being more mindful of our actions and maintain positive service experiences.

It should be a common expectation when interacting and helping these communities to receive no thanks or appreciation. Oftentimes, service volunteering can be looked at as a form of saviorism — people stepping in with all the right solutions there to save a community. People in Skid Row are not necessarily asking for help and do not expect for people to come save them from their situations. Humility means having a modest view of one’s importance. When engaging with those in the community, I believe humility is understanding that working to help those in need doesn’t make one better than anyone else nor deservant of any applause. It is understanding that giving is selfless and unpretentious. If one were to assume the role of being the superior person doing work for the needy, it could cause tension and disrespect to the community. As Parks wrote, “humility and respect, a sense of quietly waiting, followed by informed conversation, and listening to the goals the community hopes to achieve are all signals that you wish to be a sincere partner” (175). Although the population in Skid Row is open to the public, we must treat everyone’s space as their own property and respect their boundaries. Practicing humility in the communities we interact with can help others feel comfortable and help us learn more about our own capabilities.

Service learning is beneficial to the communities we are helping, but we also have to be mindful of ourselves when entering these spaces. Growing our understanding of the communities we are helping while being aware of the biases and assumptions we hold will enable us to create positive service experiences that truly help all involved. Current ideals of service learning in education prevent students from being able to have transformative experiences. To create better learning environments, it is essential to be “designing experiences that respond to the realities of today’s diverse student body” while “acknowledging the changing contexts of higher education where all teaching and learning does not happen in classrooms… not only producing new knowledge, but creating stronger communities” (Mitchell and Donahue 466–467). This idea argues that instead of having the ideal service learning model, we need to change the way we approach service learning to reflect all student backgrounds and be open to teaching outside of the classroom in order to create stronger communities. Transforming service learning in these contexts will allow a diverse student body to immerse themselves in the communities they’re helping while continuing to learn outside the classroom from the spaces they’re in. The students’ service is not limited to their time on site, but is continued through advocacy for the problems they have come across. When navigating new spaces, we must grow our understanding of the community itself while putting aside biases and assumptions to create positive service experiences for all involved. By investing ourselves in these actions, we can make a greater impact for those we are helping and also be collaborative in our efforts to eradicate homelessness.

Works Cited

Mitchell, Tania, and David Donahue. Ideal and Real in Service Learning Transforming the Ideal Based on the Real. 2 Feb. 2020. Accessed 11 Oct. 2022.

Parks, Stephen. Writing Communities : A Text with Readings ; Resources for Teaching : Writing Communities, a Text with Readings. Boston ; New York, Bedford/St. Martin’s, Macmillan Learning, 2017, pp. 171–179. Accessed 9 Oct. 2022.