Things Will Be (Not So) Great
When You're Downtown

This past weekend (as in the weekend of the April 3rd, not the most recent one), as part of the preparation for this year's trip to Kosovo, I had the opportunity to do some volunteer work here in the city Los Angeles, with an organization called The Dream Center. Located in Echo Park, the Dream Center helps homeless teens get off the streets by providing them with a place to live, helping them get sober, and so on. Additionally, the Dream Center has a program called "Adopt-a-Block" through which they help provide food, toys, and clothing to poorer families in Los Angeles.

I've lived in Los Angeles for nearly five years now and, while I've always been vaguely aware of "skid row," I've never actually visited it. Very rarely have I even actually been downtown...I went to a Clippers game at Staples last year, served jury duty at the traffic court there in 2002, and once took the metro down to Pershing Square while Eric Fadely was visiting from Tennessee in 2000. Beyond that, I haven't had much cause to go there.

On Saturday, April 3, however, I visited the Frontier Hotel, located at 5th and Broadway, about two blocks from downtown's upscale Bunker Hill business district. The Frontier was, no doubt, quite a sight around the beginning of the 20th century. The hotel is filled with marble staircases that now reek of urine and other far worse scents. The hallways are carpeted with a threadbare rug that was probably, at one time, some of the finest available. The rooms, which once housed wealthy people visiting Los Angeles, are now filled with crack addicts, families living on welfare and countless others whose luck has taken a turn for the worse.

Most of the doors we knocked on, we received no answer. Either the people were not home, or they were just unwilling to come out. Every so often, we would meet an individual who seemed quite content, in spite of their surroundings. I’m not saying they were happy where they were living, or happy with their lot in life…they were just content.

I suppose it’s possible that I could have confused resignation with contentment…but they did seem happy from time to time.

Once, when I was in London, I stayed at a hostel in Earl’s Court that was somewhat similar to the Frontier Hotel, with the exception that I did not have my own room. In that hostel, I shared a room with a few travelers but most of the people there did, in fact, live there. After two nights, I’d had enough and took all my stuff and checked into a nicer hotel. As I left, it struck me that most of the other people in the hostel did not have that option.

Nor do they families living in the Frontier Hotel have the option to simply go somewhere else. They are one step above homeless. While they do have limited tenant rights and are protected from eviction without proper proceedings, most of them have no place else to go.

I often complain about my apartment, my current lack of steady employment (as a sub, I cling daily to the hope that some teacher somewhere will be struck with a bad case of the flu, so that I will be able to work that day.) Yet, seeing these people in their desperate situation made me realize that things are not truly as bad as I often lament.

I do have options…I’m just having trouble deciding on the right one.