Introducing a Citizen Journalist From the University of Skid Row

I am living in Downtown Los Angeles, on a new adventure.

I landed on Skid Row in February 2007, shell-schocked by the events of the previous months. I entered a world full of many contrasts — kind, caring, and supportive individuals on one hand, and cruel, blood-sucking predators on the other.

Some men and women walk the streets of Skid Row with courageous dignity while others take it upon themselves to strip their fellow human beings of that priceless human attribute every day. It can be a place of quaint warmth and beauty, and at the same time a harsh, cold, and vicious jungle.

I have experienced the toughest streets of Philadelphia and Harlem in New York, as well as the shanty towns and favelas of Brazil. Yet nothing compares to what I have felt in Skid Row. Social scientists from around the world come here to study this place, where every social illness has a foothold. They come to learn about the effect his neighborhood has on its own people. They leave learning more about themselves and their prejudices. The bile of fear increases as they discover how much they really do not know about the human condition. There is nothing like Skid Row.

This is a journal about my experiences at the University of Skid Row.

I expressed those sentiments on September 25, 2007, as an introduction to my blog, called scribeskidow. That was nearly a year ago, and I already had seven months on Skid Row. But my education was just starting. I had just graduated from the first level into the second, which brought me to a new residence, leaving behind a 100-bed shelter, where I had resided under court orders. This second phase took me into temporary housing in a private room on the filthiest, most-drug-infested street in Skid row. Narcotics were traded openly — and so were women and men.

Such scenes are part of this very unique University. It is a university without walls. The class room is oneself. The research lab is your mind, soul, value system or anything else that drives you to think and act.

The experiments are the little things I can do to move forward — and in order to do that I must clear my mind of past clutter, make room for new information, new feelings, and experiences.

There are no class schedules here. The learning process is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is the most challenging independent research curriculum that one can endure. The tendency is to procrastinate. That's because facing yourself is the number one prerequisite — and also a most difficult exercise even in the best of circumstances on Skid Row.

This is a story of the best and worst in Skid Row. I will tell you how I got here and how I plan to move on in my life.

I hope you will continue on this journey with me in next week's edition.

Walter Melton is a writer for the L.A. Garment & Citizen.