When You Get a Call From LA's Skid Row...

"Pam, I'm calling you from Skid Row..."

When you get a call from Skid Row, answer it and listen.

Times are tough.  

Jobs are hard to find.  The online application process is absurd for highly educated folks, imagine trying to apply for jobs online while living on Skid Row.

And no one seems to be listening or helping anyone else get back on their feet again.

Relatives abandon each other and friends move on with their lives.

Last night, I received a call from someone on Skid Row.  

This person was not in a safe situation and yet, I've discovered he's been living there for a while now. Since being fired from his full-time job, he's lost everything else in his life: his relationship, his home and his car.  He has so little now.  I listened, I gave him some advice and I told him not to give up. He asked me if I would conduct his funeral service.  I listened for another hour after that and he asked me if he could call me this morning.  That phone call came before 8 am.  

Today, was in fact, a new day, he said.  He was going to make a plan to start over again.  He's also planning to get his own room on Skid Row, but that costs money.  There are waiting lists.  He has a little disability money, but will it be enough to cover his housing and food?

How do you rebound from Skid Row?  It's possible.  Adults do it.  Kids try to do it.  There are stories about people living on Skid Row on Facebook.  But it's not easy to get off Skid Row.  Imagine having nothing.  You have to tap into an attitude of perseverance and be resilient.  Most of these people are so beaten down by the system they are in a true state of desperation.  

In this case, most of his relatives are dead. The relatives he has left don't want to help him or take him into their homes.  He will have to do it with the help of the few friends he has left and primarily he will have to rely on his own energy and motivation to move forward and start over.  At best, he will join the working poor for a while until he rebounds.  If things don't turn around for him, it's possible he will remain on disability for the rest of his life.

Skid Row is featured in Broadway Shows such as Little Shop of Horrors with the poignant line: "Someone show me how to get out of here...  Someone tell me I can still get out of here."

Before you get someone fired in the workplace on a whim, think about how it would hurt someone else and could potentially destroy a life.  The next person to be fired could be you and it is possible that you could lose everything, find yourself homeless, living in poverty and end up on Skid Row, too. 

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:  1-800-273-8255.