The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t the only crisis the city of Los Angeles has been facing. 

Walking around Skid Row, I was up close and personal with the homeless. I met a 53 year old brown haired white woman whose eyes were as blue as the sky with a smile that could brighten anyone’s day. 

“People think of us as a freak show, a bunch of outcasts. But I didn’t plan to end up here. I don’t even know how I let myself get here.” 

Those are some of the passionate words that Alice Michelle had to say in our interview. Alice Michelle has been homeless for 10 years, 11 in May, and is originally from Arlington, Texas.

After graduating High School in Texas, she signed up for the United States Army as it gave her a sense of purpose and kept her focused on having a better future. While in the army, she met her future husband. The two would get married after serving their time and move to Los Angeles with a daughter on the way. After frustrating arguments with her husband, Alice would become a victim of domestic violence. She told me this was the reason for being homeless.

“How much of a role did domestic violence play into you becoming homeless?” I asked her. To which I had a calm but remorseful response with her saying, “It was huge, it made me feel terrible inside, every time I was hit or yelled at I thought I deserved it and that it was my fault anyway. Like I needed to be in trouble so I can learn a lesson of what not to do.” 

Alice was in a dark place during those years of her life. As soon as she escaped all the beatings she would turn to substance abuse as a way of healing.

She believed it was due to weakness of standing up for herself against her ex husband. Alice wishes she had more courage to confront her fears in the past. 

“If I could back and rewrite this whole thing, trust me, I would,” she said.

But as of now, she wants to receive therapeutic treatment as it is the best option for her. She goes deeper, telling me that a majority of the people here on Skid Row need therapeutic help but instead of people coming to help... they stay away.

Going from having a roof over her head everyday, to now living under a tent on Skid Row, Alice explained it as a metaphor of life as a spinning top, saying that life comes at you fast. 

Alice explained how it took her months to fall asleep at least semi comfortably in her tent because she knows there's nothing that will really protect her from others. She doesn’t have any security cameras, guard dog, or fence, nothing stopping someone from invading her space. And knowing that the police won’t play a part in regulating the violence that occurs in homeless communities doesn’t help either. 

“The cops don’t care about us,” she said. “They (would) rather see us lying dead than actually help us. But it’s not just them that think like this. It’s everyone.”

As I was leaving, Alice offered me a hug and said goodbye. I wasn’t hesitant towards it in any way because I know she felt the feeling of acceptance and that she needed that more than anything else. Not in the way of me accepting the fact that she's homeless, but in the way that I see her as a regular person. Just like anyone else.