Lost Angels: Skid Row Is My Home is an investigative documentary that gives us the untold story of the homeless and disadvantaged living on Skid Row. Skid Row is a name given to fifty blocks radius in Downtown Los Angeles whose residents tends to have a lower income or are homeless. Many people view the homeless as being dirty, poor and even lazy; it is very rare that we wonder why how they came to be in such a predicament. For many on Skid Row their battles are mental illness and grave poverty. The documentary introduces us to eight different but very similar individuals living on Skid Row; they tell us their very different stories and then explain their similar experiences living on Skid Row. We meet a transgender Caucasian male, an African- American mother of three, an old Caucasian female and her African American “fiancé”, they all suffer from mental illness in one form or the other and there is even an ex Olympian who battled through substance abuse. The only difference between these people and us are certain circumstances and situations. The film just sheds light and gives understanding to the fact that yes they are homeless, yes they lie in the street but they are people just like me and you. Watching this film had me literally questioning why we are socialized to believe being homeless is demeaning and a social taboo.…
Dan Richardson was born on 03/15/1956 in Granity City, IL to . His parents marriage was solid when he was younger, but became rocky as he grew older. Dan was raised in . Dan's father passed away in . His mother is still living, she resides within a nursing home. Dan visits her two to five times a week. Dan has a brother, . He is close with his brother; they see each other almost daily. Frank is 45 years old. He lives in Okawville, IL. Dan stated that he had a postitive childhood. When he was in trouble he was yelled at for punishment. Mr. Richardsons yearly income is $150,000 between his wife's and his employment. His bills are as follows: utilities $85 monthly, phone bill $225 monthly, propane $800 yearly and he divides the remainder…
* Mr.Dee realized that Mr.Dee’s partner and his wife embezzled him. It was discovered that they moved lots of money to their account. Also the bills and credit card debts all fall on Mr.Dee. He had to work 4 years to pay all these debts. This is the second time that he lost his everything and he needs to begin again.…
The Belleville West volleyball team are the first team so far this season and last season to have given Althoff a loss after having a winning streak of about 20. After a slow start in the beginning Maroons defeated the Crusaders Tuesday night. The Belleville West volleyball team were thrilled to hand the Crusaders an L after an amazing winning streak.…
The most important part of this movie is the eponymous setting. “No one is homeless in Pleasantville. It’s just not what it’s like.” Pleasantville is perfect. Well, not perfect, it’s “swell”. The temperature is always sunny and cool, the residents are content; hell, the school basketball team doesn’t even miss a single basket. But no one has ever heard of the concept of…
Jonathan Kozol’s “Fremont High School” describes the tragedies of Fremont High and how the staff and students are affected. Kozol shows Fremont High School a school in LA. He explains the squalor conditions both staff and students have to put up with. He discusses everything from the student count to bathrooms all with supporting details and first-hand accounts. He presents Fremont as a failure of the highest degree for a place of education. He shows the inequality and pathetic conditions at Fremont High. The purpose is to make the school visible for what it is a tragedy for everyone subjected to it."Fremont High School" is engaging, it shows what is happening, painting a picture of the high school with information…
Chino is not like the majority of the people in his neighborhood. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Blanca, who is pregnant. Both Blanca and Chino attend a local community college and plan to save up money for their arriving baby. Coincidently, the polar opposite of Chino is his best friend Sapo. Sapo was Chino’s childhood friend that is still involved with drugs and hangs out with the wrong group of kids. Through Sapo, Chino was introduced to Willie Bodega. Bodega was a real estate developer and a drug dealer in their neighborhood. Immediately after the two met, Bodega proposed a position for Chino in his upcoming business. Bodega tried to create cheaper housing for the locals with his drug money. He would buy older buildings with the money and renovate them for better use. Even though Chino was hesitant about the idea and questioned Bodega’s goals, he agreed to become apart of the plan.…
“A shot sounded in the distance. The men looked quickly at the old man. Every head turned toward him.” Although they say nothing, no words of encouragement or support, the other men do care. They know that dog was Candy’s best friend, his only companion in the world. Nobody else will make friends with him because of his disability and age. No one in the room offers support to Candy because of hardened hearts, but everyone has concern for him; love shining through the barrier. Later, when they talk about the farm, Candy says “When they can me here I wisht somebody'd shoot me. But they won't do nothing like that. I won't have no place to go, an' I can't get no more jobs. I'll have thirty dollars more comin', time you guys is ready to quit." Candy’s dream is to go to the farm with Lennie and George, somewhere where he will be appreciated despite his missing hand. The farm is an escape from the people on the farm that see Candy as a disposable machine; once he stops working, you get rid of him. Candy is happy to agree to give up his money to them in his will if he can go somewhere where he can have companions (Lennie and George). The only thing he wants in life is to live with friends. Imagining life on the ranch without his dog, he says “I wisht somebody’d shoot me”. The other men on the ranch, again, don’t see him as much of a person, much less a friend. His only escape from loneliness was his dog, and once it’s gone, he has nothing left to live for. The longing in him for companionship quickly causes him to reach for an environment where the people there cared about who he was, and would continue to do so even after he was too old to be of use, like his dog. The men who refrain from comforting him have sympathy, although under hardened layers. Even though someone may appear uncaring, it doesn’t mean they have no love - in fact, some of the most reserved may have the…
Candy and Curley’s wife experience loneliness through prejudice. Because of Candy’s physical disability of only having one hand, also because of his old which has made him an outcast and hardly any use to the ranch. Candy knows that one day he…
Elliott opens the article with an anecdote, bringing her experience with a homeless man to add a personal connection to the term 'homeless.' She invokes pity within the reader right from the beginning by placing the image of homeless people sleeping in the cold in the reader's mind, through the statement, 'when darkness falls and the temperature follows, I think of Shannon.' Elliott uses Shannon's story to defy the stereotypes of homeless people. She…
The social unequal circumstances the African Americans of this community live in provide difficult chances for possibilities of social justice to occur because of both the neighborhood and discrimination they face. Tre, Ricky’s best friend, is able to survive the surrounding violence and discrimination as a result of the powerful hegemonic masculine presence of his father in his life. Therefore Tre is educated in making good choices in situations he faces among his friends. His friends, however, are not so fortunate. For example, Dough doesn’t have good direction or a father figure, but is raised by his single mother who is determined to get her children to be successful; nevertheless, her main focus is Ricky because in her eyes he has the most money making potential. The mother’s lack of leadership over Dough’s can be directly related to the fact that her class only allows her to focus on the money that he children can make. This lack of presence in Dough’s life is in turn what causes his to make negative choices in order for him to survive in the life he has been born into.…
A young boy sits on the side of the road wearing tattered clothes, covered in dirt, inhaling a half-eaten sandwich he pulled out of a nearby dumpster. He resorts to drugs to abate his hunger and becomes a gang member for protection; he is tired of the other boys beating him up at night. Forced to steal and beg to stay alive, to bathe in a fountain, to grow up so fast, and to witness the underbelly of society, the root of his problems - his parental circumstances - has long since faded from his memory. His parents worked at a car factory for the first few years of his life. Though they earned very little in the assembly line and were in immense debt, they somehow managed to afford a small shack and food. Unfortunately, this boy 's parents worked in the SUV department of the factory, and when the gas prices increased their branch of the company was shut down due to the lack of demand for the formerly popular "gas guzzlers." Soon, they found themselves unable to buy the necessities of life and were forced to live on the streets and eat when they could at a shelter. They tried desperately to find other jobs to help support their family, but without a high school diploma it seemed impossible.…
By being independent Billy is able to survive and is able to make a living. He runs away from his father’s home not knowing where to go and ends up in a small town called Bendarat. In Bendarat he is able to find a small carriage called ‘The Hilton’ in a freight yard in which then calls home. In order for Billy to eat he would go to McDonalds and take leftover scraps from customers. Billy was also able to find a job in a place called the canary and also understood the meaning of money and how much a dollar was worth. As he settled into Bendarat he is able to make a daily routine and every “morning he woke and he knew where he was going for the next few months — to the Library to McDonalds to the river and home here to the Hilton.” Billy`s assistance didn’t make the person he became.…
The Kid’s life went downhill from there. His first problem was befriending a young man named George Schaefer. Schaefer was an incredibly bad influence due to his habits of drinking, gambling, and committing crimes. After some time in foster homes, he looked and dressed poor. Sombrero Jack had stolen some clothes from a Chinese launderer. Since the Kid needed the clothes badly, he gave them to him, only if he…
Not every boy has the same luck like Mark Salzman. Many of them try to fight against obstacles, and many of them lose their hope when they fight against obstacles because they still lived at Juvenile Hall. For instance, Francisco is another boy at Juvenile Hall. He used to be a very bad boy, so the staffs that worked in the prison always said that he was a big troublemaker. However, he felt sorry about what he did to his mother. In order to pay for the Attorney's fee, his mother borrowed a lot of money from the others. Not only did she borrow the money, but she also sold out all her stuffs. This made Francisco feel guilty when he faced his mother. He wanted to carry her in his arms and cry. However, he said he would never do like that because he had to pretend that he was stronger that he had been before. He made sure that he won’t ever make his mother worry again. Therefore, he didn’t want to send his letter to his mother even though the whole writing class inspired him to send…