Convoy & Partners Team Up To Help Unsheltered in Los Angeles
“Come on in, we got enough for everybody,” says Antwone Sanford, director of ministry and outreach at the Los Angeles Mission in Southern California, while beckoning unsheltered people into the mission. “Come on, get in line, we got love for ya!”
Dozens of men and women heed Sanford’s call and line up to be served by volunteers from Fearless Church Los Angeles who have teamed up with the mission. Today’s distribution includes more than 33,000 pounds of products provided by Convoy of Hope’s new Regional Distribution Center West, located 385 miles to the north in Sacramento.
Many of those in line are towing all they own in worn-out, carry-on luggage. Sanford persuades others to at least temporarily abandon shopping carts or their bikes to enter the mission’s courtyard where they are handed bags of toiletries, food, and bottles of much-needed water.
The mission serves Skid Row, which has been around nearly 100 years and is home to one of the nation’s largest homeless-stable populations. Estimates place 10,000-15,000 people living on these streets.
Here, sidewalks teem with tents and other makeshift homes built of cardboard, scraps of plastic, and wood — anything really — that can lend some privacy, a sense of protection, and shelter from the elements. Though only a few miles from Beverly Hills, beach communities, and Hollywood, this place of poverty is avoided, if not forgotten, by most.
Randall, 51, is a guest today. “It’s been treacherous,” he says of living on the streets. But he sees a different future. “I’m already down, the only way now is up.”
“Homelessness is a hopelessness issue,” contends Sanford as he directs foot traffic. “There are a variety of factors to it, including mental health and addiction issues, that fuel that sense of hopelessness. But this work is not a hopeless work—if we only reach one person today it’s a victory.”
