Skid Row is right outside. Between two of the dozens of tents
pitched along the sidewalk, a man with his back resting on a
chain-link fence has drawn his syringe full of heroin, and will
inject it unless his leathery faced lookout sees a patrol car.
This is one of the several neighborhoods to which UCLA
student-volunteers go to contribute their time and physical labor
to charitable organizations that help substance abusers, pregnant
teens and impoverished retired persons.
Puja Bhatia, UCLA student and organizer for the Los Angeles
Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, said the several
organizations they visited were geared toward “different
homeless populations in different demographics and age
groups.”
Though the UCLA students who went out into these communities
this past Saturday numbered about 40, Bhatia said, “Every
year we need to do it bigger.”
One group of 20 students from the coalition went to Midnight
Mission, at its brand new $40 million residential
drug-rehabilitation center.
Marida Ngov, a third-year biochemistry student, said Midnight
Mission’s facilities are much better than Salvation
Army’s, where she went last year on a similar philanthropic
trip.
“Midnight Mission has way better technology, with
classrooms and computer labs,” Ngov said. “I would
definitely go again,” she said.
The directors of Midnight Mission say the open residential
atmosphere gives program participants more dignity than a more
institutional building.
This sense of dignity is evident upon entering Midnight Mission.
Its residents are familiar with a drug-addicted life on the street,
but unlike those shooting heroin outside, they exude a sense of
optimism.
Morell Hall, 55, said he got hooked on heroin while trying to
escape the horror of his four tours in Vietnam. In his sixth month
of Midnight Mission’s 12″“18 month program, he said he
has achieved his longest period of sobriety since he was 23 years
old.
Though he still fears a relapse, Hall said, “Midnight
Mission is helping me live life on life’s terms.”
Patient and counselor alike are evasive on the issue of relapse,
but direct when speaking about the unforgiving and indiscriminate
nature of addiction.
“Cocaine sends grandmothers out there hoeing,” said
case manager Raymond Woods.
Woods said he can tell former addicts are going to relapse when
they stop going to meetings and communicating with their
sponsors.
“The addict is a most severe man,” said Hall,
referring to the tenaciousness of his drug craving.
With work, recreation, and three meals a day, Midnight Mission
provides a structured schedule for its recovering addicts.
The Sous Chef of Midnight Mission Donald Fleming, like all other
case workers, counselors, and workers at Midnight Mission, is a
previous program participant. Before he became addicted to drugs,
he owned a catering business for fraternities at University of
Southern California.
“And I hope to own it again,” he said.
Fleming said each day the mission serves three meals to 170
residents and about 500 guests.
Zach Best, first-year music history student, has been helping
Midnight Mission prepare these meals for two quarters now. On
Saturday, Best and the other students helped the mission prepare
food and clean the kitchen.
“We made a ton of salad,” Best said.
Despite the work they did, Ngov said she was disappointed she
did not interact more with the residents, and she said she would
definitely go again.
She also said she was intrigued to donate time to help the
homeless when a high school friend became homeless after being
abandoned by her father.
Tyrone Robinson, graphics and media coordinator for the mission,
said that not all who come for the free meals are drug addicts.
As the dinner guests filter in, with women, the disabled and
families coming first, he said “a lot of it is financial
mismanagement. Families spend money on Gucci and clothes and have
none left for rent.”
One family here for the free dinner is husband and wife Doug and
Alma and their eighth-grade son, Michael. They reside in one of the
many single-night hotels in downtown Los Angeles.
Doug has had a drug problem off and on for many years, but said
“parents can’t get help. If you confess a drug problem,
we lose our son.”
“There aren’t any services for women and
kids,” said Alma.
But despite the difficulties of raising a family on $1,000 a
month, they said their son Michael will be leaving his impoverished
Boyle Heights Middle School next year for a Hollywood high school
for gifted children.
The experience students had at the Midnight Mission was likely
very different from any they could have around Westwood or Beverly
Hills.
“Many of the volunteers said it was really
eye-opening,” said Bhatia.