Skid Row Visit

We just returned from a weekend full of fun in Los Angeles. This included having the opportunity of touring the JWCH Institute with Dr. Paul Gregerson. It is a medical clinic located downtown LA in Skid Row. Dr. Gregerson presented information about the clinic while sharing some of his observations from his years of work with the homeless population.

The clinic was brand new, six months old. It was a state of the art facility that was quite organized and clean. It includes pharmaceutical, optometry, HIV, dental, and general medicine facilities. All of these specialities work together in the clinic to try to treat the needs of the homeless patients coming in to the facility. The clinic treats multiple homeless individuals each day as there is a line formed outside the building early each morning. One saddening bit of information was the fact that dental care is one of the major needs of the patients, yet there is only funding to have it running one day a week.

Not only did we get a tour, but we also learned what characteristics go in to hiring someone for such a clinic. Dr. Gregerson explained that he places a lot of emphasis on not just intelligence, but social skills as well including bed side manner. He said the way one interacts with the patients can do a lot with both progress and regression depending on the treatment. He expects his staff to be professional and show the same treatment that they would to any other patient. He made a point to emphasize that these individuals really aren't too different from you or I. To be in this field, it is important to not be judgemental.

It was explained to us that most of the individuals living on Skid Row are in their 40's. Not many youth are found living in the Skid Row area. In fact many individuals of Skid Row have severe addictions to drugs with little chance of ever overcoming the addiction. Dr. Gregerson said it is more about treating the issues that are making them unhappy rather than the addiction. There are many mentally unstable individuals as well. It is hard to get these patients of the clinic to return for a follow-up appointment. This makes it hard to treat the patient, but there are incentives in place to try to see them return. This includes food vouchers. He wasn't trying to paint a dark image, but said it is important to face the fact that many of his patients will never work or live a normal life again. The median age on Skid Row is 48, so majority of these adults are sadly on the verge of death. This age is surprising, but at the same time not at all when considering the lifestyles that these individuals have lived.

An interesting project was explained to us involving the gathering of the 50 most endangered homeless individuals of Skid Row. By endangered, the study meant those most likely to die in the near future. These individuals were placed in a shelter that had social services, a clinic, counselors, and anything else needed to help these individuals survive. It has been two years now, only four have died, while only one has successfully overcome their drug addiction. This portrays what a struggle it is to overcome such an addiction. Even though they haven't overcome the addiction, Dr. Gregerson said that he notices the patients are happier. They attend group meals and birthday parties once a month. It is about improving their lifestyles not necessarily curing them. The JWCH Institute was very impressive with a facility and staff dedicated to the homeless of Skid Row.

We ended our time with Dr. Gregerson by walking around parts of Skid Row. We saw LAMP where the Soloist was filmed along with many other facilities/shelters for the homeless. It was interesting to see how much more populated the streets were with homeless individuals compared to the streets of San Diego. Apparently, the streets are much more densely populated at night on Skid Row, but during the day people try to spread out to avoid the police. We saw the police out when we took our tour. Dr. Gregerson said they are always trying write a ticket for anything from possession of drugs to j-walking. It was interesting to compare what we had seen on a daily basis for three weeks to Skid Row.

The rest of the weekend included a team dinner along with many other fun activities ranging from Magic Mountain to a celebrity house tour of Los Angeles.

LG