“You know, when they won’t even look at you, they just look at the ground, what is really going on?”
The South Bay community includes a small number of homeless people. Local police estimate this population is less than 50 people, with roughly 20 to 24 in Hermosa, 16 to 24 in Redondo Beach, and less than a dozen in Manhattan Beach. One local pastor, Chris Cannon, suggests these are only the visible homeless, but that a “hidden homeless” population of people who live their cars or by some other itinerant means numbers in the hundreds.
But even the visibly homeless are often made invisible. It’s often easiest to look the other way. The Easy Reader sent a small team of reporters and photographers out with a simple goal: to allow members of the local homeless community to tell their own stories.
Mike Hammond
Mike Hammond may be the most thankful man you’ll ever meet.
Hammond is not homeless. But he was homeless for 17 years, and he still lives among the homeless. Six years after finding a job and home, he can still be found most every day among the ragtag community of homeless that live around the Redondo Beach pier and Veteran’s Park areas. These are the people, he says, who saw his worth as a human being when few others did. “These are my friends,” he says. “I will always come here. The homeless are some of best people in the world.”
Hammond was the recipient of what he describes as a miracle. Six years ago, he saw an ad in a local newspaper for a personal assistant. At the time he was sleeping in a garage in Gardena, at the house of a friend. His friend had rented a car for a day and Hammond, on a whim, asked him to drive to Redondo Beach. He showed up for his job interview with a beard that reached down to his belly and the weathering of two hard decades on his face. The person offering the job, a writer, told him she’d hired a family member, and he assumed that was the end of it. But what unfolded in the next few months changed his life. The writer, the author of 17 books, not only hired him but gave him a room in her house.
Now Hammond, who is 61, has reconnected with his three daughters and 13 grandchildren and, he says proudly, his newly born great-granddaughter. “It’s been a wonderful life, I must say,” Hammond says.
Among his homeless friends, Hammond tries to offer himself as an example: stay kind, keep hope, help yourself and allow yourself to be helped, and good things may happen.
– Mark McDermott
In his own words
Don’t get so downtrodden you think there is no hope. This was a miracle waiting to happen, you know? It was just an ad in the Daily Breeze; I answered the ad, I got turned down. I wasn’t disillusioned by it at all, because I expected to get turned down. I mean, who is going to hire Charles Manson, somebody who looks like that guy, right? So I just took it with a grain of salt. And a month later – I even forgot – my friend Danny goes, “Well, Mike, you know that job?” I’m thinking, “Job, what job? What are you talking about?” “The job you went and applied for.”
I said, “Well, yeah.”
“They said that you are hired, that you have the job.’ And at first I thought, well, he’s kidding – he’s trying to blow my mind. So I remembered how to get there, I took the bus all the way from Gardena, I believe it was, because I was living in his garage, and knocked on the door and they handed me the keys and said you live here now, boom. Just like that. So that was truly a miracle. Truly not expected….
I live right here in Redondo with my two bosses. They took me in off the street. I didn’t even have a bank account, I didn’t have a driver’s license. I got all that. It was just like a miracle. It’s like being made into a movie star overnight. We are going to put you in the spotlight. Now here I am. I got a job, I got food, I got a nice bedroom and a house to live in, just all of sudden. But I am the one who made it happen. If I hadn’t seen that ad… They changed my whole life by them hiring me and putting me to work. It changed everything. It just made me, even though I was a good person to begin with, it made me a lot more humble to things. Like, wow. It’s just such a mindblower. So I just try to be nice in return, on account of that nice act that was done to me. I try to be nice to everybody I come across, because you just never know.
[On how his homelessness began] Oh my gosh, just horrendous…On drugs and homeless. Not a good thing. It started when my mother passed away — I worked in the oil fields at Chevron for years, but then I got a divorce….It is just so complicated. I got custody of my three daughters, I started to raise them, and then things went bad physically. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. So I could no longer really really hold a job at Chevron. I applied for disability and Social Security and all that stuff. I was in my late 30s when I was diagnosed. Everything just kind of spiraled. Just like that, I was homeless. It happened so fast, and when you are not thinking right to begin with — and I was always, always loaded, I was always on some kind of drugs…I mean I am talking serious drug problems and drinking problems. I don’t remember; it’s pretty darned cloudy, some of those areas. So it’s a lot of things went on real fast. [The worst part of homelessness is…] They act like you are not there. ‘Hi, good morning!’ I didn’t see any earplugs, so I know he is not listening to the radio. I know I speak English loud and clear. You know, when they won’t even look at you, they just look at the ground, what is really going on? People are losing touch. People need that human touch. All these machines, you do all this kind of crap. Please. They are just losing it….When the people just walk by and act like you are not there, that has got to be the worst. Especially when you know you have worked hard, you have raised your own kids, you went through marriage, you went through divorce, you did all these things as a single human being in your life. And then to say hello to somebody and they act like you are just not there, like you just don’t count, because you don’t have a job, or your don’t have a house, or you don’t own a car, whatever.It doesn’t do any good to go around with a chip on your shoulder hating everything just because your life is screwed up. You’ve got to get out and make it happen and knock on doors and talk to people and go through all those rejections. Because you only get stronger. And the more you are rejected — at least with me — the more people told me no, or turned their heads, the more determined I became to do something for me because they are certainly not going to do it. You’ve got to pull yourself up. You have to make it happen. And dreams, and miracles, do happen. I am an example of a miracle. I had ten dollars to my name living on a friend’s garage, on dope, alcohol, and everything else…
You just have to be good to other people, because it does come back. I get it back every day, just by some smile. Somebody comes up, “Hey Mike!” I know they are my friends – there is honesty in all this, all these homeless….they are not such bad people. That guy over there [he points] was a troublemaker one time and he’s turned his life around; he works on a boat and lives up here. He changed his life around. It works. It takes you to do it. Nobody else is going to do it. You might have to get psychological help or whatever it takes, but it’s all out there. You just have to go get it. You’ve got to open your mouth. You’ve got to say something. “Hey, I need help. I need to get off of these drugs, or whatever.”
See, the people that hired me, they had to see something…..I just want people to realize that there is nothing that is so impossible that you can’t do it. But if you are saying, ‘I just can’t, I just can’t…’ Well, then you won’t. So just get up and do something.
[On remaining part of the homeless community] I am kind of a mentor kind of guy. I have a blast out here, I really do. I don’t try to convey a message. But I do try to set an example and like my fellow man. And try not to walk around with a brick on my shoulder. Just try to be nice.These are all my friends, everybody here. And I live here, you know. The camaraderie, the brotherhood, the friendship…Even though most of them are alcoholics, and they’ve got big, big, major problems going on, either with their way of thinking or family problems or whatever it might be – they are still human beings, regardless of all that. And every one of them are just great people. They have just got a human condition, whether it’s alcoholism, or drugs, or mental, or whatever, it’s part of the human condition. Not everyone is perfect. Maybe Jesus, that is it. But as far as human beings, they are going to make a lot of mistakes. There are a lot of things going on in a human being’s life, and it’s not all roses.
Colleen
Colleen has been sleeping in a safe spot. But because people have mentioned they know where she is sleeping, it has become unsafe. So she doesn’t like to go there anymore.
Living without a home is very dangerous, especially for a woman.
She has bandages on her knee and a bump on her head.
She was with her first husband for 14 years. She had her first two children five years apart and got her business degree during that time and started a sole proprietorship.
Then they split up, and it was devastating, personally and financially. They took her children away. It was so hurtful.
She went into nursing. People helped her prep in order to pass the test to get into nursing. She was doing in-home house services, but then they said you can’t because of what’s on her record.
She had to take this horrible job. It was a sales position selling cars. She was horrible on the sales floor. They taught her how to hook people into deals. They know they will have a re-possession with certain customers, and she just could not do that part of the job. They would have had to send a closer in with no compassion, and she just said she couldn’t do it.
She bought a small cosmetic company and also started a house-cleaning business with a friend. They did well. They were bonded and insured.
Recently, she has gotten a rehabilitation product patented for elderly patients.
So it’s been a long process. She’s 53-years-old.
She has gone through hardships. She’s not sure why she is being targeted, but she tries to hold her chin up and keep her faith.
She says that if you’ve made a poor choice and you’re trying to change a situation, you might be too close to realize certain things.
— Ed Pilolla
In her own words
I was a CERT out here and a junior lifeguard. I worked for Seascape in Redondo Beach when I was 19-22. I used to lifeguard right there, and you meet people on the coast and it’s like family. I still have that at least. It’s not at least. It’s grand. They still allow me to go there and wash my bike once in a while.
Something bad happened to me in ‘92 and it cost me my career. It was physical, involved the courts. I had stuff put upon me that wasn’t even part of my life and brought into my life. Injury cost me my career twice and also put me in a position where I was very vulnerable.
It’s been blessings and healings, and others things have been a pain in the neck.
There are people here who aren’t just self-conflicted party guys. They had a good home life. They do what they want but they didn’t realize the self destruction to themselves. It’s not just about that, but some of it is. I’m very compassionate with those people.
In AA, a lot of people have had problems with drugs and alcohol, and it doesn’t matter what profession they are in. Some are in the best professions. It’s hard to say no then. You’re out there moving fast, you’re trying to be social, and you get caught up in what I call the rat race.
Someone told me you’ve got to roll with the punches. Not me. I need a blocker. I’m tired of the punches.
Al Barrera, Jr.
Al Barrera’s slurred words are difficult to understand at first, but he carries a certain charm that progressively overwrites that minor impediment. Lines of wrinkles embellish his deep-set hazel eyes. His under bite reveals his crooked bottom teeth, and fresh stubble peppers his leathered face. A trucker hat sits pressed on his head, partially hiding the wild wisps of his curly grey hair. Yet what’s most noticeable about Barrera, who is 58, is the unadulterated enthusiasm he relays, whether he is recalling the alcoholism that led him to the streets, the drug dealing that briefly kept him off the streets or his spending his nights under the Hermosa Beach pier for nearly 30 years. He is not enthusiastic about the past, but he appears to have made his peace with the present.
— Esther Kang
In his own words:
It started on January 7, 1954 when I was born in Torrance Memorial. My parents were always into God, so from an early age I always loved God. I took all these classes, and then all of a sudden I just started screwing up. Drinking too much. Then it became a haze because I turned into a real heavy alcoholic, but I’m not so bad now. That took me to the streets. Alcohol is the gateway drug. You start drinking and all of a sudden you’re always drunk and you say, I need something stronger, you know? I tried weed but it was mellow, I was like, this ain’t good enough. I OD’ed maybe 10 times. I got off the streets from selling weed in Hermosa Beach – I did that for years. And I started selling coke. I was just trying to keep myself off the streets…. The beach has a tendency – the surfing, the girls – it hooks you bad. But you also see people on the sand working real hard and so…
I’m doing better. You know, you see a lot of homeless people who are younger, like in their 20s and stuff, and you don’t want to die alone, that’s for damn sure. My last girlfriend died under my arms, underneath the pier. She slammed down a fifth, just like that. It was about three years ago. I think it’s hard to let somebody in because you always think they’re gonna leave you, you know what I mean? I don’t like to be alone.
I’m not saying that I might just die on the streets, but they like me down here. The police bought me a brand new guitar. I can play the guitar pretty decent. What happens is, a lot of times I show up at car accidents before they do. This one time, a lady and her baby were trying to cross PCH and these cars just ignored her and so I stopped the cars and let the lady go. I do a lot of stupid little [things] trying to help people out. I don’t know if it was because of that. I have a pretty good reputation. I’ve got more people who love me than hate me.
I’ve been on the streets for about 30 years. I sleep underneath the pier. We’re like vagabonds. Everybody takes it day by day. I know I’ll be around a year from now.
My goal is to be a good human being. Just because you’re homeless doesn’t mean your morals are dead. I still believe that you should treat everyone as you want them to treat you. And if they’re bad to you, it doesn’t mean you have to be bad back to them. Just turn the other cheek. Jesus goes, if you’re freezing and they’re freezing and they ask you to give them your coat, just give it to them. It’s better to give it to them than to lose your life over a stupid coat.
Fred and Neil
The pair requested to not be photographed
Fred and Neil can often be found sitting on the benches at Redondo Beach’s Veterans Park sipping a bottle of vodka mixed with Gatorade. They start early and drink just to get through the day. Fred, a Mexican-American, wears black pants and a black sweater and carries a small backpack around with him. He used to sleep in a corner of the Elks Lounge behind a fence, but his spot was discovered by another homeless man, and now he moves from place-to-place. Neil, who didn’t want to be personally interviewed, wouldn’t say where he goes, but he hangs out with Fred often. Neil wears trousers and a sweater with a collared shirt – staying clean is important to both men. Fred was recently arrested at a park because of a past warrant and an open-container of vodka.
“I grew up just like any other kid,” said 43-year-old Fred (name withheld). “My mom was an alcoholic. I didn’t do that well in school. I left and started working in construction and was making really good money. Then the economy went down and BAM, you know.”
Fred’s troubles started when he started losing money because he wasn’t getting any construction jobs. His girlfriend at the time left him and took their daughter up north, where they still live. That was six years ago.
“You know, that was tough, that was a hard thing,” said Fred. “I grew up here in the South Bay. I ended up living in Carson and my mom wasn’t really good – she was always working at bars and stuff. My dad, I didn’t really know him at all. I didn’t even go to my dad’s funeral five years ago.
“He was a postman and wasn’t that nice. One time my mom found I was smoking weed and they kicked me out of the house and brought me to my father that I didn’t even know,” said Fred. “She dropped me off on his f’ing front door and says, ‘You’re out,’ and dropped me off. I was like, ‘Really? You’re dropping me off?’ She said her boyfriend wanted me out. So I was like, ‘You’re picking him over me?’ I was 18 years old.”
He wasn’t able to live with his father or either of his two sisters. “I was literally on the f’ing streets” he recalled. “The reason I’m telling you that is that it affected me big time. I felt my mom picked her boyfriend over me. I would have worked through it. I would have been like, ‘We’re going to work through this and I’m going to keep you because you’re my child.’ Why would you do that to your kids?”
Fred didn’t remain homeless at that time. He worked construction successfully for 20 years.
“At the time construction was booming, and the money started pouring in,” said Fred. “I was like, damn, I’m making some cash. This is good. I was doing really well and I ended up hiring people. I had like 10 people working for me and it was going good, but then the economy just fell out.”
Construction was the only thing he knew how to do. He couldn’t find another job. “I mean if you put me on a computer, I can’t do it,” he said. “If you put a nail and hammer in my hand – I can do anything. I love building shit, but to this day I wish I knew more about computers and stuff like that because that’s where everything’s going.”
Neil and Frank conferred together about when to leave to catch the bus to get a meal. While deciding, Fred pulled a vodka bottle out of his backpack and filled the slightly pink Gatorade bottle halfway.
“It’s hard to get caught up once you fall behind,” said Fred. “The GR [food stamps] makes you jump through hoops, and half the time it’s not worth it. I can understand that a little bit too though. You can’t give everybody free stuff.”
“The average person wants to earn a decent wage,” said Neil, interrupting Fred. “This thing is huge; it’s bigger than me and you.” Neil thinks that every citizen of America shouldn’t be without shelter, food or clothing, “which we don’t have.”
“I’m homeless and I built homes,” said Fred. “I’m a hard worker, I framed a house. I feel proud about that shit because you know a lot of stuff I did out there nobody can do.”
Both Fred and Neil eat meals at different churches and missions, but some days they don’t eat at all.
“For me, straight up truth, the reason I don’t eat sometimes is because I drink so much alcohol,” Fred said. “The more I drink, the more I don’t eat. I can’t even believe I’m telling you that, but you want an honest report — there it is. For me I drink a lot and then I hit the wall. I’m like dead to the world.”
Both sleep wherever they can find a place. Sometimes they sleep on the beach; other times they sleep under a bridge or somewhere that protects them from the wind.
“I get a blanket and cover up and listen to the ocean and waves all night,” said Neil.
“I slept in an elevator last night,” added Fred.
“Of course it’s cold, it’s very cold. It’s lonely, it’s cold, it’s all the emotions a person will feel,” said Neil.
“When you find a cubby hole somewhere you’re in heaven because it’s warm,” said Fred. “But 90 percent of the time you’re freezing.”
Fred hasn’t seen his daughter in a long time, and he doesn’t want her to know what he’s going through now.
“You keep thinking you’re going to get another job, but shit just doesn’t happen,” said Fred.
“That’s all it takes is one break, man, and you’re back on your feet,” Neil noted. “People tend to think most homeless people are out here because they’re mental and really are affected by some real stuff. Some people are out here because a job was lost or some small things….Nobody wants to see a homeless person, but for me it’s bigger than that person. It affects society as a whole for it to happen. It’s capitalism at its best – therefore somebody has to be in our situation.”
Fred thinks it could have been different for him if his home life would have been better. “If you have a kid, be happy and take care of him.”
“What I want to say to people is if you have the means to help somebody, help them,” said Neil. “It’s simple and not hard. Don’t look at a person and judge them because you don’t know their situation. Anybody can go through this… It happened to me, but I’m grateful and thankful I’ve been able to explain it to people. I’m grateful because when I do bounce back I’ll be a totally different person.”
— Chelsea Sektnan
Casio
Joshua, a 27-year-old from New York, likes to be called Casio. He was given the name by friends when left his home-state of New York at 17. He is an upbeat man with a wide chipped-tooth smile that flashes frequently. Casio wears a plaid shirt and a hat and carries a small backpack.
Casio lives in a park by the Redondo Beach harbor. Every day he watches the sunset and likes his beach-front view. He is clean-cut and hangs out with a group of kids he met after walking from L.A. to Redondo Beach. He sleeps in stairwells and uses three blankets to keep warm, one on the bottom and two on the top. When he first left home he traveled with his sister, who was in the U.S. Navy, and took care of his nephew. Later, he traveled to Japan, Hawaii and even Australia. He later lived with his uncle for 8 years. They did construction work together and ended up buying, selling and refurbishing medical equipment.
“After awhile,” he explained, “I started to go to college to pursue marine biology and got caught up into sociology too. I thought I was crazy for doing both, but I don’t know, something was beckoning me to it.”
Eventually he started not seeing eye-to-eye with his uncle.
“I got EBT (welfare) so we could have more food in the house and he would just cook all the food. I’m a person that loves to eat, so you don’t take that,” said Casio.
He moved from the San Diego area to L.A with a girlfriend. They lived as part of homeless community in a canyon near Azuza. When the relationship ended, he took a bus to downtown L.A. He didn’t want to stay there because it smelled all the time and he couldn’t get anybody to give him money.
“I ‘spange,’” he said. “It’s asking people for money….Normally they say no. Most people use credit cards so they’re like ‘No, I don’t have any change or nothing.’ This one lady, I actually had a job. I helped this lady move over on the other side by Vons all the way to over here (South Redondo) and got $100 for that.”
He couldn’t “spange” enough money for a bus ticket to Redondo Beach, so he decided to walk. It took him 10 hours to get to the ocean.
“I was originally going to take a while and go (walk) all the way to Ocean Beach where I knew some people — I can be pretty determined,” said Casio. “I came here and started meeting people. People are just nice and it’s so calming over here.”
He has a plan for the future. He has two friends he wants to room with, and they are going to move to Ocean Beach. “We’re going to have a crib together and get a job and everything,” he said.
For Casio, his time of homelessness isn’t about not having a home; it’s about taking a reality check.
“Right now is just about surviving the best I can,” said Casio.
Redondo Beach has a network of soup kitchens and he has a meal planned out for almost everyday at one of the local churches. Monday, Wednesday and Friday he goes to St James for lunch. On Sunday he goes to St. John’s Lutheran for lunch.
“Nobody should go hungry because all the churches give you all of these lunches,” said Casio. “They pretty much have something everyday, but they’re pretty far-and-wide. You have to get bus money or you better start walking early.”
During the day he can usually be found hanging out in the library reading books or talking to his friends on the internet.
“It’s liberating just to be doing your own thing. Yeah, I still want to go to school. I want to have a house of my own, pay my bills and everything. Right now it’s just who I’m choosing to do it with,” said Casio. “Now’s just a time in-between.”
In the afternoon he comes down to the park to hang out with friends.
“Sometimes high school kids just like to come over and hang out,” said Casio. “I’m not going to push [them] away. I remember when I was young I used to hang out with the wrong crowd. I just tell [them] to do the right thing, period. Right now you need your high school diploma more and more.”
He only carries a small amount of things around town with him. The rest he keeps stashed where nobody can find it. His stashed backpack has four pairs of jeans, five shirts, some underwear and hygienic stuff like toothpaste and toothbrushes.
Because of his insomnia he doesn’t often get a good night’s sleep. Even when he finds a warm stairway, he still can’t keep his eyes shut.
“I remember when I would go to work with my uncle and we would lift 200-pound items and I would come home dead tired,” Casio recalled. “As soon as it was nighttime, I’m up. You know, I’m like going out to find something to get into.”
He likes not having a household because he has time to focus on himself and the things he wants and needs to do. He doesn’t like being homeless because nobody wants to hang out with him besides his new crew in Redondo Beach, and he can’t eat what he wants or watch TV or play video games when he wants.
“I can’t just sit and watch a movie,” he said. “On a cloudy day like this I’d usually just go under the covers and watch a movie. I can’t do that out here.”
The biggest thing he’s learned on his journey has been to never regret anything.
“Keep dreaming,” Casio added, “because there needs to be dreams and people need to have them. If you have a job and you’re not having fun, it’s just going to be a job. That’s all there’s going to be. It’s been proven that people who are way wealthier have more worries. Even if I do become wealthy my house isn’t going to be big because the way that I was taking my life before and now is way different.”
— Chelsea Sektnan
Steve
“I’m not easy to talk to,” Steve says. “You have to ask me a lot of questions so I can give you good answers.”
He was born in Venice and moved to Pacific Beach in San Diego County when he was four. He remembers growing up in a house full of people, with step-brothers, a sister, his mother and his step-father. It was pretty hectic.
He was a good athlete in grammar school and had a lot of friends. He was voted best citizen of the class one year. In his 20s, he got into sales, selling Xerox machines. He liked that, largely because the operation was very organized. Management did a lot for him, and the work kept him going. It pushed him.
Then he started his own company: business management for professional athletes. For 6 to 8 months, years ago he really tried hard, but it didn’t work out. So he let it go. But he still has hopes to get it done, and when he expresses such hope, a smile lights at the corners of his mouth.
He’s on parole and lives with four other parolees in Torrance in a three-bedroom apartment. It’s okay, he says. “Parole” pays his rent. He’s been living there two months.
One of his roommates goes to school. Management provides a box of food each week. Everybody who lives there is on parole. Everyone who lives there is a convicted sex offender. Steve, also, is a convicted sex offender.
He was changing clothes in the park and some lady saw him and claimed that he was playing with himself in public. He wasn’t. But he was convicted.
He has to register each year on his birthday, with a photo of himself taken at the police department.
There’s not much to do there during the day, so he goes out and recycles, which is good. It’s something to do.
He makes $8-9 dollars a day, working three to four hours.
Though Steve doesn’t sleep outside these days, he has in the past. He draws social security and sometimes used to spend it all.
He says he enjoys his days, but sometimes he has bad days. He doesn’t feel very good about himself sometimes.
People who see him picking cans and bottles out of the trash don’t usually pay him much attention. Bus drivers aren’t too happy when he brings his big bag of bottles and cans aboard because it takes up too much space. He takes the bottles and cans to a recycling center on Western Avenue.
Recycling is his favorite thing to do. He also likes the beach and walking up and down The Strand. And he’s fond of golf, roots for the St. Louis Rams, and likes soft rock and roll, like the Eagles and Beatles.
Steve smokes cigarettes and says he’s heard it helps with depression.
He admits to having been married a couple of times but has no kids. As for family contact, he notes he keeps in touch with his half brother and his sister.
Asked if he has any comment on society that he would like to impart, he says, “I think the police are overly intrusive, overly helpful.”
— Ed Pilolla
In his own words
I get up, take a shower, have a few cups of coffee, a few cigarettes. And then I catch the bus, two buses, the Gardena bus and the airport bus. I start on Pier Avenue and work my way down to The Strand and then to Manhattan. Usually by then I’ve got enough. [In the evening], I just sit around, have dinner and watch TV sometimes, and go to bed early.
