The faces that reflect L.A.’s homeless crisis

A woman and her daughter-in-law watch over children in a metal cabin that they occupy at Woodville Farm Labor Center. The family was down to its last couple of dollars.

(Los Angeles Times)

Joseph Raymond White-Eagle, a disabled Native American war veteran, shows how he slept on a park bench on Feb. 29, 1948.

(Los Angeles Times)

Maybe there is a slasher. What the hell. What have I got to lose?

— Al Wagner

(Rick Meyer / Los Angeles Times)

Don Kammer peers up from his bed, a mattress on dirt, under an overpass overlooking the Hollywood Freeway on Nov. 8, 1982.

(Ken Lubas / Los Angeles Times)

Eddie, 17, arrived penniless in Hollywood from Virginia a week before this picture was taken on Nov. 20, 1983. The aspiring movie star was one of several juveniles sleeping in Hollywood’s vacant buildings. He begs for change to eat and, like his friends, shares what he makes.

(Ken Lubas / Los Angeles Times)

Serafin and Elia Pimental with their children, from left, Aracele, 5, Neptali, 4, Argarta, 2, and Ellie, 3 months, on July 10, 1983. The family lives in a two-room apartment in a hotel on Skid Row.

(Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times)

“I have to drink eight fifths in a 24-hour period. If I do not, I go through withdrawal, which is similar to heroine withdrawal.”

— Jerry Nichols, 1987

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1. In 1987, Jerry Nichols, 46, is a gay homeless man and stays at the Klyt Bath House, with the help of his friends, to stay dry from the rain.. 2. Bryan “Tennessee” Harrison says, “I can’t go home this way,” while living at 1st and Spring. 3. Elizabeth Presley, 46, often rides a bus all night because she is afraid of the streets. She says, “What keeps me going is my faith.” 4. Thomas Gist stand in front of City Stage, a theatre for and of the homeless on January 2, 1987. 5. Geneva Reesa, 36, and daughter Eve, 13, live in their van. Geneva is an artists and teaches her daughter instead of having her daughter go to school. (Lacy Atkins/Los Angeles Times)

“Let’s go to L.A., where there is money and opportunities.”

— Geneva Reesa, 1987

Robbie “Pilot” McClendon was new to Los Angeles and had been at the Los Angeles Youth Network for three weeks on Jan. 2, 1987. He spent New Year’s hanging around the Hollywood sign.

(Lacy Atkins / Los Angeles Times)

Clarence Jensen holds his diploma after he took advantage of aid to graduate from Adelphi Business College. He hopes to land a job and get his life back together.

(Patrick Downs / Los Angeles Times)

Kim, 17, who lives in a shelter at the Los Angeles Youth Network, is shown on Jan. 12, 1987. “My dream one day is to be a professional singer.”

(Lacy Atkins / Los Angeles Times)

Rene Melendez at the entrance of the common pantry of the City of Lost Souls, a haven for homeless people that has its own government, on Jan. 15, 1991. He said, “I’ve got a family, but I’d rather be here. I like to drink and smoke, and they don’t approve of it.”

(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

I’ve got a family, but I’d rather be here. I like to drink and smoke, and they don’t approve of it.

— Rene Melendez, 1991

Homeless writers Dino, left, and Charles “Southern Comfort” Walker in front of a wall on 5th Street in Skid Row that is covered with poetry penned by homeless people on Jan. 4, 1989.

(Ken Lubas / Los Angeles Times)

Squid, center, holding a candle, and Shaggy, right, with a match, at their squat house, a building where homeless kids hang out, on Nov. 27, 1992.

(Kirk Mckoy / Los Angeles Times)

Cindy Pearl Drafts, 39, and Charles Drafts, 35, in their treehouse just west of downtown Los Angeles, which they say is much safer and better than anything at street level, on Sept. 20, 1993.

(Rosemary Kaul / Los Angeles Times)

Leonard Thompson, 44, left, and Kelly Martin, 36, spend a morning in bed under a freeway in 1998.

(Kevin P. Casey / Los Angeles Times)

John Lackey, 42, lives under the 7th Street Bridge next to the Los Angeles River in Long Beach in 2009. Lackey said he is an addict and does not want help. “In my hovel, which is in a niche under the support beams of the bridge, and in a lot of ways this is where I have been the happiest in my entire life, sad as that might be. I am known as a river rat,” he said.

(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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1. A man who says his name is “Gardener,” watches the movie “Hidden Figures” outdoors in Gladys Park in 2017. 2. Yolanda Robins, 50, holds her puppy Prince outside her tent on skid row in 2022. 3. Bumdog Torres outside the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles in 2020. He’s a photographer and uses mirrors in his work.
4. Margaret Leyva, 46, peeks through a fence next to a 101 Freeway offramp in Boyle Heights in 2022. 5. Alan Forman, 70, rests under a mural after pulling his two carts across a street in 2020. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Maryann Sanchez, 72, peers out the front door of her mobile home in East Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2022. Sanchez lives there with her disabled daughter and her husband, who is on dialysis.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)