"Most of the homeless around here are homeless because they want to be," said LAPD Sgt. Rosendo Gomez, "because they know where the shelters are, it's no secret, but a lot of them are homeless because most have mental problems or drug and alcohol problems so they can't keep jobs."
A large portion of the homeless population of South Central does have mental difficulties or drug related issues, but being able to overcome these problems is not as easy as one may think, said homeless Kevin Johnson.
Although there are several homeless shelters surrounding the area, being able to escape drugs in a shelter is just as hard as trying to avoid using on the streets, said Johnson.
"The homeless shelters work to get your rest and it helps you think about what you’re into," said Johnson, "but a lot of people there are on a crack cocaine too and they bring it in and they're drinking and using."But the issue of drugs and alcohol is not the only problem that the homeless community of South Central faces. A part of the homeless population is composed of undocumented immigrants, wary of outsiders and unwilling to let anyone in, said Armida Aguiniga, case manager at Central City Community Health Center, located on 59th Street and South Central Avenue.
Aguiniga has been working with underground organizations of homeless and undocumented immigrants, called Grupos, for the past five years. She's now well known in the Grupos community, but she said gaining their trust was not easy.
"They're undocumented, they don't speak English," said Aguiniga, "I wanted to help them so bad, but they were scared. It took me two months to befriend them a little bit, it was so hard, and they finally trusted me."Aguiniga was slowly able to gain popularity among the underground organizations by word of mouth. The Grupos usually live in one large room, where handfuls of them sleep and share a bathroom; they're very private, hesitant to let anyone into their facilities, said Aguiniga.
Because their stay is illegal, they don't receive any government help or donations, so Aguiniga works to try to get them food - usually rice and beans - toiletries and any clothes she can find. Central City Community Health Center also has a mobile unit, called clinic on wheels, which is used to provide basic medical services to all homeless in the area.
Homeless men and women compose only about 10 percent of the population of the neighborhood contained within Slauson Avenue and Manchester Avenue, so the problem is not as prominent as it is in downtown Los Angeles, said Gomez. Although it is often difficult to pinpoint whether a crime is homelessness-related, this particular area of South Central doesnn't experience a high volume of such problems, said LAPD officer Edward Palacios.
Sometimes there may be long lines of homeless carts blocking a sidewalk, usually under freeway passages, but police officers can't really do anything about it, said Gomez. "It's kind of hard for us because what do we do, just shoo them off and tell them to go to another city?" said Gomez. "Basically if they don't bother the community, and the community doesn't complain about them, we pretty much all coexist."
There is also a common misconception that every man who has a cart full of cans is homeless, said Steve Rash, an unemployed man who sits every day on the corner of Broadway Avenue and 61st Street. "Everybody thinks that you're homeless just because you push a grocery cart. Believe it or not, the police think that you're doing something wrong, but I'm not doing anything wrong. I don't go around [anywhere], people just come and put cans in [my cart]," said Rash.
The complaints that police has received in the past have been in relation to soliciting, during which cases officers either warn the homeless man or woman to leave, or they issue him or her a citation.