I resonated with Sarah Lee’s article, “Shelter for the Soul”, featured in World Magazine on August 3, 2019. Lee spent several months with the homeless people of Los Angeles’ Skid Row, just listening and getting their perspective on the issue of homelessness.

What Lee has been able to capture, as she highlights the story of a woman named Detroit, is the heart and soul of the issue. With just a few paragraphs, she gives a poignant description of homelessness that goes much deeper than housing; it’s similar to the descriptions we hear at Orange County Rescue Mission, as well.

Lee writes, “The homelessness I see in Los Angles is incredibly varied – everyone has a different story of how they went from “housed” to “unhoused”, but none talk about only housing when they tell that story.”

So if homeless people on Skid Row are not talking much about housing, what are the reasons they give for becoming homeless? Click the image below to read Lee’s article, and the insights she has gained from listening to the people themselves.