"My course is set for an uncharted sea"

Cities everywhere have Infernos - usually invisible from downtown towers 

The quote above is from a 14th Century poem by Dante in which the first part is called Inferno, a hell in which the author makes his way past unimaginable, underworld horrors towards salvation.

In urban parlance Dante’s Inferno is an allegory for skid rows, ghettos, and high crime neighborhoods where drug dealers and gang bangers rule like medieval war lords.

I spent the past week in a pretty rough neighborhood – it doesn’t matter where since it could be any large city. I was working with an amazing community group to transform their neighborhood into something better.

Dilapidated housing, drug addicts, high crime - the modern Inferno

INFERNO

Part of our week included visiting one portion of that neighborhood, for all intents an Inferno of open-air drug markets, among the worst anywhere. It is always sobering to visit such places, though sober isn’t the right word to describe the hundreds of addicts who call it home.

Surely a place strewn with heroin syringes, dense with garbage and litter, and blighted with the effluent of a drug shooting gallery is not a place for children. Yet there they were, coming home from school, walking past their drug dealing older brothers hanging on the corners of dilapidated sidewalks, waiting for inevitable customers from both far and near.

Children do not belong here, yet there they were

So many violent deaths from deals gone wrong! So many indigent addicts testing out some new strain of heroin while indifferent dealers wait nearby to see if their latest product kills or turns a profit.

Unlike other parts of the neighborhood, residents in the Inferno barely eke out a living. Many are afraid but haven’t the means to leave. Crime is rampant, but rents are cheap.

RESIDENTS 

To the emergency doctors, beat cops, paramedics, social workers and community development specialists who work in such places, Infernos are a workplace where they learn the full measure of frustration.

To the addicts, homeless, and poverty-stricken trapped in the deprivation and disparity that replaces life with survival, Infernos are the prisons that shame the modern democracy.

To the drug dealers, their handlers, traffickers and their cartel overlords, and all the criminal parasites who pocket the urban fabric like the boils of the Black Plague, Infernos are their retail store and, in some ways, their prison too!

Waiting, very carefully, for clandestine photos away from ever-present drug dealers

Traveling through Inferno, Dante discovers that sin is a product of desire – an irony here given the preponderance of drug addiction. But eventually, through hard work and a wise, caring guide, Dante is led out of Inferno.

The labor of my colleagues this week was inspiring. Their goal is to guide their community with wisdom, courage and hard work, away from Inferno and toward something better. They live the words written by Dante 700 years ago; “and we came forth to contemplate the stars.” 

Stories from skid row in Los Angeles

The recent story of LAPD Sergeant Deon Joseph triggered a flashback this week. For 17 years Sergeant Joseph has worked in the skid row of Los Angeles, a cluster of streets with over 3,500 homeless in a city of over 50,000 homeless. The YouTube "Stories from skid row" says it all.

My flashback was to a conference years ago in Vancouver. I was in the audience listening to a well known journalist describe stories about policing. It was one of those ah-ha moments, at least for the audience.

First he told stories about his personal experiences about officers he knew or came across on the street. They were positive stories about how those officers were conscientious and diligent. People needed help and the police showed up to help. It was all very glowing.

Then he told stories about rotten apples and police misconduct. They were stories from headlines in  other parts of the city or from other cities. He had read those stories in the press and recounted them to us. His conclusion? There are two different sides of police work.

Duh.

THE REAL STORY?

I pointed out to him that every positive story he told came from his life experience but every negative story came from the press. He knew his personal stories were true. So wasn’t he concerned that the press stories might be incomplete or biased? Nope! He seemed oblivious, probably because my point was more about the quality of journalism than the quality of policing.

Screenshot from Stories from Skid Row

There are plenty of negative stories about police. The federal investigation this week concluded racism is a part of the Ferguson police story. Also this week there was a tragic police shootings of a homeless man in Los Angeles. There are plenty of bad stories.

Yet occasionally the opposite shows up like the YouTube above or the NPR radio show that shines light on the complexities in Skid Row. No doubt those positive stories are forgotten in the bad press of the day. But the remarkable account of Sergeant Joseph and all his partners' exceptional work on Skid Row is important. That too is part of the real story.