Los Angeles Times

Making a difference

- By Benjamin Oreskes

While some avoid the homeless, others embrace them. We’ll be profiling some of the latter.

The homelessne­ss crisis gripping Southern California is impossible to miss — and evokes many different emotions. ¶ Voters in Los Angeles have approved more than $1 billion to help provide more housing. At the same time, a proposal to build temporary homeless shelters across the city has sparked protests from residents who say it will ruin their neighborho­ods. ¶ The furor over shelters exemplifie­s a larger reality in the region: While some people try to avoid homeless people when they cross paths with them on street, there are others who embrace them. ¶ The desperate sights of people living in forgotten alleys and dark freeway underpasse­s have sparked many to act. Outraged and enlivened, they have made helping homeless people their mission. ¶ The Times is telling their stories, beginning with Rose Rios, who runs the one-woman Cover the Homeless Ministry. Above, she serves pie to Donald Shields, a homeless man who is legally blind.

On a Sunday morning, Rose Rios rolls her beat-up minivan full of bread, bananas and blankets into a trash-strewn alley in South Los Angeles. She is there to talk with Donald Shields, who lives in a makeshift lean-to with two of his childhood friends, out of sight and in a sorry state.

Days earlier, Rios found Shields there, sitting with a tarp partially shielding his face. He didn’t notice. He has a prosthetic left eye and is legally blind in the right — the result of being shot decades ago, he said. One of the temples of his glasses is missing, and he hasn’t showered since December.

Shields says he ended up here late last year after getting robbed while at the bank. This led him to fall behind on his rent. Soon after, he lost his home and all his possession­s. Now he sits in the alley with friends Daniel and Wayne, listening to basketball on a battered radio. That was until “Mama Rose” arrived.

“I’m-a keep up with you, Donald,” Rios says at one point. “I ain’t going to let you go. Know I got you covered.”

Rios sees the condition of Shields and the others in this alley and knows she needs to act fast. Daniel’s girlfriend, Aldora, has only recently been released from the hospital and is bedridden with flies circling and cats crawling around her.

Rios, 70, runs Cover the Homeless Ministry from her home — alone, save some financial support from a local church and City Councilman Curren Price. She doesn’t get paid, and her mission is to shepherd the neediest cases through the byzantine social services system and get them into housing. She’s been doing this on her own for more than two decades.

The following Tuesday, Rios organizes Donald’s way out. She helps him get set up with a motel voucher for a week. She buses him to the motel. She buys him food. And once they are in the motel, she puts on a pair of latex gloves and scrubs the burly 57year-old’s dry, dirt-caked skin in the shower.

“Don’t be ashamed, I got three babies,” Rios says, referring to her own adult children as Shields disrobes.

Dressed in a blue jumpsuit and fanny pack, Rios’ hair is shaded with a purple hue. Her demeanor throughout this process is jubilant, except for one moment. When Shields gets the keys to that motel room, Rios breaks down. Tears stream down her face, and she lets out a loud moan in the parking lot.

“There are so many of them out there — everywhere you go,” she says through the sobs. “It feels so good when you have helped one, but you’ve got to help more.”

Shields stands silently at her side. After his shower and some food from El Pollo Loco, Shields sits on his bed with ESPN turned on loud — seemingly satisfied. He even yawns.

“I expected her to bring me something to eat now and then. I didn’t expect this.”

Now it’s time for Rios to go. She has to figure out how to get Aldora some help.

 ?? Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times ??
Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times
 ?? Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times ??
Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times
 ?? Photograph­s by Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times ?? ALDORA SMITH, 65, had recently been released from a hospital and was bedridden in March when Rose Rios visited the alley where she and others were living.
Photograph­s by Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times ALDORA SMITH, 65, had recently been released from a hospital and was bedridden in March when Rose Rios visited the alley where she and others were living.
 ??  ?? RIOS helps Smith into a van, above, on a rainy morning as Smith’s boyfriend, Daniel Murray, 59, waits. Rios was taking the pair to the Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System in South L.A. to see if they could get a motel voucher.
RIOS helps Smith into a van, above, on a rainy morning as Smith’s boyfriend, Daniel Murray, 59, waits. Rios was taking the pair to the Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System in South L.A. to see if they could get a motel voucher.
 ??  ?? TEARS f low as Rios, at left, becomes emotional after helping Shields secure the motel room. The 70year-old Rios runs Cover the Homeless Ministry from her home. She has been helping the homeless for more than two decades.
TEARS f low as Rios, at left, becomes emotional after helping Shields secure the motel room. The 70year-old Rios runs Cover the Homeless Ministry from her home. She has been helping the homeless for more than two decades.
 ??  ?? SHIELDS, 59, gets cleaned up with Rios’ help after moving into the motel in South Los Angeles in March. He hadn’t showered since the previous December.
SHIELDS, 59, gets cleaned up with Rios’ help after moving into the motel in South Los Angeles in March. He hadn’t showered since the previous December.
 ??  ?? DONALD SHIELDS, left, gets a hug from “Mama Rose” after she helped him obtain a motel voucher. Shields, who is legally blind, had been living in an alley.
DONALD SHIELDS, left, gets a hug from “Mama Rose” after she helped him obtain a motel voucher. Shields, who is legally blind, had been living in an alley.

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