MISSION OF KNOWLEDGE

After he began teaching at skid row’s Midnight Mission, writer and history buff Dan Johnson created “The Skid Row Reader,” a 78-page collection that shows the beauty and misery of L.A. This story is one in a series profiling the volunteers who have made helping the homeless their mission.

On a recent morning, Dan Johnson strolls down 5th Street past humans and tarps and trash — his plaid shirtsleeves ripped, his bushy mustache flopping over his top lip. “Guthrie? His Nickel wouldn’t have looked much different,” he says, referencing the great singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie, who spent lots of time around skid row and 5th Street, or “the Nickel.”

Johnson’s destination is a small, bland classroom in the Midnight Mission, an assistance center for the homeless. A reading class that includes George Ocegueda awaits him.

Johnson, 31, is a writer, researcher and avid connoisseur of Los Angeles history. When he moved downtown nearly a decade ago, the scope and pain of skid row shocked him.

Living in such close proximity made homelessness something he just couldn’t ignore.

Three years ago, he started teaching once a week at the Midnight Mission. But quickly, he recognized the course materials, which prepared students for an eighth-grade equivalency test, were deeply flawed.

“At best they were preparing grown men for a test they would never have to take,” he says. “At worst, these materials were wildly out of touch with the substance of my students’ lives.”

So, with a small grant, he created what he calls “The Skid Row Reader” — a 78-page collection of works that show the beauty and misery of this city.

As class begins, Johnson explains his little creation and tells the six students that they will read one paragraph at a time and discuss. He starts with an excerpt from a work by Carey McWilliams and a question: “How many of you have you been to Pershing Square?” “The book is nice because you can compare the geography that people are familiar with,” Johnson says. “The terms are different, but that translation is what people can draw on.”

One student reads: “Emerging next day from the hotel into the painfully bright sunlight, I started the rocky pilgrimage through Pershing Square to my office in a state of miserable decrepitude.”

A knowing murmur rises as the students realize that McWilliams was nursing a monster hangover. That’s when Ocegueda chimes in wanting to know about McWilliams’ word choice. “Decrepitude” catches his eye. “I’m trying to learn bigger words,” Ocegueda says. So they break it down, and Johnson comes up with a definition that entertains everyone: “Just feeling like ass.”

The class laughs, and Johnson marches on as Ocegueda repeats “decrepitude” several times.

Indian burial grounds, oil derricks and the city’s sordid, riotous history all come up. Most everyone is engaged. Sure, there is Johnny who nods off in the first row, but as the hour wraps up, Ocegueda exclaims: “That was a good class.”

Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times

Photographs by Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times ON HIS WAY to Midnight Mission, Dan Johnson passes “the Nickel,” a term coined for skid row. He compiled “The Skid Row Reader” to teach literacy at the center.

JOHNSON, at left, an L.A. history buff who teaches once a week at the mission, says the book is a good tool “because you can compare the geography that people are familiar with. The terms are different, but that translation is what people can draw on.”

KARIM Darcuiel, above, asks Johnson a question as students discuss essays by Woody Guthrie and others that convey the beauty and misery of Los Angeles. Johnson received a grant to create the skid row tome.

DEANDRE SEXTON reads a passage from the book Johnson created because, he said, the course materials were “wildly out of touch” with students’ lives.

KARIM DARCUIEL, left, and John Yancey listen in class, where Indian burial grounds, oil derricks and the city’s sordid, riotous history all come up.