Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles has been a ghetto for the impoverished, marginalised and substance-addicted for a century. This small neighbourhood has a homeless population of about 4,500 and a fearsome reputation as the place you end up when you hit rock bottom. Perhaps surprisingly, it also has an early morning running club. As the sun rises and turns the sky pink, the group can be seen bobbing past the tents and supermarket trolleys of personal effects, offering a glimmer of hope.
The Skid Row Running Club meets three times a week at 5.45am and members include recovering addicts and local workers. Rain or shine, the club’s leader, a judge called Craig Mitchell, will be among them – a pillar of strength, empathy and community-mindedness, and the star of a rousing new documentary, Skid Row Marathon.
The film charts the progress of club members such as Ben Shirley, who made a dizzying descent from promising heavy-metal musician to Skid Row alcoholic. He came to LA in 1990 with, he says in the film, “a signed band, working with a monster producer. I got to meet all my heroes, everything I’d wanted – and I’m not happy.” Soon, he was getting the DTs. One day, he says: “I totalled three cars on the way to the liquor store.” He was arrested, “then got out of jail and drank as much as I could, just hoping to die”. On his early outings with the club, he barely has enough puff to run, but he keeps showing up (vaping furiously before and after) and gains the confidence to go after his dream: to study at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
