Supreme Court’s homeless ruling a ‘step backward,’ LA Catholic workers say
The frayed silver-colored tarp wasn’t doing much to hide the makeshift mattress, collection of Big Gulp cups, or the stuffed panda bear strewn across the sidewalk in front of the Good Shepherd Center (GSC) on Beverly Boulevard.
All that clutter, GSC program director Sister Jennifer Nguyen told her staff, could make things tricky for anyone leaving the parking structure, and someone hidden amidst the encampment could be accidentally run over.
That someone would be Mike.
A 40-something Filipino man who has lived in this part of LA’s Historic Filipinotown since becoming homeless just before the pandemic, Mike gravitated to this spot a few months ago, sent out from an abandoned house across the street. He didn’t know that the Catholic Charities-run center had a history of assisting women and children in the area for the last 40 years.