While homelessness continues to ravish this nation, there is at least one group of citizens who refuse to sit idly by without doing their part to put and end to this horrifying cultural epidemic. Operation Skid Row is a movement established by those good samaritans in hopes that by creating enough public awareness that the world will begin to care –not only about the homelessness in the Los Angeles Skid Row district, but also homelessness and economic depression around the entire nation.
Rolling Out sat down with Mr. Graves and Mr. Best from Operation Skid Row to gain some insight on this much-needed movement.
Can you share with our readers the origins of Operation Skid Row?
Operation Skid Row is really the extension of the Operation Skid Row music festival, which was held in Los Angeles this past January 15. This festival essentially brought together a lot of stars, celebrities and activists to come together and discuss issues around homelessness in the United States. Skid Row in Los Angeles is the United States’ largest stable homeless population, therefore our efforts and energy right now are creating awareness for the plight of brothers and sisters that are living in these Skid Row communities. We realize skid rows are everywhere, but we’re focusing right now on just making people aware of some of the issues and problems that they are facing, because they’re all human issues.
On this date, January 15, Chuck D was one of the coordinators of this music festival and he said very clearly that he wanted to get entertainers involved in order to infuse media with expanding awareness of this movement of the current homeless population in Operation Skid Row in the downtown Los Angeles region. As intellectual property lawyers we really specialize in entertainment, media. What I found very compelling about this situation was that in order for him to broadcast and use media in the way that he needed, he needed some people behind the scenes to be able to license and do all the different types of approvals and administrative work necessary in order to just move the movement forward and to be able to spread the message. So that’s why entertainment lawyers got into the picture and that’s how we brought in the base by infusing media with actual knowledge and all the requirements needed to actually do what Operation Skid Row is intended to do.
How has the community responded to the movement?
The feedback that I’ve gotten is from an array of different perspectives.People have told me about children that they can’t fee, and how there’s a necessity for some type of awareness of the everyday plight of Americans right now. This isn’t an isolated incident, this is everywhere. So I’ve heard a lot about the actual homeless plight. On top of that, when you hear people that recognize that and are willing to help, the question is what do you do? How do we collectively act in order to promote a change? The solution to that question is exactly what Operation Skid Row is about.
How can our readers get involved?
“The best way that you can get involved is to go to www.operationskidrow.com, and all the information that we’ve given you is on there. You can find out some more about the people that are actually involved with helping us do what we’re doing. As we said earlier, Operation Skid Row is about highlighting the problems and issuing actionable solutions. So the first step is always to become aware of the biggest problems and you can find those at Operation Skid Row. You’ll also be able to join up as one of our allies and supporters. It’s a simple process, just fill out your name at the end of the webpage and send enter, letting us know that you are also committed to creating awareness in these issues. Look out for our community forums which will be hosted all around the United States. The first one will be in atlanta. These are ways for people to come out and learn directly from the people that are presenting the solutions. Those are the 3 most actionable ways to help us.”
Please log on to www.operationskidrow.com to join the movement
