LAPD

The LAPD is a unique and powerful group of homeless (and former homeless) individuals that use performance as a means to build community within Skid Row, a homeless district of downtown Los Angeles. These pieces are meant to allow the performers to display their hopes, dreams, pasts, and futures to an audience that may not be familiar with the lives of those who live in and around Skid Row. Most people have a preconceived notion of what Skid Row is, mostly drawn from how homeless districts are presented through media and entertainment ( see Little Shop of Horrors,

Downtown

Where the folks are broke.

Downtown

Where your life's a joke.

Downtown

When you buy your token,you go

Home to skid row.
Downtown
Where the cabs don't stop
Downtown
Where the food is slop
Downtown
Where the hop-heads flop
in the snow
Down on Skid Row)

However, groups such as LAPD are trying to change this notion of Skid Row. LAPD isn't creating a community in this neighborhood, its bringing to light the fact that these communities already exist, and that they should be supported.