Escaping Tent City: Children Are Given Chance to Be Young

An air-conditioned bus drives into the city’s Urban Campground--also known as Tent City--and slows as it approaches a Salvation Army trailer. By the time the bus comes to a stop, half a dozen children are rushing toward the door. Other youngsters run throughout the dusty clusters of tents yelling, “It’s here! It’s here!”

In tent after tent, parents rush to get boys and girls ready for day camp. Mothers and fathers search for clean, untorn clothes. They look under cots and through bundles of belongings for a barrette or baseball cap. They comb hair, wash faces and tie shoelaces. Everyone wants to look his best.

Out of the bus steps a middle-aged woman in a blue blouse and white skirt. The woman, Willie Jordan, heads toward the tents to round up stragglers.

“Good morning, Amanda, I see we’re not quite ready for camp today?” she says to a 6-year-old girl who is racing toward the showers with her older sister. Amanda knows better than to shower alone at the Urban Campground, the city-provided area for an estimated 600 homeless residents.

The bus waits until Amanda has showered and joins about 60 other children, from 3 to 14 years old, for the trip to the Fred Jordan Mission run by Willie Jordan and her minister husband, Fred.

Since early July, the morning event has become familiar for the homeless youngsters of Tent City. Every Tuesday through Thursday, they journey 10 minutes from the compound at 320 S. Santa Fe Ave. to the Jordans’ six-story mission in the heart of Skid Row, at 5th and Towne streets.

There, for three hours, it’s easier to be a child. They draw pictures and sing songs. They play with toys that won’t be stolen. They eat.

And, if they like, they can shower in cleanliness--and without fear.

Christopher, who is 8, has brought a new bar of soap on the bus, looking forward to the shower as much as the play periods or the two meals he’ll be served. To him and the others, it is an escape from a tense existence to a place free of glass, insects and the smell of urine.

“I hate it. It’s real creepy,” Christopher says of the campground, where he lives in a makeshift tent with his mother, father and two brothers.

“I’m scared to walk around. I get cold at night, so I sleep with my jacket on. And nobody wants to play with me there.”

At the day camp, “I like the play dough the best. I can make dinosaurs. I can make people,” he says.

Says a 14-year-old girl: “We can roam around and not worry about people taking advantage of us, touching us in funny places. The camp gives us things to do. They have clean bathrooms, too.”

Leaders of the homeless colony say there are about 75 children at Tent City, and most all of them attend the day camp at the mission, which at night houses about 300 transient men. The Jordans operate the camp without city support, relying on dozens of volunteers and donations from individuals and businesses.

On the bus, lent by a local company, the children sing and shout as they jockey for favorite seats. Boys and girls in the first dozen rows compare stories from recent camp trips to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the Los Angeles Children’s Museum and Griffith Park. Some talk about an upcoming Dodger game.

Cheers cry out when 13-year-old Jason says he heard a trip was planned to Disneyland. In a corner of the bus, Jordan shakes her head but says nothing. She doesn’t want to spoil the moment by telling them that no such trip is set.

As the bus pulls out of the compound, a 10-year-old girl named Lovely rises to lead the group in a prayer, ending it, “Please take care of our parents.”

At the compound, Lovely lives in a pickup truck and station wagon with her pregnant mother, four cousins and nine brothers and sisters. She says her mother fled Louisiana a month ago to escape threats from her father.

The bus arrives at the mission about 10 a.m. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and hotdogs, the children file into the balloon-decorated chapel for a magic show and songs. As volunteer magician Ed Popevich enters the room, all hands rise. The children know he’ll need volunteers.

A Bag of Tricks

“I end up doing the same tricks a couple times a week and each time, they act like it’s the first time they’ve seen it,” said Popevich, a retired Los Angeles Police Department accountant.

He does standard tricks with a rope, cutting it in pieces, then having it emerge in one piece. The children applaud.

After the show and several songs, the youngsters are divided into four age groups and march upstairs to brightly painted rooms for the rest of the day’s activities. The oldest children make puppets out of paper bags, often helping each other.

“The other kids are friendlier when they’re not at the campground,” 13-year-old Jason says. “I think kids there get angry that they have to live that way. I always have to be on guard there. Someone stole my jacket the other night. No one outside my family cared. No one. Now I have nothing to sleep in when it gets cold.”

A Source of Love

Lovely jumps into the conversation. “You know people beside your parents love you here. At the camp, you get sick love. A lot of men at the tent city blow kisses at you. I hate that. I get embarrassed. When I first got to the camp, I couldn’t sleep in the pickup truck. I was just too scared.

“The day camp takes the worry out of having fun,” Lovely says.

“Yeah, it’s nice to have privacy,” Jason interjects. “You get tired of always having other people in the bathroom with you. You get tired of the adults always fighting around you. It’s also nice having two meals a day instead of just one. You feel like a real person here.”

On the third floor of the mission, the 4- through 7-year-olds sit around tables as volunteers pass out yellow and blue dough, which they mold into animals. The boys and girls brag about their crayon drawings hanging behind them on the wall. Balloons bounce across the ceiling. In a corner are potted flowers planted by the children.

“I’m making this for mommy,” 4-year-old Andrea says of her dough creation.

“See, see, this is the big muscle arm for the monkey. These are its eyes,” she says, pointing to a blue blob of dough. “I like making pretty pictures. I like drawing hearts. I like eating. See my elephant on the wall?”

First-Time Visit

It’s the first day at the camp, which runs through August, for 7-year-old Morgan, who says he did not feel like coming before. But after two hours at the mission, he’s glad he came.

“It’s not as scary here as it is back at the tents,” he says. “That’s my home. I didn’t cry when I left mommy. I’m not afraid.”

Across the table from Morgan sits Christopher. He puts his now-used bar of soap down next to the dough.

“I’m making some dinosaurs. Graaaw. Graaaw. Watch out, they might eat you,” Christopher says.

“Arts and crafts is my favorite. I want to be a teacher when I grow up. I want to help other kids. My mommy and daddy say we are going to get a home. I hope soon. I’m going to put these dinosaurs on a shelf in my new home so everybody can see.”

Sneakers for All

Christopher stops in mid-sentence. The day camp’s director, Walter Contreras, 25, has walked into the room with a bag full of donated sneakers. “Who hasn’t gotten a new pair of shoes yet? Follow me,” he says. Andrea, Jesse and Carlos run toward the sneakers, which are in a pile on the floor.

“I want red ones,” 4-year-old Carlos declares.

“I feel that I bring the kids some hope,” Contreras says moments later. “That’s what drives me along each day. I pray that each day we’re a little bit closer to a future. Oh, if I only had money. These kids need so much.”

As Christopher puts the finishing touches on his dinosaur, volunteers warn the youngsters that they must clean up in about 10 minutes. It’s almost time to leave. They gather their artwork and head toward the bus, where volunteers are distributing bag lunches. Many youngsters ask for extra lunches for parents, brothers or sisters.

Jordan, the mother of seven herself, rides back with them. Although she is a forever-smiling optimist, she says she worries that the city has given up on the homeless families. She fears also that many children may never attend school because parents are embarrassed or afraid people may declare them unfit and take away their children.

“Sometimes I just want to knock down walls. To see these kids living in the campground is just morally unacceptable. I wish I could pretend that these conditions don’t exist,” she says. “We’ve got to get the kids out of here and show them that there is an alternative to the life they’re living.”

Cheers on Return

The boys and girls cheer as the bus pulls into the compound. Most race toward their tents, and Christopher runs into the arms of his mother, who is waiting nearby.

“The further he gets away from here the better,” says his mother, Lynn Camp. “No kid should have to be exposed to life like this. It breaks my heart that we’re stuck here for now. We were evicted from our apartment.

“The smile on his face when he sees the bus in the morning makes me want to cry,” she says. “The other day he brought me home a puppet he made at camp. He was so thrilled to be able to give me something.”

They walk toward their tent, Christopher’s hair still a little wet from his shower.