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Fall 2003
City Of Angels
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Nearby on this warm August evening a small cluster of bare-chested men and
women in sleeveless blouses dance in place next to a rattletrap vehicle that
is blaring funk through its open doors, and a little farther down the sidewalk
a woman in a tattered dress sits on the curb vigorously scrubbing her teeth
with a new toothbrush. A rangy young man steps onto a scale, looks down at the
number and shakes his head. "I've lost 15 pounds,” he says woefully,
admitting a few moments later that he's been binging — "tweaking”
— on speed for the past month.
On a table outside the open rear doors of a white and blue van is a small rack
of brochures about HIV, hepatitis, herpes and breast self-examination. Next
to the literature is a clear plastic container filled with condoms. An assortment
of clothing is stacked on another table, along with paper cups and a gallon
container of juice. Scattered up and down the sidewalk are a dozen or more men
and women — a mix of young and old, black, white and Latino, some in wheelchairs,
some on crutches, all homeless denizens of the streets of Hollywood and the
surrounding area — socializing or having their own intimate conversations
with Bruin students like Lozares who volunteer every Wednesday night with the
UCLA Mobile Clinic Project.
"This ain't an act,” says Fats of the student volunteers, looking
up and down the sidewalk at the activity going on around him. "I don't
think they have a school that can teach this sort of thing. Being out here with
us, it's just something these young people have in their hearts.”
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