From a one-way flight to sleeping in a parking lot: Diary of a California dream gone sour
LOS ANGELES -- Andrew Truelove needs a belt and a pair of socks.
He takes his time getting up from the mattress he slept on the night before in the parking lot behind a Torrance shopping center. He smokes his first Lucky Strike of the day, then takes a Lyft to San Pedro, where he's heard he may be able to get into a tiny house community.
It's May 17, Truelove's 32nd day in California. Shortly after he arrived at LAX from his native Virginia, he hitched a ride to Slab City, an eccentric off-grid community in the Sonoran desert. Then he spent a few weeks in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, pursuing his dream of starting a new social media platform.
The 37-year-old quickly blew through most of his money. He got ripped off twice before returning to Southern California, where he hopes to live at least through the end of summer.
His is a familiar story, a modern iteration of the starry-eyed striver headed west with a dollar and a dream. But in 2023, the landing for a troubled person at the end of his rope can be brutal.
Truelove is left to navigate a confusing social services landscape and jostle for scarce shelter beds and scarcer permanent housing in a sprawling region with too long a line for too little help. His experiences at the bottom of L.A.'s economic ladder raise difficult questions about what role society should play in caring for those who have the least but need the most.
Truelove ended up in this South Bay suburb because he liked its laid-back vibe when he visited a year ago to see the high school attended by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He burned more than $200 on restaurant meals and a room at the Howard Johnson on Torrance Boulevard, so he's turned to sleeping outside to stop the bleeding on his bank account. He's down to $700.
He's spent most of the past couple of days sitting on the begrimed concrete outside a bustling 7-Eleven. His goal is to find somewhere to stay, then get a job, perhaps as a bartender, so he can save money for a place of his own. But it's not that simple.
Truelove has PTSD and a related mood disorder and no friends or family in California. He got off supervised probation two days before he left the East Coast. Before that, he had been in prison for the latest in a string of felony convictions.
His medical insurance is running out, and despite his goal of gainful employment, Truelove hopes to be approved for disability benefits. He's seeking social services — a housing voucher, food stamps, health coverage via Medi-Cal.
In the meantime, if he wants to establish a foothold and avoid being preyed upon as an L.A. rookie, he's going to need somewhere to stay.
Truelove hopes someone at Harbor Interfaith Services will help him get housed. When he first arrives at the squat, brick-and-stucco building near the docks in San Pedro, he's added to a list and told to come back after the lunch hour.
After a quick Taco Bell meal, Truelove is one of the
