Homeless

Nelson Mandela's fans celebrated the anti-apartheid icon's 91st birthday by emulating him with good deeds: reading to the blind, distributing blankets to the homeless or refurbishing homes for AIDS orphans. Mandela had called on people to spend time doing good on the first Mandela Day, which his charity foundations hope will be an annual event. South Africans collected clothing for the poor, painted schools, planted trees near Mandela's boyhood home, and renovated a building in downtown Johannesburg for people left homeless by a fire.

Re "Santa Monica's homeless headache," Opinion, July 30 If professor Gary Blasi really wants to help the Santa Monica homeless, he might try having one, or even several, of them camp out in his yard. I'm sure that would be nicer for the homeless guy than living under a bush in Palisades Park. And if it makes the yard less usable for the professor, I'm sure it's a price he's willing to pay. Arthur O. Armstrong Manhattan Beach -- It's unbelievable that the ACLU would sue "the People's Republic of Santa Monica."

Maria Maior's son is a football-playing, skateboard-riding, Xbox-loving kid whose home has all the trappings of domesticity: a cushy sofa, big-screen TV and a framed poster of Brian Urlacher, one of the 12-year-old's favorite football players. On most evenings, two big dogs curl up on the carpet. The scene could be lifted from any suburban subdivision -- except that it's located not in a den, but in a storage unit. The boy moved into the 10-by-25-foot bunker about two months ago with his mom and her fiance, after a long run of bad luck and the loss of both their jobs.

About 35 activists for the homeless were evicted early Wednesday from a house they took over last week, and supporters responded by knocking over garbage cans, setting trash fires and throwing rocks at a police barricade outside the dwelling. Several protesters scuffled with police during the vandalism, which began about 6 a.m. when police removed squatters occupying a house owned by the University of California, police said. Two UC Berkeley students were arrested, police said.

Legal aid lawyer Louis Rafti was leading a group of law students on a tour of skid row when he saw it in the corner of a homeless shelter. The cot. The very one, he could swear it was, that he had slept on during his last night on the row a few years before. Rafti froze. He didn't say a word, but a sense of wonder overwhelmed him. Wonder that he did not have a crack pipe in his hand. Or a needle in his arm. That he had a home, a job, a life.

Social service volunteers identified a 65-year-old homeless veteran as one of the people most likely to die on skid row in downtown Los Angeles. The man, who suffers from kidney and liver disease and has lived for decades on the streets, belonged at the top of a new list of 50 skid row residents deemed in urgent need of permanent housing, county officials said.

Seeking more efficient delivery of social services, Ventura County homeless advocates this week released the results of a survey that identifies the typical homeless person in the county as a white male, over 40, with a history of mental illness or substance abuse. "This profile is really not the stereotypical homeless person in the minds of most people," said Karol Schullkin, a program director with the county's Human Services Agency.

Bundled in layers to fend off chills, Ron Morgan snagged a section of coveted downtown sidewalk space and began hawking his only product. "Real Change," he calls out, holding up the weekly street newspaper by that name. Homeless and low-income people push it on streetcorners, pocketing 65 cents per copy. "I detest panhandlers. I am not panhandling. I'm working," said Morgan, who has been selling copies for three years since an injury left him disabled. "It's a good paper. People like it.

Check-in at the Cecil Hotel had to wait a few minutes because Kerri Torrance, the clerk working the graveyard shift one night in November, had to deal with a heist. A man staying on the 10th floor had called down to report that a woman had grabbed his money and bolted. After the woman dashed through the lobby and burst out the front doors onto Main Street, Torrance called police while a handful of guests waited. "She's right out there . . . you see . . . well . . .

A Salvation Army worker who was ordered by a judge in Painesville to spend a night homeless for stealing a holiday kettle containing about $250 returned to court with red eyes and red cheeks. Nathen Smith, 28, who was fitted with a GPS device to track his moves, spent the previous night ducking in and out of government buildings for warmth. Smith also spent time in a park but did not go under a bridge where many of Painesville's homeless sleep, probation supervisor David Washlock said.