Navigating Life ‘In’ Skid Row: Healing Through Art and Advocacy

Suzette, poet, advocate, and lived experience expert, reflects on her journey from homelessness in Skid Row to student life at ASU Local. In this powerful piece, she shares how art, advocacy, and education became tools for healing — and why it matters to challenge harmful narratives about Skid Row. Through poetry born from pain, Suzette is rewriting the story of resilience and community transformation.

Back in the 80’s, I was a student at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, Arizona, studying Health Science.

Now, here I am in a conference room at a different ASU campus, this one ASU Local, located in Downtown Los Angeles, telling my story. I proudly carry my school badge from those days to show everyone.

I never graduated back then, but now I’m taking a second shot at student life, though this campus has a very different vibe than the previous one. My circumstances are not remotely the same, either.

This time, I’m studying at the Watt School of Social Work in Community Advocacy and Social Policy with a minor in organizational leadership development—something that feels much closer to my lived experience.

ASU Local is not far from Skid Row, where I’ve lived since getting displaced in Los Angeles 12 years ago, after I first became unhoused. Needless to say, a lot has happened to me—including becoming a sought-after spoken word artist—during the intervening years.

I simply lost everything, and as I often like to say… including my bloody mind. I was in a state of trauma and, you know—I still live through trauma daily—but, literally, Skid Row changed my life lens.

But let me be clear: I live in Skid Row, not on Skid Row. This is an important distinction and a significant part of my advocacy work today.

There’s a broad stroke pathology of who makes up this particular subsection of downtown Los Angeles—that everyone is a drug addict, ex-convict, or prostitute.

When you live in “the 90013,” it puts a spiritual stink on you, which makes it harder for one to change their situation. (Fortunately, I don’t live on the street as I’ve managed to secure myself permanent supportive housing.)

There are a lot of people who live in Skid Row who are living below the poverty line, working jobs where they can’t afford to live anywhere else other than Skid Row.

We are part of a community that is really trying to transform and be part of intentionally changing what people consider Skid Row to be. And so I consider myself living a very intentional life—one where I’ve been through several iterations of trying to move my life forward and heal.

It’s a long story, but before my life took a turn, I was living a middle-class life in my hometown of Yuma, Arizona. I worked many different jobs over the years in different sectors. One day, I got laid off, something my boss had told me would never happen. I became hunhoused.

Finally, I came to Skid Row, choosing to live here for the social services. The positive was that this experience and on-the-ground education helped me find my voice as an artist, which I use to spread my message about Skid Row, though my poetry came more from a need than a desire to be schooled on the streets and its terminology.

I started carrying a pen and paper everywhere I went, taking time to write down words as I heard them and vomiting them onto the pad by my bedside. Over the years, the words started to dance on the paper and, suddenly, we had poetry born from pain.

A lot of that pain comes from a troubled family background. Without going into specifics, this history is one I still struggle with in my quest for healing. Knowing that I was never able to go back and change things with my family.

I see my mom in other women I see on the streets. I see my grandmother, I see my twin sister.

What’s more important to me is dispelling another “pathology,” one in which everyone on Skid Row is responsible for creating the damaging ecosystem of our family, rather than the fact that we come from damaged families.

More times than not, I say, my interactions with folks in the field are with people entering my community to analyze or study people like me for the sake of their own careers. This is a theme that arises in my poetry.

I’m grateful I’ve found my sanctuary here at ASU Local. It’s the first place I can remember where people have sincerely asked me, “How can I advocate for you, Suzette?”

At the same time, it’s not only another step toward healing, it’s also empowering me to advocate for all the Suzette Shaws out there.

Note: This post has been edited for length, clarity, and narrative flow.