According to local services’ estimates, about 2,500 people sleep on Skid Row streets, while 2,500 camp in temporary shelters such as mission beds—that’s 11 percent of the county’s entire homeless population of 47,000, squeezed into a 0.4-square-mile neighborhood. Others live in single-room-occupancy hotels, though most move in and out of shelters and the streets. Many of these people have lived on the streets for more than a decade.

That same night the stabbings happened, Collins took me on a tour around the heart of Skid Row. The night sky was a deep eggplant purple, starless except for the twinkles of downtown’s fast-expanding skyscrapers—five-star hotels, luxury condo towers, and high-rise office buildings. But here in Skid Row, the streets are eerily empty of cars. Parking spots are abundant—an LA miracle—but the few stray cars that make a wrong turn hastily twist their way back into civilization.

A different nightlife exists in Skid Row: A boombox pulsated loud electro-funk. People smoked cigarettes and joints by their tents and carts, some chatting, some nodding hello, others staring silently as we walked past. The funky odors of drugs tinged the urine-saturated air. As we strolled from block to block, Collins pointed out the corners and parks where he once bought his favorite drug, crack.

Collins spent a total of 27 years in prison for drug-related convictions (mostly burglary). Each time he finished a prison term, he careened right back behind bars, where he experienced his first rape. No matter where he ran, he found crack. He spent his food stamps and county-funded general relief checks on crack. When that money was gone, he stood outside upscale restaurants and offered to sing for customers. With his beautiful singing voice and natural charisma, he won the generosity of strangers. “I don’t want money. I’m just singing to feed my family,” he promised his benefactors, who ordered whatever he wanted off the menu. He then delivered the hot food straight to his drug dealers in exchange for crack.

That’s why Collins sighs when he sees well-meaning volunteer groups out on Skid Row donating free stuff. That night we passed one handing out sandwiches, bottled water, and hygiene kits. “This is the cold, hard truth: I think they’re crippling the people down here,” Collins said. “If you’re providing me clothes, food, and tents, I don’t have to spend the money I get from the government on anything but my next hit.”

We then reached the corner of Wall and Winston streets, where a man wearing a snapback hat over shoulder-length dreadlocks preached John 5:1-9 under the orange streetlight glow in front of a shuttered store. Every Friday night at 7:30 p.m., Pastor Cue Jn-Marie, a former rapper, conducts a “church without walls” service in Skid Row. “Man is limited in what he can do,” Pastor Cue boomed into his mic, rocking to the inflation of his animated voice. “Remember! If God can make a man help you, it can happen. But ultimately, God is the one who helps you.” His congregation of 10 sat on fold-out chairs and chorused “Amen!” after him.

On our detour back, I noticed the congregation had tripled into a long line awaiting the after-service goods: McDonald’s, blankets, and shoes such as strappy high-heel sandals. Collins turned to shrug at me: “See? Food is not lacking down here. There’s not a hungry homeless person downtown.”

For decades, the city intentionally corralled the homeless into this 54-block zone, creating a web of shelters and social services—almost 110, ranging from clinics to drug rehab to case management services. Volunteers from churches and nonprofits offer more food in addition to the 9,000 meals the missions already serve per day.

But quarantining the homeless out of sight has also kept a growing “monster” out of mind, says Union Rescue Mission CEO Andy Bales: “We didn’t do anything for so long, and now it requires an all-out, all-hands-on-deck emergency response.” So far, LA has thrown money at a complex problem, but Bales says it forgot one essential: “We have not shown heart and compassion.” Without that “heart change,” Bales said, Los Angeles will never alleviate its homelessness crisis: “Our society needs to realize that these people suffering on the streets are our brothers and sisters made in the image of God, to be treated with great dignity.”

The 58-year-old grandfather of six from the Midwest has been serving the homeless for 31 years, and now walks with a prosthetic right leg because of it. One extra-hot day in September 2014, he was handing out water in Skid Row when rampant flesh-eating bacteria crawled their way to a wound on his leg. These bacteria chomped at his flesh, turning bones into mush, until Bales begged the doctors to chop his leg off. They amputated it just below his knee. As soon as he could, Bales was back at URM in his suit and tie, gliding down the streets of Skid Row in a wheelchair, once again passing out bottles of water.