Skid Row, an infamous area of Downtown Los Angeles, is a shockingly heavily concentrated are of desperate poverty.

The area of LA, heavily populated by the homeless, has had repeated and excessive problems with drugs, crime, prostitution like none other in America.

“It’s really hard to explain in words how awful and how much of a public health crisis this is,” Stephany Campos, the executive administrator of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, once said. “We should not let any human being experience that kind of embarrassment or indignity or shame of having to utilise a sidewalk for a restroom, let alone live in the filth,” added Andy Bales, head of the Union Rescue Mission.

The crisis of the area knows no bounds. Skid Row, for many of years, highlights a significant flaw in the ever-expanding metropolis thats is Los Angeles and it’s bustling glitz, glamour and rolling gentrification.

One LA photographer, Suzanne Stein, knows all to well of the issues facing the city and the people forced to live in the poverty of Skid Row. “When drugs are involved to the extent that they are for many people in this environment, there is such a driving need to consider their own personal needs,” she told Feature Shoot about the relationships she built with the people of Skid Row. “Many of these people have abandoned family members and children for complex reasons or because of placing their own needs first.”

She added: “People become numb. They’re so used to serious troubles, and when they speak about what’s going on, it can take on a strange, alternate reality kind of normalcy. The lack of tearful emotion makes it strangely easier for the listener.”

Here is an example of here work:

(All images via Suzanne Stein)