Joseph has never fired his gun once during his time as an officer - and says he does not intend to

He hands out his cell phone number and email, as well as

An officer who has spent 17 years patrolling one of America's worst areas has found a way to keep the peace that focuses less on arrests, and more on helping those who have fallen on the most difficult of times.

Deon Joseph, or the Sheriff of Skidberry as he is known to many in the area, works on Skid Row, the Los Angeles neighborhood known for its overwhelmingly high homeless population, with some 2,000 people sleeping on the streets every night, and where drugs are drug addicts are all around.

He is less concerned with arrests however than with keeping the order by helping those in the community, preferring to do his rounds on foot and not in his squad car as he checks on the homeless and drug addicts, referring to them all as 'sir' or 'ma'am' to show them the respect they do not get anywhere else, and passes out hygiene kits to make sure they are staying clean.

Joseph has also never once fired his gun - and the LAPD says crime is dropping and the streets are safer and cleaner than they were just two years ago

LAPD officer Deon Joseph has patrolled Skid Row for 17 years, photo courtesy of Skid Row Stories

Skid Row is one of the worst neighborhood's in the country, with massive poverty, homelessness and drug usage

LAPD says crime is dropping and the streets are safer and cleaner than they were just two years ago

'You cannot separate the blight and crap that's out here from death,' Joseph told a CNN reporter as they walked through the area.

'One time I saw a guy sitting on a pile of trash and I saw a hand, a white hand. I thought it was a mannequin. It wasn't a mannequin. It was a dead woman. He didn't realize he was sitting on top of a dead woman, eating donated food.'

Joseph also shares stories of addicts he has seen drop hundreds of pounds as they succumb to drugs, the constant unsanitary conditions that give Skid row the smell of 'urine, feces and burning crack and weed,' and how, despite all of this, the people who live here are his people.

It's not just the hygiene kits that separate him from other officers around the country, but the self-defense class he teaches for women in the area called 'Ladies Night,' and the flyers he hands out letting people know how they can apply for housing and his belief that he would rather make sure an addict is alive and safe rather than arrest them.

He also hands out his cell phone and email info for anyone who wants to contact him at any time - and doesn't mind when residents refer to him as Deon and not Officer Joseph.

'I feel respect when they call me by my first name, and I show them respect by calling them sir or ma'am.'

Homeless people rest on a public sidewalk in downtown Skid Row

Officer Joseph believes that the key to helping Skid Row residents is affordable housing

Joseph spends his days passing out his email and cell phone number to people so they can contact him

The only thing he can't provide is the one thing he believes Skid Row needs more than anything to turn things around - affordable housing.

'Skid Row is a toxic petri dish that thwarts any form of recovery,' says Joseph.

'We have beer barons selling singles for $2, right outside AA meetings.'

This may be the time that things do finally turn around for the area however, which will hopefully benefit from the $2billion earmarked for subsidized housing in next year's $1.1trillion federal spending bill.

As for Joseph, his path to the job seems to be the direct result of a life changing mistake his father almost made as a younger man.

Angered over the murder of his father, Joseph's grandfather, by a 16-year-old white boy in Louisiana, his rage almost put him on the path to a life of crime - until he tried to mug a preacher at gunpoint.

'Put that gun down, boy,' the man said.

'You're not going to jail today, but I want to see you in church.'

He did go to church, and would later pay that opportunity for a second chance forward, started a construction company that made a point of employing ex-convicts.

'You cannot separate the blight and crap that's out here from death,' said Joseph

Joseph and Officer Banks working remote cameras placed in LA's Downtown Skid Row

Joseph devotes almost all his time to Skid Row, which he consider his neighborhood and whose residents are his people

Joseph's mother meanwhile spent her time feeding the homeless, while also raising the 41 foster children the family took in.

And now, Joseph is continuing the family tradition of helping others, no matter what their circumstance.

'This is what I have to do, he explains.