Henry Apodaca

This collaborative project by UCR and LA Poverty Dept with LA County Health Dept and grassroots activists enhances ethical digital access to first-person narratives and archival documents from the Skid Row History Museum & Archive related to healthcare and housing justice. It foregrounds the lived expertise of Skid Row residents who are unhoused, low-income, use drugs, & otherwise marginalized to demonstrate community origins of visionary approaches to harm reductions, “housing first,” and peer-care networks. The project provides a primary source foundation for integrated housing and health policy, directly combating narrative loss, structural stigma, and the defunding of crucial public health programs. It builds capacity for advocacy, research, skills sharing and new knowledg co-creation.