I’ve been working with Union Rescue Mission (URM) recently. It’s the countries oldest and largest homeless shelter in the country serving over 20,000 meals to the poor and homeless of Skid Row weekly. The homeless community in LA County is at epidemic proportions with numbers ranging from 70-90,000 and URM and the other missions on Skid Row are leading the charge to equip individuals with skills and services to break the cycle. What I’ve been learning over the last few months is that homelessness is a complex issue. The reasons for a man, woman or family on the street are as diverse as the people themselves. One of the staggering statistics is that the average age of someone who is homeless on the streets of America is 9! I’ve had a chance to be at URM a lot more recently and what always strikes me when I come into their facility is that people are fighting for life and death on the streets all around them. It feels like the country gas station on the side of the road after a long journey and you’re almost out of gas. Having just recently traveled through the desert and almost breaking down, I can really appreciate that.

Over the past 6 months Chronicle Project has been working with URM capturing some of the stories of what’s happening at their facility and a glimpse into the lives of their residents. A few weeks back we launched a video podcast of these stories and the iTunes staff selected it as “New and Notable” and since then it’s been in the top 100 of Non-Profit Podcasts on the iTunes Network.

So here’s my encouragement - subscribe to this podcast, especially if the issue of homelessness is important to you. In the coming weeks we’ll be adding a video FAQ hosted by URM’s CEO Andy Bales as well as some seriously great stories about Skid Row’s finest.

Check out Stories from Skid Row and don’t be afraid to share it

I’m starting some work with The Chronicle Project out of LA and with an upcoming project I’m doing music supervision for a series of short films. Chronicle Project got popular with their groundbreaking documentary on the HIV/AIDS situation in Swaziland. After scoring some seriously street cred at the film festivals it was picked up by Showtime.

Still being the relative newbie to L.A. Bands, I’m doing a bit of an open casting call in looking for some music for an upcoming shorts on the homeless situation in LA County. As far as style the big thing is that it’s instrumental. Hip-hop beats to experimental funk - I could use it all. The moods of the shorts varies from hard edged to really emotional.

If you’re band fits this criteria - I’d be very interested to hear your art.

Qualified Musicians will have:
Located in LA or call LA home.
A high quality record of their music.
Instrumental tracks or instrumental versions of current tracks.

Send me an email with a link to you myspace, website or ftp to listen to the tracks.

…out for now..
Dan Portnoy