Will Actor Brad Renfro’s Arrest In Skid Row Actually Help The Homeless?

You know how celebrities take up the causes of the poor and hurting… kids with cancer, starving people in Africa, people with AIDS, and, of course, people who are homeless.

Typically these star-studded efforts are manifest in glitzy dinners and Madison Avenue driven public service announcements.

How about a different take? Have a celebrity get arrested for trying to buy heroin in downtown L.A.’s Skid Row, and publish the arrest photo on the front page of the L.A. Times… That’s what happened to one of Hollywood’s young actors yesterday.

With the pressure of homeless “dumping,” emotional stories of people living in Skid Row thanks to the L.A. Times, and the report of people dying in downtown, the pressure is on for something to happen.

So LAPD is beginning to clean up Skid Row, starting with drug dealing and buying. With their nets spread out yesterday, seeking to catch those “outsiders” (i.e., suburbanites driving into L.A. supporting downtown’s drug dealing operations by supporting their own drug habits), they caught a famous fish… Brad Renfro. (More here.)

Perhaps this is the moment when our community will realize that there really is a problem in downtown. That the problem isn’t just homeless people living on the streets. But the problem is “outsiders” coming into downtown causing the trouble.

Brad Renfro becomes the poster child for “outsiders” coming to Skid Row, buying into a drug dealing system that is messing up our city’s core. A system that preys on the homeless, feeding them hopelessness.

Perhaps, Brad’s arrest—splashed on the front page—will actually encourage our community to now do something about Skid Row.

Perhaps, this poster child, unbeknown to him, might very well have helped the homeless.