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scar on his chest and pre-
scription medication in his
backpack. Blood had pud-
dled on a cardboard mat
near his mouth.
In L.A. County this year,
nearly three homeless peo-
ple are dying each day on
the streets, in vehicles,
shelters, hospitals and
parks. Robinson was the
third homeless person to die
that day, and the 680th this
year. By Friday afternoon, 18
more had died, bringing the
count to 698.
There’s a lot I could say
about that, but the numbers
don’t need my amplifica-
tion. You only have to do the
math. There are an esti-
mated 60,000 homeless
people in the county. If the
current pace continues,
more than 1,000 of them will
die, topping last year’s total
of 921. That’s one in 60.
We’ll never know all their
back stories, but having
watched Munoz load Rob-
inson’s body into a coroner’s
van, I wanted to know this
one. Maybe there’d be some-
thing in it to help us figure
out what everyone wants to
know: How did we end up
with as many homeless
people as Arcadia has resi-
dents, who are they, and
what do we have to do to get
in front of this epidemic?
Lola Robinson arrived at
the Greyhound station in
Los Angeles before dawn
Thursday. She had taken an
overnight bus from Las
Vegas, traveling with her
son, Stephan, to claim her
husband’s property and
make burial arrangements.
When I picked them up, I
already knew part of Alvin
Robinson’s story because I’d
spoken to Lola and Stephan
by phone. Lola met Alvin at
a party in Bakersfield when
they were in their 20s. They
married in 1984, had five
children and every expecta-
tion of a normal life, with
Alvin working at restau-
rants and at a carpet com-
pany.
But Alvin grew increas-
ingly erratic and unreliable
over time, Lola said. He
drank, he dipped into drugs
and was sometimes guided
by irrational thoughts no
one could fathom. He was a
loner who disappeared for
long stretches, came home,
then vanished again.
“He had a prosthetic eye”
from an accident as a child,
“and he felt that people were
looking at him or talking
about him, even his own
children,” Lola said.
“He would not admitthat he had mental issues,”
she went on, “and he was
not going to try to get help
because according to him,
he was good. But if people
knew what I went through
and lived through, they
would be amazed.”
The coroner’s office
wasn’t open yet when Lola’s
bus pulled into L.A., so we
went to breakfast near
Union Station. A few home-
less people had congregated
near the Denny’s parking
lot, and while we ate, Lola
eyed a dirt-crusted, manic,
nearly naked man ranting
outside.
We know, of course, that
thousands of people in our
jails and on the streets are
mentally ill. Seeing the pain
in Lola Robinson’s eyes
reminded me that every one
of them represents a fam-
ily’s heartbreak and frustra-
tion. Every family wonders
how it can be, in a civilized
society, that sick people
languish.
Lola showed me some
family photos, including
one in which she wore a
fine dress, had just come
from church, and was preg-
nant with Stephan, their
first child, who is now 34.
She wanted me to take a
close look at the photos and
tell her if I was sure that
was the man I saw in West
L.A.
She sagged when she
heard my answer.
There were good times,
she said, and happy mo-
ments. But she raised the
kids largely on her own while
working. She moved from
Bakersfield to Las Vegas in
2004 and he came to live
with her for nine months in
2006, when he had surgery
for a leaky heart valve. Then
he disappeared. She had
not heard from him in more
than 10 years when she got
the phone call from the
coroner’s office.
Lola had a rough start in
her own life, which began in
Modesto. She said that
mental illness ran in her
family, and that she was
regularly beaten with a hose
while in foster care.
She dotes on her five
children, her blessings, but
lost a 2-year-old grand-‘I can’t leave him like he’s a nobody’
STEPHAN ROBINSONcarries his father’s backpack outside the coroner’s office Thursday. “That’s a huge
backpack,” he said. “It’s probably everything he had to his name.” With Stephan is his mother, Lola Robinson.Patrick T. FallonFor The Times[Lopez,from A1]
LOLA ROBINSON with Alvin in a family photo. They met at a party in Bakers-
field when they were in their 20s, married in 1984 and had five children.Family photo[SeeLopez,A15]‘He would not
admit that he had
mental issues, and
he was not going
to try to get help
because according
to him, he was
good.’
— Lola Robinson,
wife of Alvin