Nothing prepares you for Skid Row.
Not reading about it. Not seeing it on a screen. You have to stand there.
At The Midnight Mission, Skid Row — Los Angeles
Meditating with people rebuilding their lives.
Our profound thanks to The Midnight Mission and The Art of Elysium for making this visit possible.
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The reality of Skid Row
A few miles from Beverly Hills, Skid Row is one of the largest homeless encampments in the US — thousands living with addiction, mental illness, and the weight of daily survival. The contrast with the rest of Los Angeles is sharp — yet this area has its own richness and strength: support, community, resilience.
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A shared practice for our shared humanity
Our L.A. visit reminded us that meditation is our innermost right — a journey towards our deepest humanity.
From Beverly Hills to Skid Row, the contrast was stark — wealth and survival, comfort and crisis, within the same city limits.
Yet beneath these differences, something universal remains. A longing for joy. Thoughts and patterns that stand in our own way. The quiet need to come home to ourselves.
Meditation has a way of doing that — stripping everything back to what we share and revealing the capacity for change that lives in all of us. We felt it. The participants felt it.
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A Moment of Silent Mind
Our founder, Erkin Bek, alongside Dr. Chuong Ngo and Dr. Lionel Newman, led a meditation session in a room where, on any other day, survival is the primary concern.
The practice — rooted in self-attention, breath, and observing the quiet within — met participants exactly where they were. For many, it was the first time they had turned inward. A rare moment of genuine connection.
One participant raised his hand. He described thoughts he couldn’t silence: intrusive, violent, unbearable. A pressure so intense he felt desperate to escape from himself.
We sat together. We practiced.
Afterward, he said it was the first time he had felt free.
A staff member — someone who absorbs the weight of the residents’ hardest days as part of her own — shared that for the first time, she hadn’t felt anxious. She had simply been present. To herself. To the moment.
Everyone benefits from greater peace of mind — whether working through their own challenges or holding space for others to do the same.
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The message that travels
“Meditation is finding the Home Within — coming back to ourselves, wherever we are.”
From those of us in recovery to those of us in caregiving roles— it landed identically. Effortlessly. Profoundly.
That universality is precisely what AllHere exists to demonstrate: peace and inner freedom are not a luxury. They belong to every human – beyond circumstances.
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The Midnight Mission
For over a century, The Midnight Mission has stood at the heart of Skid Row — offering shelter, meals, addiction recovery, and job training to those working to rebuild their lives. It is one of America’s most enduring institutions dedicated to human dignity.
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The Art of Elysium
Founded by Jennifer Howell, The Art of Elysium has spent years building something quietly radical: the belief that art transcends circumstance. They bring artists to underserved communities — a vehicle for healing and human connection.
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We were asked when we would return.
We will.
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All Here is on a mission to make meditation accessible — offering science-tested techniques for everyone, everywhere, to find their way home within.
With deep gratitude to Jennifer Howell, Leslie Culp and the teams at The Midnight Mission and The Art Of Elysium.
If their work moves you, please consider supporting
And if you feel the Silent Mind Practice could serve your community, we would love to hear from you at welcome@allhere.org.
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