Every first and third Wednesday of the month, people in MacArthur Park walk with a bit more confidence, a bit more normalcy in their lives.
As many of the park’s unhoused residents sit around surrounded by broken glass, discarded trash and used drug paraphernalia, it can seem like there isn’t much hope. Resources are thin or insufficient. Drug trafficking and law enforcement are a common presence. But on the park’s corner of Wilshire and Alvarado, two short lines form. People wait patiently for the simplest of reliefs: free haircuts.
The haircuts are provided along with free food and donated clothing by local faith-based nonprofit Teen Challenge Los Angeles. Their mission is to help men, women and children going through life-altering issues, including drug addiction, mental illness, homelessness or even attempting to step away from gang life.
For people in and around the park, the services can be a lifeline — but even the simple act of being seen and respected is meaningful.
“Everyone you see here today, we’ve been through it,” 28-year-old member Christian Maciel said. He’s been a part of the nonprofit since 2023 after becoming homeless due to his addiction to fentanyl, heroin and other drugs. Originally from South Central, he showed up to help hand out food and clothing.
“We were there, we were all ex-addicts, but I don’t even like to call it that,” he said. “We were just hurt people going through it who made the wrong decision.”
Many of the group’s members struggled with addiction before becoming volunteers. They participated in the organization’s free one-year housing program that helps people get their life back on track. The Los Angeles group’s parent organization has been around since the early ‘60s and runs hundreds of rehabilitation centers all over the country.
The program isn’t a 12-step recovery program, but a residential inpatient program that relies on religious counseling, holistic healing and acceptance of their Christian community. Macias never forgot the people who showed up when he was at his lowest, providing him with food or clothing. He wants to pay it back.
Terry Cook, who waited in line for a haircut on a recent Wednesday, noted how people in the neighborhood often see unhoused people like him around the park.
“They think that we’re trash, that we don’t need to be living,” the 58-year-old said.
He’s lived on the street for almost three years and acknowledged the park needs fewer drugs and more resources, whether that’s heavier police presence or shelters for the unhoused.
Cook refuses to lose his positivity. He said he doesn’t mind his situation. At least he only has one bill to pay, his phone, he said.
He didn’t get a chance to get his hair cleaned up that day. The resource pop-up lasted about an hour, and more people lined up for haircuts than the group could serve.
Frank Lopez, 41, was appreciative of the trim he received, but he echoed that it’s not just about the haircut.
“Most people count everybody here out. We all have special gifts, most of the people here just forgot,” Lopez said. “They forgot how to activate those gifts.
Lopez has been unhoused for three months, and he’s been relying on friends who let him couch surf. Other nights, he stays awake on the streets with nowhere to go. The bartender gave up his apartment after business declined at his job, and he could no longer afford rent.
He’s struggled with drug addiction since childhood, and he currently uses fentanyl and meth on a daily basis. He admitted it doesn’t do him any good, but he said it helps him ease the pain from trauma in his life.
Lopez believes resources like the free haircuts and food are helpful to people like him, but he also believes some programs like the clean needle distribution enable folks to stay and use at the park. After his haircut, he quickly gelled his hair and headed out confidently for his day.
It amounts to a bit of hope, and Macias with Teen Challenge said that can make all the difference.
“I know when I felt fresh, even when my situation was bad, it didn’t feel as bad if I left rejuvenated,” Macias said. “Even if it was just for a moment, I felt a glimpse of what regular life was like. For one moment you feel human again.”