Peace and Healing center in Skid Row celebrates milestone despite challenges

SKID ROW, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A space for peace and healing in Skid Row recently celebrated a milestone, its one-year anniversary.

The Creating Justice Los Angeles Peace and Healing Center offers everything from free coffee to a book club and even a meditation room.

"This is different because we focus on social healing, economic healing, and environmental healing," said Pastor Stephen "Cue" Jn-marie.

Housed and unhoused community members are welcomed at the center for free coffee by Skid Row Coffee, clothes thoughtfully organized on a rack, smoothies by The Hip Hop Smoothie Shop, a worker-owned cooperative, and Freestyle Fridays.

"It's a social enterprise," said Jn-marie. "We wanted to find a way to democratize economics for the people in our community, the Skid Row community."

Wednesday afternoon, people gathered for the weekly book club.

"There's no conditions here," said "Mz. T," who attends the book club and helps support different events at the center. "You just have to show up. You're going to be fed, you're going to be loved on, you're going to be hugged on."

It's a place for social, emotional, and physical rest.

"Often times, folks go in the meditation room and they fall asleep," said Jn-marie. "Sometimes folks have been walking in the community, they haven't had a good night's sleep," he added.

Jn-marie, who has also pastored The Row Church, also known as "The Church Without Walls" in Skid Row for 17 years, uplifts the entrepreneurial spirit in the community. "They're trying to make a living, and so they cook, we have street vendors outside cooking every day," said Jn-marie.

For the center's one-year anniversary this month, Creating Justice LA hired local food vendors and artists to celebrate.

"Because we want to recycle the dollars back into the Skid Row community," said Jn-marie.

"When this place opened up, I knew I felt home," said Alfi, a formerly unhoused military veteran who has now been sheltered for seven years and who finds a community of friends in Skid Row.

He learned about the center through Skid Row People's Market, which Creating Justice LA plans to purchase.

"I'm able to leave all that hectic stuff at the door with no worries, no regrets," said Alfi. "I know there is always going two to three people here whenever I come here that I can talk to."

The L.A. Civil Rights Office announced $2 million for community-based organizations to operate peace and healing centers in areas known as L.A. REPAIR Zones, regions that are historically underserved and under-resourced.

Creating Justice LA said it had to use its reserves to open its doors and start operating the center one year ago and has since continued to see delays in the city grant payments.

"We're still waiting for the second half of the funding, yet we've already completed the program."

They plan to keep their doors open, regardless of whether they are funded by the local government. The center aims to continue combating mental health stigmas and fostering a sense of belonging.

"Once you come through the door, there's just this energy," said "Mz.T." "When you step foot on that ground, you know it's sacred -- it's like that here."