Whispering at Ground Level: How to Build Trust with People Suffering on the Street

A conversation with Anthony Ruffin

Season 2 | Episode 6 | June 4, 2021

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Anthony Ruffin is a gifted and compassionate crisis worker who relentlessly seeks to establish trust with  the most vulnerable people living on the streets. His career spans working with both nonprofit organizations and the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. He gives homage to a mentor who many were privileged to know during her amazing and courageous life of caring and service, Mollie Lowery of Housing Works

In this interview, we are going to gain vicarious insight into Anthony’s approach and see the realities of this human crisis through his eyes. Anthony has visited Trieste twice and he will compare and contrast how people with mental illness are cared for in that community in comparison with the U.S. 

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Articles that have shined a light on Anthony's compassionate approach:

• A true L.A. hero: For people dying on L.A. streets, he offers help, and he won't take no for an answer - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

• The Fight to House Hollywood's Sickest Homeless - The Atlantic

• 'It's almost like a death watch': Severely ill homeless people are at risk of dying on the streets of Hollywood - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

• Homelessness: A walk along Skid Row in L.A.—block by bleak block (calmatters.org)

• Should California expand what it means to be 'gravely disabled'? - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)