Quincy Brown, aka Pastor Blue, is a longtime street pastor who harnessed his own lived experience of homelessness to build a community resource center in the Street Sanctuary. His dual history working in both street-based economies and the church arena give him unique points of connections to participants and make him a trusted and well-known figure among both residents a fellow service providers. He provides organizational oversight and can still be found at the community center daily, meeting spiritual, physical and social needs as they arise and via his "boots-off, feet-in-the-mud" leadership style, sweeping and cleaning the streets daily while belting out gospel songs. The resident Bones Boss, he dares anyone to beat him in Dominoes.

Amelia Rayno is a bilingual guerrilla journalist and advocate who has worked and lived in marginalized communities across the Americas, from embedding with a group of revolutionary gang desisters in El Salvador to learning from survivors of state terrorism in Argentina. Involved with Blue Hollywood Street Sanctuary since 2020, she provides administrative oversight, case management and on-the-ground outreach, particularly within the newly arriving community of migrant families. Rayno lived out of her van in Skid Row for years, learning from the community while enduring many of the same logistical challenges of living “off grid.” She also teaches bi-weekly community yoga classes at nearby partner Umeya.

Devon “Hollywood” Cosey arrived to Skid Row “on the run” 20 years ago, but quickly came to admire the radical acceptance inherent in the unorthodox community, and realized there were unacknowledged social roles to fill. “Skid Row takes in and loves all of the rejects, the misfits, the outkasts,” he said. “Everyone is treated the same. If you spend time here, you become an unlicensed social worker, a therapist and all of that.” Hollywood was one of the first people in Skid Row to greet Pastor Blue when he arrived, sharing sidewalk space to set up the nascent Street Sanctuary in 2019. Today Hollywood is BHSS’ master barber, providing free haircuts every Thursday, and helps manage the daily functions of the Street Sanctuary. He typically announces his presence by riding onto the block on bicycle, hollering out his signature phrase “I ain’t lyin!” to a boombox soundtrack.

Jeffrey McGee, a Harlem, NY-native nicknamed “Jazz,” has been in the Los Angeles area since the late 90s, when he came to California to get sober and wound up as a drug counselor. “The best are the ones who lived it,” he says, “the ones who were addicts themselves.” But in 2018, personal tragedy struck, and brought him to Skid Row to live. Jazz says he came here to kill himself, but found community instead. These days, he works hard to feed that community. A spoken word artist, Jazz is also helping to plan an upcoming open-mic night at BHSS.

Janine “Ni Ni” Blake first came to know Skid Row as a safety net — arriving first as a teenager leaving foster care, and years later as a post-incarceration drug program participant. But what was once the place with “the only bed available,” was ultimately a place of healing. “Now I want to be here,” says Blake, who previously worked as a case manager for Volunteers of America. “Because this is where I was accepted and where I found my family. I get the love here that our own flesh and blood didn’t give me.” Ni Ni, among other duties, serves hot drinks and pastries weekly during Coffee and Cuts and serves as the “Mama” of the community, continually cooking and caring for her friends and neighbors. Ever chic and fashionable, her nail game is best on the block.

IAMFAITH is a non-binary artist, medical assistant and social advocate who spent four years as a hospital corpsman in the Navy and has dreams of building an inclusive bed and breakfast and a trans-affirming hospital. Always the most colorful person on the street, IAMFAITH says “community giving is threaded” in their DNA, and often shows up with home-cooked dishes like steak tacos or chocolate waffles for the staff and community.

Rico Solomon is a South Central LA native who has been spending time in the Skid Row neighborhood — a place he describes as “fascinating and continually changing” — since 2014, and has since become a known face throughout the area’s extensive micro communities. The in-house grill master, Solomon also writes a regular column (coming soon to our blog!) filled with stories and reflections from the never-dull days in Skid Row.

Mo, an Eastside LA native, has held a lot of roles in his life — from DJ to plumber to barber, but perhaps the one that has stuck the most is his affinity for community-based work in the streets. Working in non-profits for 30 years — including his own, Each One Teach One, an organization that focused on gang intervention in South Central — Mo continues to give back at Blue Hollywood. Every Thursday, Mo gives our participants free haircuts and shaves, serving up dignity with a soundtrack and a smile.