Local News in Brief : Council Candidate’s Skid Row Adventure
San Fernando Valley business executive Paul McKellips, a long-shot challenger to City Councilwoman Joy Picus, shed his three-piece suit to spend Thursday and Friday nights sleeping on the streets of Skid Row to learn first hand about the homeless problem.
An unshaven McKellips, penniless, with a Bible in hand and a bullet-proof vest under his old clothes, planned to spend 48 hours living on the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
While most candidates would have alerted the media beforehand, McKellips took to the streets quietly. His mission was discovered by accident when a reporter walked past him as he sat on the lawn of City Hall.
A $51,000-a-year vice president of an executive search firm, McKellips, 30, said he got the idea for his adventure from a seventh-grader whose class he addressed at Our Lady of the Valley Catholic School.
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