Hi, I'm Armin Alney with something new and something important for your podcast feed.

It's from one of KCRW's staff of excellent reporters going beyond the daily news.

It's called Samaritans.

And it's a very creative look at an issue we spent a lot of time talking about for the past several years,

the epidemic of people experiencing homelessness. Voters in both

the city of Los Angeles and beyond in the county have approved hundreds of millions of dollars to

address the problem, but it keeps getting worse. So why is that? Well, part of the answer is simple

enough. There's a growing shortage of affordable housing and shelters

don't do the job. So KCRW's Anna Scott wanted to find out what's happened to all that money.

And she did it through the eyes of somebody that voters wanted to help. For a full year, she followed

one woman through LA's homeless services system, such as it is, and she found a lot

of answers. She's put them together in a four-part documentary series about what she discovered, and about

Christine Curtis. She's the woman whose journey, you will soon get to know. All four parts are out now. Just

search for Samaritans. Again, that's Samaritans.

Wherever you listen to The Point, you will not be disappointed. Anybody can fall from grace.

You don't have to be a wealthy person. Anybody can. That's what I say about myself.

That's Christine Curtis. I met her last year. At the time, she was one of nearly 60,000 people homeless in L.A. County.

You could often find her on a bus bench in the neighborhood where I live, too, mid-city, usually with earbuds in and a baseball cap over her short blonde hair.

Oh, this is my friend Kim, my save.

She went to get me some breakfast at McDonald's.

One thing that struck me right away about Christine was how many friends she had,

friends who lived in houses in the neighborhood.

...