Over 11 years and 570 episodes, John Rabe and Team Off-Ramp scoured SoCal for the people, places, and ideas whose stories needed to be told, and the show became a love-letter to Los Angeles. Now, John is sharing selections from the Off-Ramp vault to help you explore this imperfect paradise.
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(THIS PIECE ORIGINALLY RAN IN MARCH ON OFF-RAMP)
Most people know Jon Bon Jovi as a rock hero. But for the last six years, he’s used his fame and money to fight homelessness. The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation has built 250 units of affordable housing around the country. When he’s on tour, Bon Jovi makes fact-finding visits to the poor parts of town to learn more about the causes and cures of homelessness.
Ahead of his gig at Staples Center (Thursday, March 4), on Monday he toured LAMP Community, the homeless center on Skid Row. Steve Lopez, the LA Times columnist who has chronicled the recovery of homeless musician Nathaniel Ayers, brought Bon Jovi to LAMP and was impressed with the work he's done.
(L-R: LAMP Interim Executive Director Shannon Murray, Jon Bon Jovi, LA Times columnist Steve Lopez, KPCC’s John Rabe.)
If you’re a big Bon Jovi fan, you know that Jon Bon Jovi’s Soul Foundation does a lot for homeless people. If you’re a former 1980s DJ who played Bon Jovi back then but wasn’t really into their music all that much, it might come as a surprise.
I’m in the latter camp, and now my eyes are open. The LA Times’ Steve Lopez (read his Skid Row stories here) got me invited to Jon’s tour of LAMP Monday afternoon. (Bon Jovi is in SoCal for the band’s big concert tour, and plays Staples Center Thursday.) Turns out Bon Jovi has been seriously working on the issue for years, since a day he saw a homeless man asleep in front of Philly’s city hall and said to himself, “I can do something about this.”
(Of this photo, Steve Lopez said, “While I am several years older than Jon, it’s interesting that we have exactly the same hair.”)
For the fans: JBJ is a really good looking 48-year old (DOB: 3/2/1962). Medium height, good hair, lean like Montgomery Clift, but with better arms. And best of all, smart and well-spoken. Here he is outside LAMP:
What I also liked: he wouldn’t sign some non-homeless jerk’s guitar, which was obviously destined for e-Bay, but he gladly and graciously signed autographs for homeless guys.