Faces of L.A.’s Jobless: A Neon Tommy Special Report >>>

On the second floor of an apartment building in Compton, there is a unit with all the basics.

There is a television and some furniture; cooking necessities; and a touch of character that usually appears when someone has been living in a home long enough, like this owner’s collection of sunbathing kitchen plants. 

For Kelly Warren, 40, these basics are all that she has.

Warren has been unemployed since August of last year. The only source of income for her and her two-year-old son is a monthly welfare check for $302.

“Each month I have to go without paying one of the bills and get an extension on it and that’s difficult. I have to pay the lights and let the gas go,” said Warren, sitting on a plastic folding chair in the middle of the living room.

Along with many other Angelenos, Warren has been forced to sacrifice in the merciless face of unemployment. Warren admits that giving up even life’s smallest luxuries is a difficult challenge to face. She doesn’t eat out, she doesn’t have cable, and she doesn’t even wash her clothes as often as she would like to, but Warren won’t complain.

“There are people worse off than me. I’m not alone in this. I take the good with the bad and keep on going,” said Warren.

She feels hindered by her lacking education and frustrated by her intense drive to work hard without the opportunity. However, Warren knows she is not the only one struggling. Warren explained that she has even created a network functioning on the values of “give and take” with friends and neighbors who feel the same pressures of the harsh economy.

“When my TV broke in my room, I let her borrow my converter box, so she offered to drive me places in her car,” said Warren, talking about a neighbor downstairs.

Kelly Warren may not live in excess, but she made sure that it was clear that she is grateful to be blessed with enough to get by. It is more than other people in this country can say.

Her major sacrifices became necessary a year and a half ago when she couldn’t afford to pay off a car loan. She had a 1996 Buick Regal that she had been making payments on since 2004, but she fell too far behind the gathering interest rate and lost it.

She worked as an in-home care aid before the Buick was repossessed. She watched over an elderly couple, the Wilsons, and loved it.

“They had never been around an African American in their life. The husband didn’t talk to me the first month I was there, but he accepted the help. The wife was totally different, she loved me. She was giving me everything even though she wasn’t supposed,” said Warren.

One of the most important duties in Warren’s job description as an aid was providing transportation for the Wilsons so they could run errands and attend doctor’s appointments for Mr. Wilson’s diabetes.

When her car was taken, she no longer fit the necessary qualifications required by the company that contracted her. She was left to rely on the kindness and loyalty embedded in the relationship between her and her employees.

“Mrs. Wilson wanted to hire me privately, but the sons wouldn’t allow it...one of the sons was worried just about himself,” said Warren. She was let go and is still jobless.

Warren said that she has never been in a position quite like the one she is in now, drawing out budgets with less than $75 a week and spending endless hours online searching for a job. Even when the smallest opportunities show signs of promise, there is always one thing that quashes her hope--she does not have her high school diploma.

“I get interviews...but a lot of jobs I’m qualified for, I can’t get because I don’t have a GED. The GED is $81.00 and sacrificing that would put my bills in danger,” said Warren.

Warren grew up in a family of 24 brothers and sisters. Her mother had six children and her father had 18, mostly from different sets of parents. When she was a little girl, she fantasized about working in a hospital as a nurse, satisfying her desire to help people.

But being surrounded by a dysfunctional family made it so her dreams didn’t always come true. Warren described how her father abused her mother and to retaliate, her mother struck back with violence. She claimed that her mother even went to jail for scalding her father with hot water. Both parents are deceased now, but when her mother passed away in 1988, Warren made a decision that would set the stage for her struggles today. She dropped out of high school and began her long and turbulent journey through the work force.

“Ever since then, I go with the flow,” said Warren, watching her 21-year-old son play with her toddler.

Warren has had many jobs in the past two decades. Most of them were offered through specialized programs for the unemployed that lasted only six months to one year. The short term commitment made it difficult for her to become stable. She has worked at the post office, the Inglewood Code Enforcement office, the fast-food chain restaurant Del Taco, and on various AmeriCorps projects.

One of her favorite experiences was the chance to enroll in Youthbuild USA, a six to 24 month program for low-income young adults that prepares them with job skills by building affordable housing in their communities.

“I got hired doing construction work. I was a carpenter slash plumber for two years. It was hard work, hard, hard work. The men never have sympathy for you, but they did guide me,” said Warren.

Construction was not a glamorous career, but the Youthbuild program allowed Warren to travel all over the United States. She visited Boston, New York, and Chicago, participating in youth conferences for troubled kids.

“I got to meet a lot of people...I was the person that got involved in everything they offered,” said Warren.

She explained that some times the program leaders will still reach out to her and ask her to speak at an event in Los Angeles. She is paid a small stipend as a thank you for her help, but the search to find a stable job has taken priority over that little bit of cash.

Warren’s future is uncertain. She dreams of running a transitional home for women who have been in prison, but for now she relies on the generosity of her family to move her along. One of her mother’s sons who lives in Riverside, Calif. sends Warren cash when she is drowning in bill notices. Also, every month her father’s sister take Warren’s younger son, Joshua, to get a hair cut.

“I hate asking for stuff. Anything. I’ve been independent for so long,” said Warren. Warren has been forced to ask for help and she has been forced to give up the nonessentials of life, but she said she will not be forced into forgetting what has been good in her life.

There are magnets covering almost every inch of her worn-down fridge, representing the places she has visited and the things she loves. There’s a bright yellow Boston banner, a miniature White House that says Washington D.C. and many different cooking items. Some people might say the refrigerator door looks cluttered, but Warren said it’s just a fun, simple hobby of hers.

Perhaps it’s something that reminds her of the good things in life and pushes her forward during the hard times that she is sure will end eventually.

“I just keep on going. There ain’t nothing that’s gonna stop me. Eventually in the long run something will come up,” said Warren, walking out of the kitchen.