“There are about fifty-eight thousand homeless people in Los Angeles County. To walk through the streets of Skid Row to the Midnight Mission is to feel shame for the state of the city and the state of the country. Block after block, the sidewalks are crammed with tents, boxes, broken furniture, and shopping carts full of possessions. To enter the mission, you have to step over people in sleeping bags. It is, however, a different experience to visit the Midnight Mission with Vijay Gupta, an L.A. Phil violinist, who, in 2011, founded Street Symphony. He greets both residents and staff with smiles, handshakes, banter, and an explosive laugh.”