Michael E. Neely, a Vietnam veteran who evolved from the fiery leader of Skid Row's March to the Sea to become one of the most innovative and influential minds in Los Angeles homeless and social services policy, has died at age 74.
A former Marine and recovering drug addict, Neely was living in a cardboard box on Skid Row in 1988 when he came up with the idea of sending a team of formerly unhoused people out to guide their peers through the maze of social services. The concept was a prototype for Mayor Karen Bass' Inside Safe program to get people out of encampments.
Under his direction, the agency developed into a national model offering mental, medical and drug treatment care, housing, outreach, harm reduction and prison reentry services.
