Readers React: Honoring the women who have made a difference on skid row

To the editor: In celebrating the compassion and generosity of Anne and Kirk Douglas, who funded a homeless shelter for women, there’s a bit of skid row history that we shouldn’t forget. (“Anne Douglas celebrates her birthday at the skid row women’s shelter that bears her name,” April 27)

In 1978, a dedicated outreach worker named Jill Halverson realized that homeless women had no place to shower or find respite from the streets. She found the support and funding to create the original small yellow building we called the Downtown Women’s Center. Her work has resulted in the amazing DWC as it is today.

Anne Douglas and Halverson are models for all of us: They saw something that desperately called for change and did what was in their power to make that change.

Harriet Glickman, Sherman Oaks

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