Education & Opportunity for Homeless

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People of the Abyss (2014)
In 1903, American author Jack London, wrote People of the Abyss. It is the story of his donning the attire of a hobo, entering London's East End and living amongst the starving, wretched and sick. And, like all Jack London stories (White Fang, The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, etc.) it is a great read; too bad he didn't have a smartphone to capture videos, send texts, store GPS settings, etc.

Larson Training Centers, (See Ciao Tutti's December cover story) is proud to announce that it has started a project (People of the Abyss (2014)), picking up where Jack London left off. Each day, he will submit true-to-life short reports and videos about what life is really like for the homeless.

Why does Larson Training Centers care? We want to create awareness of the problems associated with the lack of proper education, namely: drug abuse, homelessness, crime and prison. Society has an obligation to educate its members: period. Not to just provide a chance at education when young --including unearned promotion to the next grade, (thus "kicking the can" down the road and making it the next persons problem), until they drop-out on their own (and then blaming them for not finishing school).

Where do motivated but uneducated adults get another chance? Where do they have the opportunity to learn the basics: typing, MS Office, the Internet? Society provides no such education. Yes, there are "make believe" solutions but were there such a system to educate adults who missed being educated (for one or many of the hundreds of reasons) the problems would not exist today. Larson Training Centers is dedicated to helping motivated adults become financially secure through stable and meaningful employment in Customer Service, Administrative, Sales and Accounting positions.

We are proud that one of the founders of our Gladius Business School, Brad Stovall, is our first Jack London. Brad is 56 and as he describes it, "Has spent over half his life in prison on the installment plan:" (i.e. he is caught in California's system where 80% of convicts can't break the chains of recidivism because the system is operating as designed). Brad, like the chronic homeless, probably can't assimilate back into society. However, he is a great storyteller and he just can't give-up.

Currently, reports are being filed from "Felony Flats", Portland's worst area. Brad has three missions:
To provide daily reports and videos on what life is truly like for the homeless;

To find his replacement. Brad is walking from Coeur d'Alene, ID to Las Vegas via Los Angeles; and when he leaves each place the reports will continue to be filed by someone else.

To make arrangements with a shelter or church to enable Larson to set-up an online micro-campus (i.e. some computers specially configured computers that only enable Larson's curriculum, including live lectures via Google Cloud Apps).


Brad will be leaving for Eugene, OR soon. Larson Training Center students provide support, like: arranging for care packages and vital information (public restrooms, places to charge his phone, places to shower, emergency hospital facilities, etc.).

In 1650, Thomas Hobbes wrote about man that, life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Brad is suffering from a fractured tailbone (resulting from a fall down a stairway while retrieving a shirt stolen by a homeless person) and bleeding kidneys (resulting from an attack by three men bent on taking his few remaining possessions who thought Brad was asleep (he was trying to sleep) in a well in an abandoned church).

The only physical support that Larson supplies to Brad is a smartphone, care packages and $4 per day so that he has enough to feed himself. Prior to this, Brad was spending most of the daylight hour collecting enough bottles and cans to purchase a can of beans and a packet of Top Ramen.


Please go to (link for the People of the Abyss community) to see Brad's reports.