Woman Visits LA-Area Homeless Shelters on the Trail of Her Long-Lost Mother

It has been 20 years since Robin Burton last saw her mother.

"My mom's a paranoid schizophrenic so she's always comes home for a little bit, then left for a little bit," Burton said.

She's been searching ever since her mother, Cloudia Leslie Wells, left her home in Maryville, Illinois, but she got renewed hope this December, when a private investigator called to say her mother used her social security number at a homeless shelter in Santa Monica.

Then confirmation came, in the form of a picture appearing to show Burton's mother from a 2013 Los Angeles Times article.

"It was her," Burton said.

So she's come to Los Angeles from Illinois, handing out fliers showing a picture of her mother, who was last seen in San Diego. Burton is reaching out from Skid Row and down the coast, hoping that someone has seen Wells.

Burton, who was 15 years old when her mother left, says she just wants to tell her mother she loves her again: "Even if you don't want to come home, let me see you, let me talk to you."