Angelus News | May 31, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 20

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Growing homeless encampments on Skid Row often crowd out local businesses, making it difficult for them to survive. VICTOR ALEMÁN Facing LA’s ‘human catastrophe’ with faith On Skid Row, one civic leader takes on a crisis that new rules and new money can’t solve alone BY R.W. DELLINGER / ANGELUS Few faces peek out of the stained pup tents and tarp encampments lining both sides of Crocker Street in LA’s Skid Row as a black Subaru SUV passes by slowly. Water is trickling out of a broken fire hydrant; garbage spills out of plastic bags; a mutt is sleeping on the sidewalk next to broken-down bicycles. “The bicycle is a big currency down here,” said Estela Lopez from behind the wheel. “Folks see them and take them apart for parts to buy drugs. Narcotics really rule their world down here. And these tents go up in flames constantly. See the burnt marks on that building? Lately, it’s revenge. Like: ‘I told you I don’t want you on this block.’ “It’s territorial because a lot of gangs are down here now. They have a ready supply of customers. Their only intention to be here is to sell narcotics and to keep people rooted to the sidewalk. And if people can’t pay, then they’re recruited to sell drugs, too. And if they’re women, it’s prostitution.” Lopez has worked on Skid Row for 20 years, years that have included 20 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019
more than one stint as executive director of the Central City East Association’s Downtown Industrial District Business Improvement District. There are some 45 “BIDs,” as they are called, throughout Los Angeles, including eight in downtown alone. She started the first one back in 1993 in the historical theater district on Broadway. Their stated purpose is to enhance safety, maintenance, economic development, and communication programs beyond what the city can provide. But Lopez said her BID today — which takes in 49 square blocks from San Pedro to Alameda streets between 3rd Street to Olympic Boulevard — has had to take on much more serious and basic day-to-day responsibilities. Why? Because it encompasses Skid Row, home to the largest number of unsheltered homeless in the nation. “Our commercial property owners here tax themselves $2 million annually for our services, which were never intended to deal with this human disaster,” she told Angelus News during a ride-along last fall, shaking her head. “The job with business improvement districts is to make the sidewalks look nice and empty trash cans. You know, make the place look inviting. We’re not supposed to be a response to a human catastrophe.” At 6th and Crocker streets, we approached a blue, tarped tent stretching 50 feet. One pitbull stood guard while another dozed. A couple of young men wearing pressed white T-shirts over baggy khaki shorts were standing around smoking. They were selling a strain of marijuana laced with more addicting drugs, Lopez explained. And even though the combination can make people violently sick, she said the demand stays high. Then Lopez pointed out a brick storefront with no windows.The small business, like a lot here, dealt in textiles, selling to the nearby fashion district. The owner, a BID member, has complained when tents were so close together he couldn’t make deliveries or receive buyers. He told her recently that he came out to ask a guy if he could make some space because he had a special delivery coming in. The guy lifted up his shirt, showing a pistol stuck in his waistband, and demanded, “Make me!” “Now look,” observed Lopez near San Pedro and 6th streets, looking out the front windshield at a couple sprawled on an Army blanket across the sidewalk between tents. “Human beings shouldn’t live like this. People who should be qualifying for housing, people who should be getting mental health help are instead laying on the sidewalk here just looking to see how they can get their next high. “I think mental illness is expressing itself more openly now, too, because I see so many people down here who are just lost. I mean, you can tell they’re mentally ill. And they’ve found their way here, I think, to quiet the voices inside their head. And the drug dealers are here to service them.” ‘Camping atmosphere’ In November 2016, LA City voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition HHH, authorizing $1.2 billion in bonds to build or rehab 10,000 housing units for people who are homeless. Four months later, Los Angeles County voters passed Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax on themselves. An estimated $355 million a year for 10 years was promised to be raised, which would provide so-called “wraparound” services to go with the new housing and help the homeless transition into stable, affordable housing. Those services include mental health and addiction counseling, money management, and job counseling. A different ‘BID’ Lopez said her BID is “far from that beautification point of what BIDs are supposed to do.” With three dump trucks, the Skid Row BID does pick up between five to seven tons of trash daily, and her hired 15 formerly homeless street workers from the job-training Chrysalis Center sweep the streets regularly. But much of their time is spent dealing with crisis calls from local businesses to clean up feces, urine, and vomit in front of their establishments with “targeted” pressure washing from another truck (not to be confused with the block-by-block pressure washing the city’s sanitation department regularly does). A private security force of seven workers often has to go out with them for protection. Estela Lopez, executive director of the Central City East Association, has worked on Skid Row for 20 years. “I’m watching people not live on Skid Row,” she said. “I’m watching them die on Skid Row.” VICTOR ALEMÁN May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 21
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Angelus News | May 31, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 20

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