Homeless immigrant Luis Hernandez, originally from Mexico, walks past another homeless person, as he goes to work in the Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles. Picture: AP
FEW tourists venture away from the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles to see the underbelly of one of the world’s most dazzling cities.
On a trip to the City of Angels, I stayed in West Hollywood, mainly because I’d heard it was a safe area. But after I’d had enough of organic cafes serving eggwhite omelets and the palatial homes of A-listers, I booked a trip with Downtown LA Walking Tours.
My guide ran a fantastic group tour but it was afterwards that things became even more interesting.
I was interested to learn more about how people lived their lives in this area, so after the official tour my LA host showed me some of the tougher streets. She introduced me to the Skid Row neighbourhood and boy did I get a shock.
Dorris in Skid Row, an area of downtown Los Angeles.Source:Alamy
LA’s infamous “homeless neighbourhood”, an area consisting of 54 blocks, is a virtual no-go zone for tourists. This section of downtown is home to between 3000 and 6000 homeless men and women.
While most of downtown LA has undergone an image overhaul in recent years, Skid Row has been left untouched. The contrast between the newer areas of downtown and the streets of Skid Row is stark. In the space of minutes, you can be walking in front of restaurants, bars and shops in a revitalised area of downtown and then you turn a corner into Skid Row and you’re confronted by a place where it seems the residents have been completely forgotten.
The smells — that’s the part that hits you first. Not surprisingly, sanitary conditions here are shocking. It’s heartbreaking to see people living in such squalor, sleeping on public sidewalks and in scattered camps under tarps.
A homeless man trying to get some sleep.Source:AP
While New York City has the largest homeless population, LA has the highest unsheltered population in the country.
According to New York City’s website, the city’s unique right-to-shelter mandate ensures “temporary emergency shelter” for every man, woman and child who is eligible, every night. But not in the City of Angels, where two-thirds of the country’s 40,000 homeless people are without shelter. Many of these people live on the streets of Skid Row and in the suburbs surrounding downtown LA.
A man pushes a shopping cart full of plastic bottles, blankets and pillows.Source:AFP
Crime has jumped across the City of Angels this year, and nowhere has this increase been so dramatic as in downtown LA. Statistics from earlier this year showed a huge jump in crime. The city recorded a 12.7 per cent increase in the first six months of this year, compared to the same period last year, according to the LA Times. The sharpest increases occurred in the LA Police Department’s central division, which includes parts of downtown, Chinatown and Skid Row. Serious assaults in the LAPD’s central division are up more than 80 per cent so far this year.
Maria Romero talks to a friend who is cleaning up the area near her encampment inside a bridge that spans the concreted channel of the Arroyo Seco Creek.Source:AFP
In the vibrant downtown area, the forces of rapid gentrification have clashed with extreme poverty, homelessness and crime. In 1999, the Los Angeles City Council passed an “adaptive reuse ordinance”, making it easier for developers to convert unused office buildings in downtown LA into chic lofts and luxury apartments. Developer Tom Gilmore shook up downtown when he acquired three derelict buildings at Fourth and Main streets, not far from Skid Row.
He launched a project labelled the Old Bank District and a tidal wave of residential investment followed.
Tourists now venture downtown to visit restaurants, bars, galleries and museums — including the fantastic new contemporary art gallery The Broad.
Fernando Lopez bathes and does his laundry.Source:AFP
A pedestrian walks past a homeless man.Source:AFP
There are many other LA neighbourhoods where people are doing it tough. One of these is Compton, situated south of downtown. It is the birthplace of gangsta rap (see the movie Straight Outta Compton) and has a history riddled with crime, corruption and debt. Compton has one of the highest rates of unsolved homicides in LA County — and it has the only bulletproof drive-through funeral home in the California.
Another tough neighbourhood is Westmont, an unincorporated area adjacent to South LA. It’s one of the deadliest places to live in LA County, according to the LA Times. One of the longest running north-south streets in LA, Vermont Avenue, has been nicknamed “Death Alley”.
Homicides in ‘death alley’. Since 2007, 61 people have been killed on a 3km stretch on or near South Vermont Avenue, between Manchester Avenue and Imperial Highway. The area is the border of the Westmont and Vermont Vista neighbourhoods.
Between 2007 and 2014, about 60 people were killed, most shot to death, on this avenue, the LA Times reported.
Westmont’s neighbour to the east, Vermont Vista, shares Death Alley as a boundary.
When my LA host offered to drive me around Compton, Westmont and another notoriously dangerous suburb, Inglewood, the next day, I declined.
Skid Row was tough enough for me.
Tents occupied by the homeless line a freeway overpass.Source:AFP
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