History of Skid Row - 6
Union Rescue Mission medical clinic, 1964.
LAHSA
One of the things that has come along to try to deal with that situation was the creation, a couple of years ago, of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which actually emerged out of a lawsuit between the City and the County as to who was more to blame for taking housing out of the area. But the result was the creation of a joint City-County entity that is responsible for the delivery and at least some funding of social services through the County, with the recognition that there is a substantial portion of those services delivered in the downtown area, and that there needs to be a fairly substantial amount of the resources devoted to that.
There are some interesting issues that probably still need to be looked at, and there are open questions right now. One of the policies that was adopted in 1976 with the redevelopment program was a policy that said that Central City East is a place to provide housing for single adults, it's not a place for families and children. So, there should not be any public funds directed toward the provision of facilities that will serve families and children on Skid Row because they don't belong there. There is nothing wrong with providing emergency intake services under this policy but there should not be permanent housing provided in Skid Row for that segment of the population: they belong in other neighborhoods, and every effort should be made to get them to other neighborhoods. There is, right now, a growing number of families and children in the Row, for which some of the institutions are providing not only emergency but also continuing housing and services, so that issue is by virtue of reality up for further discussion.
There is the continuing conflict between what appears to be a growing demand for new industrial space, and pressure on the balance of the housing stock.
One of the changes that took place in the neighborhood in the last 10 years is the introduction of the toy and wholesale electronics trade industries. Eleven years ago there weren't any such businesses. It is really in the last decade that they've developed here. It's kind of interesting to note that the police station at Sixth and Wall Streets was built as a blank wall building because essentially everything around it at the time was a blank wall building. The area has now evolved into a lot of small wholesalers that open out on the streets, so the police building has gotten out of synch with the style of the buildings around it, but it was completely in synch when it was built. That whole industrial base, that whole trade base, which is a very significant one in that it is primarily small family businesses, has gone from essentially zero to about three-quarters of a billion dollars a year in activity flowing through this neighborhood, in just about 10 years. It has substantially taken the ground floor space in the area that was agreed would be the area for housing expansion. So, the opportunities for additional housing to be introduced into that zone that was designated for new housing have been substantially reduced by the growth of the toy industry.
Affordable housing need
There is a continuing desire to try to come to some resolution to -- and with -- the population that's living on the streets. To the extent that some of that population is looking to be housed, it's a matter of providing an affordable supply. To the extent that there is a segment of the population that chooses not to be housed, that's a whole different question, and I won't even hazard to get into that.
One of the important things that is happening in this area is that it is showing economic growth, even as other parts of the downtown are not. While we were going through the major downsizing of the financial institutions, and the banks were laying off people left, right and center, this area was creating employment. So, you've got this whole shift of where employment growth is taking place in downtown that has emerged essentially in the same time period as the toy industry, and then particularly has continued to emerge while much of the rest of the region was in recession. So it's kind of an interesting anomaly that what most people consider to be the most depressed part of Los Angeles has got one of the best economic growth rates of the city. That gets to be more significant when you realize that much of the industrial space this side of the hills is not within the city. The majority of the industrially zoned land in the city of Los Angeles is in the San Fernando Valley. With the exception of Central City East area, and the area east of it across the river along Soto Street and down to the Vernon city boundary, and a short distance up on San Fernando Road and Mission Road, there is virtually no other significant industrial space within the city of Los Angeles until you get to the Harbor. There are small spots of isolated industrial zones, but virtually all of the industrial space that is in the corridor between downtown Los Angeles and San Pedro, Wilmington and Long Beach is in the county or in other municipalities, which is why the Alameda Corridor projectis real interesting because most of the industrial potential along it is at the two ends, and the two ends are in the city, but the corridor itself is not. The corridor has been largely welcomed by the communities that it goes through as a means of revitalizing and rebuilding those communities. It will have some impact in terms of providing some sites for development along the way, but essentially the corridor is a trench that will run trains that are put together at one end and taken apart at the other end, and if there are industrial opportunities that relate to it, they are at the two ends. And we're at one of them, up here.
One of the things that has come along to try to deal with that situation was the creation, a couple of years ago, of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which actually emerged out of a lawsuit between the City and the County as to who was more to blame for taking housing out of the area. But the result was the creation of a joint City-County entity that is responsible for the delivery and at least some funding of social services through the County, with the recognition that there is a substantial portion of those services delivered in the downtown area, and that there needs to be a fairly substantial amount of the resources devoted to that.
There are some interesting issues that probably still need to be looked at, and there are open questions right now. One of the policies that was adopted in 1976 with the redevelopment program was a policy that said that Central City East is a place to provide housing for single adults, it's not a place for families and children. So, there should not be any public funds directed toward the provision of facilities that will serve families and children on Skid Row because they don't belong there. There is nothing wrong with providing emergency intake services under this policy but there should not be permanent housing provided in Skid Row for that segment of the population: they belong in other neighborhoods, and every effort should be made to get them to other neighborhoods. There is, right now, a growing number of families and children in the Row, for which some of the institutions are providing not only emergency but also continuing housing and services, so that issue is by virtue of reality up for further discussion.
There is the continuing conflict between what appears to be a growing demand for new industrial space, and pressure on the balance of the housing stock.
One of the changes that took place in the neighborhood in the last 10 years is the introduction of the toy and wholesale electronics trade industries. Eleven years ago there weren't any such businesses. It is really in the last decade that they've developed here. It's kind of interesting to note that the police station at Sixth and Wall Streets was built as a blank wall building because essentially everything around it at the time was a blank wall building. The area has now evolved into a lot of small wholesalers that open out on the streets, so the police building has gotten out of synch with the style of the buildings around it, but it was completely in synch when it was built. That whole industrial base, that whole trade base, which is a very significant one in that it is primarily small family businesses, has gone from essentially zero to about three-quarters of a billion dollars a year in activity flowing through this neighborhood, in just about 10 years. It has substantially taken the ground floor space in the area that was agreed would be the area for housing expansion. So, the opportunities for additional housing to be introduced into that zone that was designated for new housing have been substantially reduced by the growth of the toy industry.
Affordable housing need
There is a continuing desire to try to come to some resolution to -- and with -- the population that's living on the streets. To the extent that some of that population is looking to be housed, it's a matter of providing an affordable supply. To the extent that there is a segment of the population that chooses not to be housed, that's a whole different question, and I won't even hazard to get into that.
One of the important things that is happening in this area is that it is showing economic growth, even as other parts of the downtown are not. While we were going through the major downsizing of the financial institutions, and the banks were laying off people left, right and center, this area was creating employment. So, you've got this whole shift of where employment growth is taking place in downtown that has emerged essentially in the same time period as the toy industry, and then particularly has continued to emerge while much of the rest of the region was in recession. So it's kind of an interesting anomaly that what most people consider to be the most depressed part of Los Angeles has got one of the best economic growth rates of the city. That gets to be more significant when you realize that much of the industrial space this side of the hills is not within the city. The majority of the industrially zoned land in the city of Los Angeles is in the San Fernando Valley. With the exception of Central City East area, and the area east of it across the river along Soto Street and down to the Vernon city boundary, and a short distance up on San Fernando Road and Mission Road, there is virtually no other significant industrial space within the city of Los Angeles until you get to the Harbor. There are small spots of isolated industrial zones, but virtually all of the industrial space that is in the corridor between downtown Los Angeles and San Pedro, Wilmington and Long Beach is in the county or in other municipalities, which is why the Alameda Corridor projectis real interesting because most of the industrial potential along it is at the two ends, and the two ends are in the city, but the corridor itself is not. The corridor has been largely welcomed by the communities that it goes through as a means of revitalizing and rebuilding those communities. It will have some impact in terms of providing some sites for development along the way, but essentially the corridor is a trench that will run trains that are put together at one end and taken apart at the other end, and if there are industrial opportunities that relate to it, they are at the two ends. And we're at one of them, up here.
Photograph from the Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library. Copyright Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States
