On Skid Row, decades of frustration. Will the next mayor have a plan?

When I walked through Skid Row to meet Estela Lopez, things looked as good as they had when I spent time there. more than 20 years ago and he began to hear promises that things would get better soon.

Tents line some of the roads, making them impassable. Some people wore the ravages of physical or mental illness, addiction, poverty, or all of the above. Organizational outreach workers with ID cords roam the wasteland like lifeguards working against the endless waves of new emergencies.

When I arrived at Lopez’s office in the 700 block of Crocker Street, where he runs a business development district on behalf of 600 or so distressed merchants, he had just finished visiting neighbors no. John McKinney, someone to represent the city.

He had a note card in his hand and shared some numbers, telling McKinney that at his latest count, 131 of the county’s 702 street lights were out, 27 children were living on Skid Row, and 72 RVs were parked in the area.

“I came out here because I think this represents a huge failure of government,” McKinney said. “I think it’s the result of bad legislation and bad policy. I think it’s the result of a lack of leadership and a lack of consideration for the way people live out here. To me, it’s not tenable at all.”

But will anything ever change?

It’s a question two people in particular need to answer, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

Many people I trust and admire are working tirelessly to make a difference on Skid Row, and are always eager to share the success stories of those who have passed and moved on. (I have a column for that coming soon.)

The longstanding problem is that Skid Row is both a social service center and a mecca for drugs and other vices, with traps on every block. So it’s a place at war with itself, with some viewing Skid Row as one of the country’s greatest recovery centers while others see it as a snapshot of social collapse.

Estela Lopez has reached out to me several times over the years. About illegal dumping. Typhus. Calls to City Hall went unanswered. About the constant plague of fires, drug overdoses and assaults.

“Can you imagine, in 24 years, how many people have I seen dead on these streets?” Lopez asked me around his office last week.

When the local post office closed recently due to security concerns, Lopez told The Times’ Melissa Gomez that “we’ve come to a point in this city. we cannot deal with criminal activities. … It’s surrender.”

We walked to the corner of 8th Street, where the paramedics had just left the emergency. Cars and pedestrians stop at tents to do small things, it can be said that there is doubt about how the business is conducted.

We passed a caged dog and saw a puppy on a short leash being loaded into a car. There is a lot of talk about pet dogs being sold, and Lopez said he sees evidence of animal abuse.

On 7th Street we passed through the burned area of ​​a recent fire. In the eastern part, four men were knocked down on the side of the road, hitting the pipes. Lopez receives calls from angry merchants facing vandalism and people barricading their stores.

“I’ve never seen so many people over here,” said Sergio Moreno, who runs a check-cashing business and said his family has been in the business since the ’70s. He said he’s seen paramedics use naloxone to revive opioid users, only to see the same people come down again a few days later.

“How can you run a business?” asked Moreno, who chairs the regional business development board that Lopez is running on. “This business is our life. This is how we went through school, this is how we teach our children at school.”

Yet despite paying city taxes and BID fees, Moreno said, problems persist and his clients fear for their safety.

Dr. Susan Partovia street doctor for 22 years, he has been advocating strong intervention for those in obvious distress. Partovi told me that he just saw a man get up from the tile, pull down his pants and undress in front of him. He called to get him help but he said that the emergency services and the police were not there and they decided that he was severely disabled.

Lopez passed Skid Row residents last week. According to his latest count, 131 of the county’s 702 street lights were out, 27 children were living on Skid Row, and 72 RVs were parked in the area.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“We have already become complacent about people sleeping on the street, having diarrhoea, talking nonsense and putting their lives at risk,” said Partovi, who I accompanied when he was injecting sedatives for a long time, saying that people need clear heads to make better decisions.

One sore point for Lopez is Skid Row maintenance campus in the 400 block of Crocker Street, which opened a little over a year ago and offers all kinds of social services, drugs to reduce cravings, and equipment that allows for the safe use of drugs.

Lopez said he understands the theory behind harm reduction: Get people involved with the goal of getting them into treatment and back on track. But he wonders how successful such programs are, and says they become a magnet for lawlessness.

While we were talking, a young man came up and told Lopez that he had seen him broadcast his complaints on TV news.

“I wonder, what would be your solution?” he asked.

“I would hope that people can come back to life sober,” Lopez replied.

The man said he was “trying to lift himself up,” but he had been on the waiting list for housing for six months.

Lopez is tired of being on the waiting list, too.

“If anything works down here,” he told me, “you can’t prove it to me.”

The progress is undeniable, he said Sieglinde von Deffnersocial worker and Skid Row coordinator for the Los Angeles County Department of Homeless Services and Housing. But given the “highly vulnerable state” of the population, “the need is great,” he said.

A man stands among his belongings on 7th Street in Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“I haven’t met a person here who doesn’t want some kind of housing. We just don’t have enough affordable housing for everyone,” Von Deffner said, and chronic homelessness makes it harder for people to access it. “Now, if only we could stop the intrusion.”

Dennis Culhanea University of Pennsylvania professor who studies homelessness and worked as an L.A. County consultant, said there are other options bring people into the house rather than investing billions of dollars in new homes that take years to build. Culhane said single adults who are not veterans, including the elderly and disabled, make up the majority of the homeless population. But help is scarce.

“It’s like you’re hungry, and you’ve only got 15% of the people’s food,” said Culhane.

Rapid rehousing is essential for the newly homeless, he said. But it can take up to two years for them to qualify for Social Security disability, and once they do, the $1,000 a month is “absolutely lacking in light of rising rents.”

Culhane recommends faster approval of SSI benefits and supplementing that income with additional sources of rental assistance. He believes there are enough vacancies in the lower end of the housing market to create a big hole for homelessness without new construction.

Judy Mauricio, 65, who has been homeless for nine years, rests inside her tent next to her companion. He says his addiction to drugs kept him on the street. He receives government disability benefits and says he has cancer.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

As the campaign season heats up, I’d like to know if Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, Council Member Nithya Raman, agree.

The mayor of LA is limited by the separation of powers from the City Council, and the county still oversees many addiction and mental health services. But Skid Row sits just a few blocks from the seat of city government, and no one has more power or responsibility to solve the decades-long human crisis on Skid Row than the mayor.

Estela Lopez and the vendors deserve better. People on the streets deserve better. Thousands of homeless people deserve better.

Does Bass have a plan other than the current one? Does Raman have a better one?

If so, I would like to hear the details, and I am available.

steve.lopez@latimes.com