Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It's Sunday, March 31st. I'm Liam Dillon, and I cover housing costs. Here's what you need to know to start your weekend:
the news
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California to get news, features and recommendations from the LA Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
Enter your email address
Involve me
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
Skid Row is the homelessness capital of America. It will look different very soon.
No area is as synonymous with the nation's homelessness crisis as Skid Row in Los Angeles. Now, the region is approaching a generation-defining moment of change.
Many other cities had their own “skid rows” before being demolished, often through highway construction and urban renewal projects. Not in Los Angeles
Skid Row continued in Los Angeles. To understand why, you have to go back to the 1970s.
The 50-block area east of the downtown central business district known as Skid Row was threatened by redevelopment projects. But Los Angeles leaders decided that somewhere in the city there had to be low-cost housing and social services for the area's poor and downtrodden residents. They have taken steps to preserve the thousands of rooms in turn-of-the-century single room (SRO) hotels — buildings with small private rooms and shared bathrooms — that already existed. But the motive was not just to give the poor a place to live.
The idea, known as the “containment plan,” is designed to keep people staying on Skid Row within the neighborhood so they don't travel to other parts of the city.
Since then, homelessness and homelessness services have grown throughout the region. But the push and pull between redevelopment — you can find toy manufacturers and even some cutting-edge developments — and preservation initiated by 1970s discussions of a containment plan still determine Skid Row's fate.
There are three major developments underway that could change society forever.
SROs are in trouble. In the 1980s and 1990s, with the support of city leaders, dilapidated regional areas were renovated and converted into permanent housing for the homeless. But the buildings are facing financial and livelihood crises again.
Many government officials and service providers argue that SROs have outlived their usefulness, and want to demolish them and replace them with apartments with private facilities for each tenant. If SROs disappear, it will end the era of last resort housing that began with the creation of Skid Row.
Nonprofit providers are building high-rise housing for the homeless. The Weingart Center is changing the look and feel of Skid Row with three new homeless housing projects currently under construction. These 12-, 17- and 19-storey buildings will be among the tallest in the area and accommodate 700 people in studios and one-bedrooms. The first is scheduled to open this spring. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation plans to build its own 216-unit, 15-story building on Skid Row.
A $2 billion project could bring thousands of high-income residents to Skid Row. Denver-based developers Continuum Partners are proposing a massive $2 billion development on the northeast border of Skid Row next to Little Tokyo and the Arts District. If approved by the City Council, the project would bring 1,500 new homes, 410,000 square feet of office space, a 68-room hotel and retail restaurant space. It was endorsed by Governor Gavin Newsom.
The developer is apparently leaving Skid Row out of the project's marketing, referring to the effort instead as the “New Gateway to DTLA.”
All together, it's likely that five years from now, Skid Row will look very different than it does today. But the neighborhood's status as a refuge of last resort for Los Angeles' most vulnerable doesn't appear to be changing. Earlier this month, my colleagues Robin Vives and Doug Smith reported on recently arrived migrant families with young children from Nicaragua, Peru, Honduras, and Venezuela, with no connection to Los Angeles, living in tents on the streets of Skid Row.
Biggest stories of the week
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Easter Holiday
Sean “Diddy” Combs investigates a sex trafficking case
Dodgers
NCAA March Madness
More big stories
Get unlimited access to the Los Angeles Times. Subscribe here.
Great reads today
In California, licensed doctors “may practice any field of medicine, if they do so in a competent manner consistent with the law,” the state medical board says. This allowed people trained in pediatrics or gynecology to perform plastic surgery.
(Illustration by Rob Dube/For The Times)
She died after liposuction at the hands of a pediatrician. Doctors warn of 'Wild West' of plastic surgery In California, doctors trained as pediatricians, obstetricians-gynecologists and other specialties can perform lucrative — and perhaps risky — cosmetic surgeries.
Other great reads
How can we make this leaflet more useful? Send comments to basiccalifornia@latimes.com.
For your weekend
Rib eye on the grill at Jeongyeokgeum in Koreatown.
(Myung Jae-chun/Los Angeles Times)
Out
stay in
Los Angeles Affairs
Immerse yourself in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.
(Daniel Fishel/For The Times)
My first place in Los Angeles looked like a scene from the movie “Melrose Place.” Two floors, old motel style, with a courtyard in the middle. A wedge of sun-kissed heaven. As I was unloading my Toyota pickup (a parting gift from an ex-boyfriend), I wondered how I fit into this place, this place called Studio City, where the streets are wide and everyone's hair is their color. Weaving gold. With my black clothes, thick shoes, and New York veneer still with me, I thought: “What the hell am I doing here?” Then I saw him across the pond. The man who will teach me about him forever.
Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team
Liam Dillon, Housing Reporter
Christian Orozco, associate editor
Check out the hottest news, topics and latest articles on latimes.com.
