1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,960 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff. Laurena 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:12,479 Speaker 1: volebam Here. Tourists from around the world travel to Los 3 00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:16,040 Speaker 1: Angeles to visit Disneyland, stroll the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 4 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:19,800 Speaker 1: take in world class museums, and watch the sunset from 5 00:00:19,840 --> 00:00:23,840 Speaker 1: the piers and beaches. What they might not see is 6 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:27,479 Speaker 1: skid Row, a neighborhood comprising fifty city blocks in the 7 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:31,080 Speaker 1: heart of downtown LA. It's just a fourth of a 8 00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:34,640 Speaker 1: square mile or a single square kilometer, but an estimated 9 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:38,800 Speaker 1: eight to eleven thousand people lived there in precarious, houseless, 10 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:43,600 Speaker 1: or near houseless conditions at any given time. Some two 11 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:47,360 Speaker 1: to three thousand residents live in a tense city of tarps, blankets, 12 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:51,479 Speaker 1: and boxes. Others live in shelters and the few remaining 13 00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:56,680 Speaker 1: single room occupancy hotels. The most fortunate have many apartments 14 00:00:56,760 --> 00:01:00,000 Speaker 1: in new or renovated buildings built by nonprofits like these 15 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:04,280 Speaker 1: skid Row Housing Trust. The current population of skid Row 16 00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:08,480 Speaker 1: is predominantly black and male, but there are increasing numbers 17 00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:12,000 Speaker 1: of women and children. Veterans make up about twenty percent 18 00:01:12,040 --> 00:01:16,560 Speaker 1: of residents. LA has the highest percentage of any major 19 00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:20,280 Speaker 1: metropolitan city in the United States of people experiencing chronic 20 00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:24,520 Speaker 1: houselessness that is, having been unsheltered for over a year, 21 00:01:24,920 --> 00:01:28,319 Speaker 1: or having experienced four such episodes in the past three years, 22 00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:31,919 Speaker 1: a plus having some kind of physical or mental disability. 23 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:36,200 Speaker 1: But how did Skidrow get this way? Why does an 24 00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:39,559 Speaker 1: entire neighborhood in one of the world's wealthiest states remain 25 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:42,039 Speaker 1: walled off from the rest of the city and home 26 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:45,280 Speaker 1: to such a high concentration of people struggling with economic 27 00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:50,240 Speaker 1: hardship along with coexisting issues related to, for example, mental 28 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:54,680 Speaker 1: and physical health and substance misuse. It's a long and 29 00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:58,279 Speaker 1: messy story, but today let's talk a little bit about 30 00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: skid Row. The first neighborhood to bear this name was 31 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:07,040 Speaker 1: in what's now Seattle, Washington, back in the eighteen fifties. 32 00:02:07,360 --> 00:02:12,560 Speaker 1: Lumber was the lifeblood of colonist era Seattle. In logging camps, 33 00:02:12,639 --> 00:02:15,840 Speaker 1: a skid road was the name for a path carved 34 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:18,239 Speaker 1: out of the forest on which teams of oxen would 35 00:02:18,320 --> 00:02:22,519 Speaker 1: dragfeld logs over to a sawmill. In Seattle, most of 36 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,000 Speaker 1: the saw mills were down near the water, and logs 37 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,320 Speaker 1: would be slid or skidded down from first hill on 38 00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:31,720 Speaker 1: steep streets lubricated with baking grease or salmon oil to 39 00:02:31,720 --> 00:02:35,160 Speaker 1: make the logs slide more easily. The area near the 40 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:39,040 Speaker 1: saw mills along the skid Road was populated by lumberjacks 41 00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:41,480 Speaker 1: and mill workers, who often spent their pay at the 42 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:45,720 Speaker 1: saloons and brothels that sprung up to entertain them. This 43 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:50,240 Speaker 1: less than family oriented district also became known as skid row, 44 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:53,640 Speaker 1: and throughout the nineteen hundreds, the nickname began to be 45 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:58,080 Speaker 1: applied to any city neighborhood that housed the down and out. 46 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:00,680 Speaker 1: For example, in New York City City in the late 47 00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:04,240 Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, the Bowery became a sort of last stop 48 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:07,640 Speaker 1: for men down on their luck. By the nineteen forties, 49 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:11,360 Speaker 1: it took on the name skid Row. Around that time. 50 00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:14,600 Speaker 1: There were skid rows in dozens of American cities, but 51 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:17,760 Speaker 1: the most famous, the one that's endured in the same 52 00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:22,000 Speaker 1: location for over a century, is skid Row in Los Angeles. 53 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:27,160 Speaker 1: The Transcontinental Railroad was completed in eighteen sixty nine, and 54 00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:31,400 Speaker 1: its final West coast destination was in San Francisco. In 55 00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:35,080 Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies, Los Angeles convinced the railroads to extend 56 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:38,680 Speaker 1: the line down to southern California, being home to productive 57 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:43,240 Speaker 1: orchards and vineyards. The railroads needed a level surface to 58 00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:45,560 Speaker 1: lay the tracks, so they chose a path along the 59 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:48,800 Speaker 1: Los Angeles River and built the first freight depots nearby. 60 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:52,840 Speaker 1: The farms drew seasonal workers to the LA area to 61 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,200 Speaker 1: pick and pack the crops, and more workers to load 62 00:03:56,200 --> 00:04:01,240 Speaker 1: the trains, all young single men. For the article of 63 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:03,520 Speaker 1: this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with 64 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:07,040 Speaker 1: Donald Spiweck, the former Deputy Chief of Operations and Policy 65 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:09,880 Speaker 1: at the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los 66 00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:14,560 Speaker 1: Angeles and a historian of skid Row. He said all 67 00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:18,000 Speaker 1: of these transitory workers needed places to live, and the 68 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:20,680 Speaker 1: area around the train stations began to fill in with 69 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:26,640 Speaker 1: small hotels, bars, and other facilities to serve them. These 70 00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:29,480 Speaker 1: would be the founding institutions of the neighborhood that would 71 00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:33,440 Speaker 1: become skid Row. By the turn of the twentieth century, 72 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,680 Speaker 1: oil had been discovered in LA bringing even more young 73 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:39,400 Speaker 1: men out to work the oil fields and the shipping yards. 74 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:43,440 Speaker 1: Around the same time, the temperance movement was in full swing, 75 00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:46,320 Speaker 1: and the first charitable missions popped up in the area. 76 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:49,440 Speaker 1: To save lost souls from the bars and brothels and 77 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:53,039 Speaker 1: give those who needed it a place to stay. The 78 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:55,839 Speaker 1: next couple decades brought the automobile industry and then the 79 00:04:55,880 --> 00:04:59,679 Speaker 1: film industry to LA, transforming what had been a sleepy 80 00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:04,640 Speaker 1: hour cultural outpost into an economic boom town. The railroads 81 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:08,480 Speaker 1: advertised Los Angeles as a tropical paradise, and more Americans 82 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:13,200 Speaker 1: moved west to find their fortunes. Then came the Great 83 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:17,520 Speaker 1: Depression and the dust Bowl that ravaged Midwestern farms, spurring 84 00:05:17,640 --> 00:05:22,280 Speaker 1: even more economic migration westward. But there wasn't enough work 85 00:05:22,279 --> 00:05:25,760 Speaker 1: in LA, and the hardest hit slept in train cars 86 00:05:25,800 --> 00:05:29,240 Speaker 1: and encampments down by the rail yards, or rented rooms 87 00:05:29,279 --> 00:05:34,520 Speaker 1: in the dilapidated single room occupancy hotels. Spivak explained that 88 00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:38,000 Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties saw the beginning of a permanent underclass 89 00:05:38,160 --> 00:05:40,840 Speaker 1: living in the hard luck Los Angeles community that would 90 00:05:40,839 --> 00:05:45,599 Speaker 1: become skid Row. During World War II, the Korean War, 91 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:49,440 Speaker 1: and Vietnam, LA was the city of departure and return 92 00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:53,200 Speaker 1: for tens of thousands of soldiers. Some of them came 93 00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:57,400 Speaker 1: home with PTSD and or physical injuries that made returning 94 00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:01,279 Speaker 1: home difficult. In skid Row, they found a new home, 95 00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:05,120 Speaker 1: and some found that alcohol and other substances are more 96 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:10,280 Speaker 1: accessible than professional medical treatment. By the nineteen sixties, skid 97 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:14,240 Speaker 1: Row was a downtrodden and dangerous place, and its existence 98 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:16,960 Speaker 1: in the heart of Los Angeles had scared away businesses. 99 00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:21,120 Speaker 1: The city knew something needed to be done to save downtown, 100 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:24,880 Speaker 1: so it began enforcing stricter housing standards for these single 101 00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:28,919 Speaker 1: resident hotels in skid Row. From the mid sixties to 102 00:06:28,960 --> 00:06:32,120 Speaker 1: the mid seventies, roughly half of them were demolished in 103 00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:35,640 Speaker 1: the name of urban renewal, seven five hundred units of 104 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:42,120 Speaker 1: temporary housing, but not all of them. Spidik said, Unlike 105 00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:45,080 Speaker 1: most other cities that were using urban renewal to clear 106 00:06:45,160 --> 00:06:48,760 Speaker 1: and demolish their skid Row neighborhoods, LA made a conscious 107 00:06:48,800 --> 00:06:52,960 Speaker 1: decision not to do that in nineteen seventy six. Instead, 108 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 1: the public policy was that there should be a place 109 00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:58,760 Speaker 1: for extremely low income persons to be able to live. 110 00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:04,200 Speaker 1: The policy was humanitarian on one hand in that it 111 00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:06,640 Speaker 1: preserved a place of the city for the poorest and 112 00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:10,160 Speaker 1: most marginalized residents, as well as the charities and social 113 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:16,280 Speaker 1: organizations that served them, but it wasn't entirely altruistic. It 114 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:19,880 Speaker 1: was called the containment strategy because its goal was to 115 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:23,440 Speaker 1: contain this population within the fifty blocks of skid Row 116 00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:27,640 Speaker 1: and two Spivik said discourage them from wandering through the 117 00:07:27,640 --> 00:07:33,800 Speaker 1: rest of downtown. By concentrating low income housing and services 118 00:07:33,800 --> 00:07:37,280 Speaker 1: in skid Row, the city could attract investors to develop 119 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:42,040 Speaker 1: other parts of downtown. The official name of the skid 120 00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:45,960 Speaker 1: Row neighborhood is Central City East. It's bordered by a 121 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:48,960 Speaker 1: Little Tokyo to the north, the Fashion District to the south, 122 00:07:49,240 --> 00:07:51,880 Speaker 1: the Arts District to the east, and the Historic Core 123 00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:56,240 Speaker 1: to the west. Starting in the nineteen nineties, these surrounding 124 00:07:56,280 --> 00:08:01,800 Speaker 1: downtown neighborhoods began to attract investment and revitalization. Industrial warehouses 125 00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:05,880 Speaker 1: were renovated as lofts and live work play spaces. Old 126 00:08:05,920 --> 00:08:11,040 Speaker 1: banks and retail storefronts became boutique hotels and restaurants. As 127 00:08:11,080 --> 00:08:14,960 Speaker 1: those surrounding neighborhoods gentrified, developers began to eye skid Row 128 00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:19,160 Speaker 1: as the next opportunity for investment, but the city has 129 00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:22,440 Speaker 1: stood firm and denied requests from developers to turn skid 130 00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:27,880 Speaker 1: Row into another gentrified neighborhood with unaffordable housing. Spivik said 131 00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:31,000 Speaker 1: the city's policy is still that the city has an 132 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:34,080 Speaker 1: obligation to make sure there is a substantial amount of 133 00:08:34,080 --> 00:08:38,160 Speaker 1: extra low income housing and accompanying social services in skid Row. 134 00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:44,040 Speaker 1: There are many government and independent organizations that helped serve 135 00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:47,640 Speaker 1: the community in different ways, such as prevention in the 136 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:52,040 Speaker 1: form of rent relief, tenant protections, housing assistance and interim housing, 137 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:55,840 Speaker 1: mental and physical health care including harm prevention and substance 138 00:08:55,880 --> 00:09:01,559 Speaker 1: recovery programs, assistance with basic resources like food, laundry and showers, 139 00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:05,760 Speaker 1: help finding education and jobs to get people back on 140 00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:09,320 Speaker 1: their feet. And resources to help make the community a 141 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:13,360 Speaker 1: safe and vibrant place like recreation and pet areas, and 142 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:19,160 Speaker 1: wellness activities like yoga. It's not an easy set of tasks. 143 00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:23,040 Speaker 1: The aforementioned skid Row Housing Trust shuttered in twenty twenty 144 00:09:23,080 --> 00:09:27,920 Speaker 1: three among mismanagement and financial troubles. The Los Angeles Police 145 00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:31,160 Speaker 1: Department hasn't always been adept. It's striking the right balance 146 00:09:31,200 --> 00:09:35,000 Speaker 1: between keeping skid Row safe and making life even harder 147 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:38,679 Speaker 1: for the people living there. For those Skidbrow residents who 148 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:43,040 Speaker 1: live on sheltered life is a daily struggle. A speedk 149 00:09:43,160 --> 00:09:46,160 Speaker 1: thinks that skid Row should continue to exist into the future, 150 00:09:46,720 --> 00:09:51,040 Speaker 1: but quote, it shouldn't be the only destination. Los Angeles 151 00:09:51,040 --> 00:09:54,680 Speaker 1: County is four thousand square miles, that's ten thousand square kilometers. 152 00:09:55,200 --> 00:09:58,520 Speaker 1: Skid Row is fifty city blocks. You can't serve the 153 00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:01,800 Speaker 1: entire county wide need for housing and homeless services in 154 00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:05,000 Speaker 1: a single fifty block neighborhood. There really does need to 155 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:10,720 Speaker 1: be a decentralization of services. In twenty twenty one, the 156 00:10:10,880 --> 00:10:13,559 Speaker 1: US District Court judge in Los Angeles ordered the city 157 00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:17,400 Speaker 1: to immediately find housing for all houseless people in skid Row, 158 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:20,880 Speaker 1: starting with women and children, but the ruling was overturned 159 00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:24,440 Speaker 1: by an appeals court. This civic said that other cities 160 00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:27,240 Speaker 1: in LA County have stepped up to offer their own 161 00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:32,079 Speaker 1: low income housing and other support, namely Long Beach, Glendale, Pasadena, 162 00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:36,000 Speaker 1: and Santa Monica, but the other locales are still quote 163 00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:41,800 Speaker 1: very resistant. If you are interested in finding resources around 164 00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:45,240 Speaker 1: LA or getting involved with helping people find them, the 165 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:49,199 Speaker 1: La County Homeless Initiative has lots of information at homeless 166 00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:57,240 Speaker 1: dot La County dot gov. Today's episode is based on 167 00:10:57,240 --> 00:10:59,800 Speaker 1: the article A Short History of skid Row on housetf 168 00:10:59,800 --> 00:11:02,719 Speaker 1: Works dot com. Written by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is 169 00:11:02,760 --> 00:11:05,640 Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffboards dot com 170 00:11:05,679 --> 00:11:08,679 Speaker 1: and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my 171 00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:12,320 Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 172 00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:13,840 Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.