WEBVTT - What's the History of Skid Row? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.960 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff. Laurena 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:12.479 volebam Here. Tourists from around the world travel to Los 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.040 Angeles to visit Disneyland, stroll the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.800 take in world class museums, and watch the sunset from 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.840 the piers and beaches. What they might not see is 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.479 skid Row, a neighborhood comprising fifty city blocks in the 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.080 heart of downtown LA. It's just a fourth of a 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.640 square mile or a single square kilometer, but an estimated 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.800 eight to eleven thousand people lived there in precarious, houseless, 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.600 or near houseless conditions at any given time. Some two 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.360 to three thousand residents live in a tense city of tarps, blankets, 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:51.479 and boxes. Others live in shelters and the few remaining 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.680 single room occupancy hotels. The most fortunate have many apartments 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.000 in new or renovated buildings built by nonprofits like these 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.280 skid Row Housing Trust. The current population of skid Row 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.480 is predominantly black and male, but there are increasing numbers 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.000 of women and children. Veterans make up about twenty percent 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:16.560 of residents. LA has the highest percentage of any major 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:20.280 metropolitan city in the United States of people experiencing chronic 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:24.520 houselessness that is, having been unsheltered for over a year, 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.319 or having experienced four such episodes in the past three years, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.919 a plus having some kind of physical or mental disability. 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.200 But how did Skidrow get this way? Why does an 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.559 entire neighborhood in one of the world's wealthiest states remain 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.039 walled off from the rest of the city and home 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.280 to such a high concentration of people struggling with economic 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:50.240 hardship along with coexisting issues related to, for example, mental 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.680 and physical health and substance misuse. It's a long and 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.279 messy story, but today let's talk a little bit about 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.960 skid Row. The first neighborhood to bear this name was 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.040 in what's now Seattle, Washington, back in the eighteen fifties. 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:12.560 Lumber was the lifeblood of colonist era Seattle. In logging camps, 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.840 a skid road was the name for a path carved 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.239 out of the forest on which teams of oxen would 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:22.519 dragfeld logs over to a sawmill. In Seattle, most of 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.000 the saw mills were down near the water, and logs 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.320 would be slid or skidded down from first hill on 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.720 steep streets lubricated with baking grease or salmon oil to 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.160 make the logs slide more easily. The area near the 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.040 saw mills along the skid Road was populated by lumberjacks 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.480 and mill workers, who often spent their pay at the 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:45.720 saloons and brothels that sprung up to entertain them. This 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.240 less than family oriented district also became known as skid row, 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.640 and throughout the nineteen hundreds, the nickname began to be 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:58.080 applied to any city neighborhood that housed the down and out. 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.680 For example, in New York City City in the late 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.240 eighteen hundreds, the Bowery became a sort of last stop 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.640 for men down on their luck. By the nineteen forties, 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.360 it took on the name skid Row. Around that time. 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.600 There were skid rows in dozens of American cities, but 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.760 the most famous, the one that's endured in the same 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:22.000 location for over a century, is skid Row in Los Angeles. 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:27.160 The Transcontinental Railroad was completed in eighteen sixty nine, and 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.400 its final West coast destination was in San Francisco. In 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.080 the eighteen seventies, Los Angeles convinced the railroads to extend 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.680 the line down to southern California, being home to productive 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:43.240 orchards and vineyards. The railroads needed a level surface to 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:45.560 lay the tracks, so they chose a path along the 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.800 Los Angeles River and built the first freight depots nearby. 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.840 The farms drew seasonal workers to the LA area to 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.200 pick and pack the crops, and more workers to load 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:01.240 the trains, all young single men. For the article of 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.520 this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.040 Donald Spiweck, the former Deputy Chief of Operations and Policy 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.880 at the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.560 Angeles and a historian of skid Row. He said all 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.000 of these transitory workers needed places to live, and the 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.680 area around the train stations began to fill in with 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:26.640 small hotels, bars, and other facilities to serve them. These 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.480 would be the founding institutions of the neighborhood that would 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.440 become skid Row. By the turn of the twentieth century, 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.680 oil had been discovered in LA bringing even more young 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.400 men out to work the oil fields and the shipping yards. 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.440 Around the same time, the temperance movement was in full swing, 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:46.320 and the first charitable missions popped up in the area. 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.440 To save lost souls from the bars and brothels and 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.039 give those who needed it a place to stay. The 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.839 next couple decades brought the automobile industry and then the 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.679 film industry to LA, transforming what had been a sleepy 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:04.640 hour cultural outpost into an economic boom town. The railroads 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:08.480 advertised Los Angeles as a tropical paradise, and more Americans 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:13.200 moved west to find their fortunes. Then came the Great 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:17.520 Depression and the dust Bowl that ravaged Midwestern farms, spurring 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:22.280 even more economic migration westward. But there wasn't enough work 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.760 in LA, and the hardest hit slept in train cars 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.240 and encampments down by the rail yards, or rented rooms 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:34.520 in the dilapidated single room occupancy hotels. Spivak explained that 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.000 the nineteen thirties saw the beginning of a permanent underclass 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.840 living in the hard luck Los Angeles community that would 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.599 become skid Row. During World War II, the Korean War, 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.440 and Vietnam, LA was the city of departure and return 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.200 for tens of thousands of soldiers. Some of them came 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.400 home with PTSD and or physical injuries that made returning 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.279 home difficult. In skid Row, they found a new home, 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.120 and some found that alcohol and other substances are more 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:10.280 accessible than professional medical treatment. By the nineteen sixties, skid 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.240 Row was a downtrodden and dangerous place, and its existence 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.960 in the heart of Los Angeles had scared away businesses. 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.120 The city knew something needed to be done to save downtown, 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.880 so it began enforcing stricter housing standards for these single 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.919 resident hotels in skid Row. From the mid sixties to 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.120 the mid seventies, roughly half of them were demolished in 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.640 the name of urban renewal, seven five hundred units of 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:42.120 temporary housing, but not all of them. Spidik said, Unlike 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.080 most other cities that were using urban renewal to clear 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:48.760 and demolish their skid Row neighborhoods, LA made a conscious 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.960 decision not to do that in nineteen seventy six. Instead, 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.640 the public policy was that there should be a place 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.760 for extremely low income persons to be able to live. 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.200 The policy was humanitarian on one hand in that it 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:06.640 preserved a place of the city for the poorest and 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.160 most marginalized residents, as well as the charities and social 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:16.280 organizations that served them, but it wasn't entirely altruistic. It 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.880 was called the containment strategy because its goal was to 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.440 contain this population within the fifty blocks of skid Row 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.640 and two Spivik said discourage them from wandering through the 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:33.800 rest of downtown. By concentrating low income housing and services 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.280 in skid Row, the city could attract investors to develop 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:42.040 other parts of downtown. The official name of the skid 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.960 Row neighborhood is Central City East. It's bordered by a 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.960 Little Tokyo to the north, the Fashion District to the south, 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.880 the Arts District to the east, and the Historic Core 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:56.240 to the west. Starting in the nineteen nineties, these surrounding 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:01.800 downtown neighborhoods began to attract investment and revitalization. Industrial warehouses 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.880 were renovated as lofts and live work play spaces. Old 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:11.040 banks and retail storefronts became boutique hotels and restaurants. As 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.960 those surrounding neighborhoods gentrified, developers began to eye skid Row 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.160 as the next opportunity for investment, but the city has 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.440 stood firm and denied requests from developers to turn skid 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:27.880 Row into another gentrified neighborhood with unaffordable housing. Spivik said 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.000 the city's policy is still that the city has an 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.080 obligation to make sure there is a substantial amount of 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:38.160 extra low income housing and accompanying social services in skid Row. 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:44.040 There are many government and independent organizations that helped serve 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.640 the community in different ways, such as prevention in the 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:52.040 form of rent relief, tenant protections, housing assistance and interim housing, 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.840 mental and physical health care including harm prevention and substance 0:08:55.880 --> 0:09:01.559 recovery programs, assistance with basic resources like food, laundry and showers, 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.760 help finding education and jobs to get people back on 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.320 their feet. And resources to help make the community a 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.360 safe and vibrant place like recreation and pet areas, and 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:19.160 wellness activities like yoga. It's not an easy set of tasks. 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.040 The aforementioned skid Row Housing Trust shuttered in twenty twenty 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:27.920 three among mismanagement and financial troubles. The Los Angeles Police 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.160 Department hasn't always been adept. It's striking the right balance 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:35.000 between keeping skid Row safe and making life even harder 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.679 for the people living there. For those Skidbrow residents who 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.040 live on sheltered life is a daily struggle. A speedk 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.160 thinks that skid Row should continue to exist into the future, 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:51.040 but quote, it shouldn't be the only destination. Los Angeles 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.680 County is four thousand square miles, that's ten thousand square kilometers. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.520 Skid Row is fifty city blocks. You can't serve the 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.800 entire county wide need for housing and homeless services in 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.000 a single fifty block neighborhood. There really does need to 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:10.720 be a decentralization of services. In twenty twenty one, the 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.559 US District Court judge in Los Angeles ordered the city 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.400 to immediately find housing for all houseless people in skid Row, 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.880 starting with women and children, but the ruling was overturned 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.440 by an appeals court. This civic said that other cities 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.240 in LA County have stepped up to offer their own 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:32.079 low income housing and other support, namely Long Beach, Glendale, Pasadena, 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.000 and Santa Monica, but the other locales are still quote 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:41.800 very resistant. If you are interested in finding resources around 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.240 LA or getting involved with helping people find them, the 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:49.199 La County Homeless Initiative has lots of information at homeless 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:57.240 dot La County dot gov. Today's episode is based on 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.800 the article A Short History of skid Row on housetf 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:02.719 Works dot com. Written by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.640 production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffboards dot com 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.679 and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.320 heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:13.840 you listen to your favorite shows.