Cannot Apply Limited Vision to Skid Row Solutions

VOICES-(Re CityWatch article ‘Skid Row Answers: A Path to Homeless Housing and Citizen Safety’)  One cannot, and should not, apply a limited vision when speaking about “harsher penalties for those who sell narcotics” without including any recourse for the many medical marijuana stores that e xist in Skid Row. If Skid Row is to be respected as a “recovery zone”, then why is there NO talk about prohibiting MM stores from setting up shop within a recovery zone? 

There is not enough storage space for the homeless in Skid Row. It still has never been determined exactly how much private property a homeless person can/cannot have on a public sidewalk. 

Therefore BSS’s hands are tied. The City Attorney will have to define the parameters because the City of Los Angeles would be liable for “stealing the private property” of each homeless person. 

All discussions about “decentralization” continue to be a one-sided conversation. Nowhere else other than Downtown LA will you hear such rhetoric. No other community anywhere in Los Angeles has come forward to say “bring some of Skid Row over here”. Until that happens, this convo is a moot point. The only other option is for “decen” to be done by force and obviously that won’t go over well because politicians know tat they will be shaking in their boots during their next re-election campaign. 

I don’t even hear the writer of this guest commentary offering his own community in West LA as “a willing recipient of some of the Skid Row burden”. What “other areas of the City” could he possibly be talking about? 

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Years ago, the outreach portion of SCI did indeed perform well with alternative sentencing to jail. Both Project HALO and SOS showed initial success, but ended quickly due to budget cuts and have not been seen since. To cut something that actually worked and instead keep funding what didn’t boggles the mind. 

Not sure why folks who don’t live in Skid Row or know it beyond a basic comprehension level try to speak from a position as an “expert” on homelessness and Skid Row in general. There are many Skid Row residents who can speak to the real issues in Skid Row in a much more clarifying tone. 

For instance, the creation of the Skid Row Neighborhood Council would be a perfect platform to create, discuss and also implement many viable solutions that “outsiders” have failed to do in decades, which only exacerbates ongoing problems which thereby prohibit the desired positive growth that would coincide with the rest of Downtown’s revitalization.

 

(General Jeff is a homeless activist and leader in Downtown Los Angeles.)

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 21

Pub: Mar 10, 2014