Simon Roy on January 17, 2007, at 07:15PM – #1

I hope the map will help understand the problem better and hopefully one day help fix it.

Joscha on January 18, 2007, at 05:10AM – #2

Interesting approach. What seems implausible to me is the idea of having a radius spreading proportionally to the density at a single point. I.e. there might be a street corner inhabited by a large group, and the map view spreads them several blocks. And into the river. Well, maybe this way the map is easier to read than if you'd confine the surface to the actually inhabited areas, even though it is inaccurate.

Tim Quinn on January 18, 2007, at 05:32AM – #3

They do live in the river, alot live in the river.

AJ on January 18, 2007, at 08:37AM – #4

Eric: You do a wonderful job bringing downtown news. It is a great resource for people like me who are new to LA.

Tim Quinn on January 18, 2007, at 12:02PM – #6

Since people do occupy a spot and are not clouds, a small dot for each individual would be the most accurate. Maybe the scale of the map and the low resolution of web graphics does not allow for this. You could do this for a zoomed in look. Start with the cloud, zoom in to see points. The cloud makes me think of probabilities, like electrons. Given the people we are talking about, that is not so wrong. If you came back ten minutes later it might be different.

Ron on January 18, 2007, at 02:47PM – #8

e, Stop kissing Eric's butt. This is a map that is not telling us anything new. The map is just too vague.

christopher on January 18, 2007, at 04:29PM – #10

wow, this is a much better version of the map. the presentation is beautiful, even tho the reality it represents is tragic. thanks for doing this eric.

i have a question - how accurate do you consider the data to be? there's a pretty amazing fluctuation in the population amount.

Ron on January 18, 2007, at 04:50PM – #11

K, my bad. so whats the point? please explain. I am just saying the map is not showing anything new that I didn't know. I t might be helpful for people that are new to the downtown area, but for me a resident for more than 25+ years is not.

christopher on January 18, 2007, at 06:58PM – #14

thanks for the elucidation eric. i was unaware how much of the population was the result of the drug business - going from a population of almost 1400 to less than 900 is significant.

it would be interesting to know which ones simply went home because they could, and which perhaps finally decided to take refuge in a shelter or decided to find a warmer place to sleep outside the area of this data collection.

kat on January 19, 2007, at 12:11PM – #15

does anyone know who to contact to volunteer for serving the homeless/helping them find jobs in (specifically)Downtown LA?? Thanks

tuff guy on January 19, 2007, at 01:45PM – #17

You have to be careful with what you are doing. That software you are using is for estimating continuous distributions of things from point samples (e.g., weather temperature maps from point measurements of temp), while you are trying to plot a non-continuous thing. Sure, you can talk about an average density of people, but only at a scale much larger than a person... blocks at least. This may work on a much bigger scale, but it is very questionable on a scale where you could actually plot the individual people.

Also when plotting something which varies over many orders of magnitude, often the log of the "concentration" is contoured and plotted, since it doesn't tail off so much, like your plot does.

Are the homeless people inside the buildings in the middle of the blocks? Your map says so.

Eh, just ideas.

Whitman Lam on January 19, 2007, at 03:59PM – #19

I think that a scattering of dots, each dot representing a homeless person should the real depth of the problem. Alot of homeless people do not live in a "community" setting. You will find alot of lone individuals sleeping under freeway bridges, alleys, and bushes all across the region. Skid Row is a concentration of homeless, but most homeless people are widely scattered in neighborhoods you wouldn't have thought of, like Santa Monica, the San Fernando Valley or Orange County. It is therefore a challenge to reach all those homeless if they don't live in a tent town.

In this database it is important to classify and define which individuals are really homeless. Who is really without shelter ?

Many people being counted are able to find a place to stay when necessary. A large portion of those we see are here, come for drugs or panhandling. In many instances professional panhandlers own vehicles or even homes.

We must sort out the people who stay on Skid Row by choice, and those who are economically or mentally imprisoned on the streets.

deven on January 20, 2007, at 06:45PM – #20

i love the map. Its like tracking wild animals lol

christopher on January 21, 2007, at 11:01AM – #21

im surprised that so many people are critical about the point accuracy of this model. it seems very apparent that this is a tool to visually represent the homeless population as it fluctuates over time in density and geography. it's very good for that - it's not supposed to be a location-specific map for each individual.

bickering over whether a glowing circle that encompases folks who are in buildings or all together on a corner versus spread down the street is pointless.

i agree it would be nice to know the real homeless population versus drug-users, etc; but as eric pointed out, that's an inherent flaw in the data acquisition, not the model itself.

Dan Bassill on February 06, 2007, at 07:45PM – #22

I think this is a great way to use GIS to help people understand the distribution of a social problem that persists in all big cities.

I have been using a GIS since 1994 to map the location of poverty and poorly performing schools in Chicago, as well as the locations of non-school tutor/mentor programs. I use this information in a marketing campaign intended to draw a better distribution of volunteers and donors to all neighborhoods where tutor/mentor programs are needed.

I've not found too many people using the GIS to draw resources into different neighborhoods of a city. If you know of examples, I'd like to learn about them.

At http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2007/01/changing-demographics-of-chicago.html I write about this and show links to others who are also demonstrating uses of GIS. In the T/MC web site I have a section with links to other GIS web sites. These demonstrate many ways that GIS and other visual communications applications can be used and that we're trying to harness.

Are you doing any work with UCLA? They have a mapping project there, too.

Dan Bassill Tutor/Ment or Connection

Laura L. on January 12, 2008, at 12:39PM – #23

This is an interesting approach to maping. I have only one question though: Why did you use this method of maping, and where did you get your informaion from?