Safer Cities Backlash Hits the Media

You are surprised? Any effort to enforce order on the streets of skid row will provoke the media allies of the skid row service providers. These kinds of articles are routine boilerplate.

These service providers have failed abysmally in the past generation to improve the lot of the ‘homeless’ and only created the lawlessness which has been endemic to skid row for more than a generation. I’m highly skeptical of their ‘compassion’ and the efficacy of their services.

However, the neighborhood has changed. A generation ago, this part of the city was abandoned. The city’s social policy was one of convenience. Dump the problems here and allow the service providers to ‘do their thing’ without any oversight. Well, the likes of us live here now. We see no reason why these social problems should be dumped in our neighborhood. The law should be applied uniformly across the city.

I suggest the service providers adjust their standard operating procedures to deal with this new reality. Simply asserting that nothing should change is an incredibly self-serving policy. Moreover, it is galling given their history of extraordinary failure.

I’d also point out neither article seeks the input of anyone who works, lives or shops in downtown. That is, those of us who actually benefit from this change. Why shouldn’t we expect basic law and order just like Brentwood? Why should our quality of life be sacrificed for the dubious political adgenda of these service providers?

As for Mr. Cooper’s breathless speculations about a conspiracy between the LAPD and the L.A. Times – for which he offers no supporting evidence – I find this to be the height of cynical and lazy journalism.

Just two things:

why on earth is homeless in quotes?

More importantly, you say that “the law should be applied uniformly across the city.” Touche. Except the entire point of this critical story (the Daily Journal’s not Marc Cooper, he wasn’t doing any reporting, duh) is that THE LAW IS NOT BEING APPLIED UNIFORMLY. The story details how non-violent, new offenders are being given 4 years for basic possession offenses, selling $2 worth of crack to support an addiction. Do you think when Nicole Ritchie, or anyone else in Brentwood, gets caugght with drugs they get sent to state prison for 4-12 years?

Do you read the news or just take some predictable stance on it?

E;

Thanks for putting this story out there. I am homeless. While I am not a drug user, nor am I am drunk, I get asked this all the time by service provides, police and people who come to my blog.

I would like to say “thanks” for putting the truth out there for all to see. Now if we can just get agencies who provide services to stop doing the crap they do and come up with real ways of helping the homeless, then maybe we can turn this thing around.

I am not surprised at the “sudden media frenzy” that has appeared over this issue. I was in Santa Monica yesterday evening, and sure, I saw plenty of homeless there - just like every other time I’ve visited that beautiful city for the past twenty plus years. I think that this story has been driven, at least in part, by the self-serving interests of those in other, more “upscale” parts of LA and the surrounding county that for some bizarre reason often display extreme hostility toward Downtown. The dumping of homeless from other parts of LA City and County in Downtown has been well documented. I cannot fathom why people from areas where this dumping originated would be so hostile toward a place that has effectively been their convenient, invisible dumping ground for so many years. Then again, the same mentality surfaces in international politics, whereas, say, the US uses places like Mexico and Africa (either directly or covertly, or by proxy) as dumping grounds for all sorts of toxins, garbage, etc… and then excoriates those same countries when they begin to pick themselves off the mat and become assertive, voiciferous members of the community. Homeless people are NOT toxins or garbage, and Downtown is not “another country” (though it might not be a bad idea) - yet we see the same attitude as Downtown rises from its years of decreptitude to take its place as the dynamic, muscular center of this great city. Homelessness is a city-wide problem first, area-wide second… Downtown’s refusal to be the “dumping ground” (I hate that term, so suggest a better one…?) - has been a long time coming. At the very least, this media driven skewering of the facts might refocus a lot of people outside Downtown on working toward a real solution - a solution that can ripple out and take root regionally, statewide, nationally… like so much else that started in LA.

I find it hard to be sympathetic with other areas of L.A. County, including West L.A. who are “suddenly” reporting a spike in homeless people and complaining that their pristine neighborhoods are getting overrun. Downtown L.A. has for too long been the rug that the city swept their nasty secret under, so that those of us downtown were bearing the brunt of responsibility.

This is a human issue, that everyone needs to take responsibility for - including the westside entitled “stroller pushers” who might be inconvenienced by being panhandled while they sip their lattes out in front of their Starbucks in Brentwood. Welcome to the club, folks.

The more I read/consume most media, and the L.A. Times is just one of the more egregeious examples, the more I realize that their overarching purpose is not reporting or finding some kind of “truth,” but molding facts into various memes that will goose their ratings/readership numbers. Here we have yet another one: Scary Homeless leave their cage in Skid Row and Invade City! Our Children are no longer safe! What a crock.

Thanks Eric, for throwing some cold water on this needlessly whipped-up hysteria. Now if only the publications in this town would interview someone who lives here…

Eric, I couldn’t agree with you more.

The humanitarian problem that is Skid Row cannot be effectively addressed until the Downtown narcotics marketplace is dealt a severe and ever-lasting blow. We need to end the flow of people coming Downtown to score their fix while applying pressure to the street dealers and gangs behind them so that the unified message is clear – the days of old are no more.

In addition, whether other parts of the City and County like it or not, homeless services must be decentralized. Otherwise, we are only go to relocate Skid Row, not solve the underlying conditions which created it. This is a problem which the region created and it is a problem the region must solve.

Finally, it amazes to see celebrities fly to far away places to draw attention to humanitarian problems yet ignore the one going on in the city they call home. It’s not as if they don’t come Downtown to shoot the films which make them millions.

Captain Smith tells us about the counts this February vs. Last February at my blog. I just posted an interview after tonights neighborhood watch walk in skid row