Skid Row is the unofficial name for a neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles officially known as Central City East.
Skid Row contains one of the largest stable populations of homeless people in the United States, estimated at over 4,400, and has been known for its condensed homeless population since at least the 1930s. Its long history of police raids, targeted city initiatives, and homelessness advocacy make it one of the most notable districts in Los Angeles.
Covering 50 city blocks immediately east of downtown Los Angeles, Skid Row is bordered by Third Street to the north, Seventh Street to the south, Alameda Street to the east, and Main Street to the west."Jones v. City of Los Angeles" on Findlaw.com
Etymology
The term "skid row" or "skid road," referring to an area of a city where people live who are "on the skids," derives from a logging term. Loggers would transport their logs to a nearby river by sliding them down roads made from greased skids. Loggers who had accompanied the load to the bottom of the road would wait there for transportation back up the hill to the logging camp. By extension, the term began to be used for places where people with no money or employment gathered, becoming the generic term in North America for a depressed street in a city.Partridge, Eric; Beale, Paul (ed.) A Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English New York. Macmillan (1989). p.405
Demographics
In 2019, the Central City East's racial demographics consisted of 39.7% Black/African American, 22.3% White, 16.3% Asian, 15.1% Hispanic or Latino, 2.5% American Indian/Alaska Native, 0.6% Native Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander, 3.1% 2+ races, and 0.5% other races.
According to the city's data, 53.1% of the population were born in California, 27.0% were born in another state, 18.8% were born in another country, and 1.1% were native residents born outside of the United States.
The population was estimated to be approximately 10,580 individuals over 0.392 square miles, though there is currently no up-to-date approximation due to limited data. In 2023, the Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey estimated that the population increased by 13% after the COVID-19 pandemic, though no exact population estimate was provided. Out of the 10,850 estimated to be in the population, 7,004 were identified as male, and 3,574 were identified as female.
The age groups in the region were spread out with 7.78% being under the age of 18, 1.38% from 18 to 24, 60.94% from 25 to 54, 19.49% from 55 to 61, and 10.41% who were 62 years of age or older. The median age for the male population was 50.9 years, and the median age for the female population was 50.3 years. Among these numbers, veterans made up 9.90% of the 10,850.
The per capita income for the neighborhood in 2000 was $14,210. About 41.8% of the population were below the poverty line. In 2008, the median household income for Skid Row and the surrounding areas was $15,003. In 2019, the median household income for Skid Row residents was approximately $12,070, where 68.9% of the population was below the poverty line. The overall income for Skid Row continued to be below the poverty line at the time, with $67,418 being the average median house income for the Greater Los Angeles population. In 2019, the average household size was 9.9 people living in a single unit. 60.2% of the households in Skid Row were family households consisting of married-couple families with children, 25.2% were single-mother households, and 18.7% were married-couple families.
History
1880s through 1960s At the end of the 19th century, a number of residential hotels opened in the area as it became home to a transient population of seasonal laborers. By the 1930s, Skid Row was home to as many as 10,000 homeless people. It supported saloons, residential hotels, and social services, which drew people from the populations they served to congregate in the area.
When railroads were constructed on the outskirts of the downtown area the agricultural fields to the east transitioned into industrial zones. These industrial areas attracted a predominantly transient male workforce, many of whom traveled by train seeking employment in railroad-related industries or seasonal work in agriculture. It became "an enclave of small hotels, movie theaters and cheap eateries that served transient workers in seasonal industries and nearby railroads".
In June 1947, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) chief Clemence B. Horrall ordered what he called a "blockade raid" like jude of the whole Skid Row area. Over 350 people were arrested. Assistant Chief Joseph Reed, who claimed that "at least 50 percent of all the crime in Los Angeles originates in the Skid Row area," stated that there had been no "strong arm robberies" on Skid Row as late as one week after the raid. Long time residents, however, were skeptical that the changes would last.
In the 1950s, the area "evolved into a place where alcoholics and other people down on their luck could get a meal and a bed". In 1956, the city of Los Angeles was in the midst of a program to "rehabilitate" Skid Row through the clearance of decaying buildings. The program was presented to property owners in the area as an economy measure. Gilbert Morris, then superintendent of building, said that at that point the provision of free social services to the approximately one square mile of Skid Row cost the city over $5 million per year as opposed to the city average of $110,000 per square mile annually. The city used administrative hearings to compel the destruction of nuisance properties at the expense of the owner. By July 1960, the clearance program was said to be 87% complete in the Skid Row area. With increased building codes during the 1960s, owners of residential hotels found demolition to be more cost-effective than adhering to repairs. The total number of these units is estimated to have dropped from 15,000 to 7,500 over the following decade. Many residents of the area found themselves homeless with the loss of half of the affordable housing provided by hotels.
1970s containment zone Skid Row was established by city officials in 1976 as an unofficial "containment zone", where shelters and services for homeless people would be tolerated.
During the 1970s, two Catholic Workers — Catherine Morris, a former nun, and her husband, Jeff Dietrich — founded the "Hippie Kitchen" in the back of a van. Over forty years later, in March 2019, aged 84 and 72, they remained active in their work feeding Skid Row residents.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, many Vietnam veterans found themselves drawn to Skid Row, due to the services and missions already in place there and feeling outcast from other areas. Like those after World War II, many of them ended up on the streets. It was around this time that the demographics of Skid Row shifted from predominantly White and elderly to those there today (see: Demographics).
1987 crackdowns In February 1987, LAPD chief Daryl Gates, backed by then-Mayor Tom Bradley, announced plans for another crackdown on the homeless on Skid Row. Police and firefighters conducted a number of sweeps through the area but the plan was abandoned due to opposition by advocates for the homeless.
When Gates announced in May that the crackdown would resume, Los Angeles City Attorney (and future mayor) James K. Hahn responded that he would not prosecute people arrested in the planned sweeps. Hahn stated that he was "not going to prosecute individuals for not having a place to stay. I simply will not prosecute people for being poor, underprivileged and unable to find a place to sleep until I'm convinced that a viable alternative to sleeping on the streets exists." Gates, still backed by Bradley, responded: "As the elected city attorney of Los Angeles, Mr. Hahn has a responsibility to file prosecutable cases which are presented to him by the Los Angeles Police Department."
A few days later, then-Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky introduced a proposal that the city stop enforcing its anti-camping laws on Skid Row until adequate housing could be found for all its residents. The council rejected Yaroslavsky's proposal, but after hearing testimony from Assistant Police Chief David Dotson describing the LAPD's intended crackdown methodology, the council passed a motion asking Gates not to enforce the anti-camping laws until adequate housing could be found for the area's residents.
2000s patient dumping In September 2005, hospitals and law enforcement agencies were discovered to be "dumping" homeless people on Skid Row. Then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered an investigation and William Bratton, LAPD chief at the time, claimed that the department was not targeting homeless people specifically, but only people who violated city ordinances. The Los Angeles City Attorney investigated more than 50 of about 150 reported cases of dumping. By early 2007, the city attorney had filed charges against only one hospital, Kaiser Permanente. Because there were no laws specifically covering the hospital's actions, it was charged, in an untested strategy, with false imprisonment. In response to the lack of legal recourse available to fight patient dumping, California state senator Gil Cedillo sponsored legislation against it in February 2007.
Since Mike Feuer took office as City Attorney in 2013, he settled eight additional cases of patient dumping with various hospitals around Los Angeles. These cases have been a part of a larger attempt to solve the issue, in addition to working with some hospitals on long-term solutions. The total settlements from all eight have been over four million dollars.
2000 to 2009 In 2002, newly appointed LAPD Chief William Bratton announced a plan to clean up Skid Row by, among other things, enforcing the anti-camping ordinance. A man named Robert Lee Purrie was cited twice and arrested for violating the ordinance in December 2002 and January 2003. His possessions, consisting of his tent, "blankets, clothes, cooking utensils, a hygiene kit, and other personal effects", were thrown into the street by the police. In April 2006, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in its suit against the city of Los Angeles, filed on behalf of Purrie and five other homeless people, finding that the city was in violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and sections of the California Constitution guaranteeing due process and equal protection and prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment in reference to Robinson v. California. The court stated that "the Eighth Amendment prohibits the City from punishing involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles." The court described the anti-camping ordinance as "one of the most restrictive municipal laws regulating public spaces in the United States."
The ACLU sought a compromise in which the LAPD would be barred from arresting homeless people or confiscating their possessions on Skid Row between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. The compromise plan, which was accepted by the city of Los Angeles, permits sleeping on the sidewalk except "within 10 feet of any business or residential entrance" and only between these hours.
Downtown development business interests and the Central City East Association (CCEA) came out against the compromise. On September 20, 2006, the Los Angeles City Council voted to reject the compromise. On October 3, 2006, police arrested Skid Row's transients for sleeping on the streets for the first time in months. On October 10, 2006, under pressure from the ACLU, the city tacitly agreed to the compromise by declining to appeal the court's decision.
2006 Safer Cities Initiative