Los Angeles Gets Serious About Its Downtown-WSJ ARTICLE (rent, landlord)

[JohnG72]

I now revise my assessment.

Downtown has begun to backtrack for two reasons:

1.) Rents are insane. I'm talking about commercial rents. Too many business' fail due to the crazy rents.

2.) The homeless and this has two facets. Part of downtown is now completely no go due to homeless on the streets. Skid row has expanded and increased in population dramatically. It smells bad and its disgusting. Its pushed itself out to 3rd at the north, 9th or 10th to the south, Los Angeles St on the west, and beyond Alameda on the east. Additionally theres now tent cities surrounding Olvera St, and at multiple other locations downtown. The second facet is the homeless using the rail lines. Parking is marginal downtown and the rail lines are a superior alternative. But no ones going to use the rail lines if the homeless are.

Thanks Garcetti.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by JohnG72

I now revise my assessment.

Downtown has begun to backtrack for two reasons:

1.) Rents are insane. I'm talking about commercial rents. Too many business' fail due to the crazy rents.

2.) The homeless and this has two facets. Part of downtown is now completely no go due to homeless on the streets. Skid row has expanded and increased in population dramatically. It smells bad and its disgusting. Its pushed itself out to 3rd at the north, 9th or 10th to the south, Los Angeles St on the west, and beyond Alameda on the east. Additionally theres now tent cities surrounding Olvera St, and at multiple other locations downtown. The second facet is the homeless using the rail lines. Parking is marginal downtown and the rail lines are a superior alternative. But no ones going to use the rail lines if the homeless are.

Thanks Garcetti.

Yeah I agree . And I’m sure a lot of those businesses signed their leases and invested hundreds of thousands with the hope that the homeless issue would get better instead of worse .

It’s a shame because it’s a unique part of L.A . I know nobody in L.A thinks about kids but who would really take kids to downtown la . And it’s not the same everywhere . There are many downtown areas in America that actually feel safe.

We need someone like Rudy Giuliani to clean things up like he did in NYC back in the day .

We’ll never get it with Garcetti or politicians like him .

[LuvSouthOC]

Originally Posted by JohnG72

I now revise my assessment.

Downtown has begun to backtrack for two reasons:

1.) Rents are insane. I'm talking about commercial rents. Too many business' fail due to the crazy rents.

2.) The homeless and this has two facets. Part of downtown is now completely no go due to homeless on the streets. Skid row has expanded and increased in population dramatically. It smells bad and its disgusting. Its pushed itself out to 3rd at the north, 9th or 10th to the south, Los Angeles St on the west, and beyond Alameda on the east. Additionally theres now tent cities surrounding Olvera St, and at multiple other locations downtown. The second facet is the homeless using the rail lines. Parking is marginal downtown and the rail lines are a superior alternative. But no ones going to use the rail lines if the homeless are.

Thanks Garcetti.

Also saw street vendors right off of Alvarado selling crap RIGHT outside of a 99 cent store. Really?

Ok, not exactly DT, but close enough.

[pwright1]

I see tents and homeless people all over Los Angeles and even Santa Monica. Go under the 405 or the 10 and it's pure nastiness. Nasty campers too. Go to Sawtelle and Santa Monica Blvd. Nasty. If you've been to DTLA 10 or 20 years ago you would see how bad it was. I live here and I'm doing just fine and love what is taking place right now. Walk everywhere. Eat in great restaurants. Walk to shopping, theaters, nightlife, coffee shops, cultural amenities. Look at tons of beautiful historic architecture. Plus leave my car at home and not dealing with clogged freeways and horrible passive aggressive drivers. You can have your horrible Ventura Blvd, your 405 and the ever beautiful Sepulveda Blvd. I'm just fine in DTLA.

[NyWriterdude]

Originally Posted by jm1982

Yeah I agree . And I’m sure a lot of those businesses signed their leases and invested hundreds of thousands with the hope that the homeless issue would get better instead of worse .

It’s a shame because it’s a unique part of L.A . I know nobody in L.A thinks about kids but who would really take kids to downtown la . And it’s not the same everywhere . There are many downtown areas in America that actually feel safe.

We need someone like Rudy Giuliani to clean things up like he did in NYC back in the day .

We’ll never get it with Garcetti or politicians like him .

Don't be fooled, NYC has even more homeless than LA. The NYPD does not let them congregate in any one area, and NYC has more hotels for homeless people scattered throughout the city. Those in the welfare motels are homeless, but are considered sheltered. NYC also has more low income housing than LA.

Southern California will have to build more low income housing, welfare motels, halfway houses, etc and scatter them throughout the region. Southern California will also have to invest more money in mental health and social services.

If the homeless issue is not dealt with, there will be economic damage to LA as who wants to go to a city that is completely overrun by homeless people? But it is not something the police can deal with alone. The reason why judges don't let the LAPD just completely wipe out the downtown camps is because Southern California municipalities have not built places for those people to go.

[NyWriterdude]

Originally Posted by JohnG72

I now revise my assessment.

Downtown has begun to backtrack for two reasons:

1.) Rents are insane. I'm talking about commercial rents. Too many business' fail due to the crazy rents.

2.) The homeless and this has two facets. Part of downtown is now completely no go due to homeless on the streets. Skid row has expanded and increased in population dramatically. It smells bad and its disgusting. Its pushed itself out to 3rd at the north, 9th or 10th to the south, Los Angeles St on the west, and beyond Alameda on the east. Additionally theres now tent cities surrounding Olvera St, and at multiple other locations downtown. The second facet is the homeless using the rail lines. Parking is marginal downtown and the rail lines are a superior alternative. But no ones going to use the rail lines if the homeless are.

Thanks Garcetti.

I've known homeless people to take DUMPS on trains in NYC. As horrible as that is people still take the metro there.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by NyWriterdude

Don't be fooled, NYC has even more homeless than LA. The NYPD does not let them congregate in any one area, and NYC has more hotels for homeless people scattered throughout the city. Those in the welfare motels are homeless, but are considered sheltered. NYC also has more low income housing than LA.

Southern California will have to build more low income housing, welfare motels, halfway houses, etc and scatter them throughout the region. Southern California will also have to invest more money in mental health and social services.

If the homeless issue is not dealt with, there will be economic damage to LA as who wants to go to a city that is completely overrun by homeless people? But it is not something the police can deal with alone. The reason why judges don't let the LAPD just completely wipe out the downtown camps is because Southern California municipalities have not built places for those people to go.

Yeah I have heard about the city paying for hotels for the homeless . Sounds like it’s costing a fortune .

They are also sending homeless from NYC to upstate New York .

Officials want NYC to stop sending homeless people to Upstate NY | NewYorkUpstate.com

There are economic consequences but of course we don’t really hear much about it because it’s not politically correct to talk about the homeless in a negative light at all . There have also been several innocent people killed by the homeless recently in the SoCal area .

Some of us here mentioned building where there is actually land available or where real estate is cheaper but that’s not going to be in L.A . Last I heard these homeless housing units cost $400,000 to build per unit .
We can’t afford that and many people working in L.A can’t afford to live in a $400,000 home .

[JohnG72]

Originally Posted by pwright1

I see tents and homeless people all over Los Angeles and even Santa Monica. Go under the 405 or the 10 and it's pure nastiness. Nasty campers too. Go to Sawtelle and Santa Monica Blvd. Nasty. If you've been to DTLA 10 or 20 years ago you would see how bad it was. I live here and I'm doing just fine and love what is taking place right now. Walk everywhere. Eat in great restaurants. Walk to shopping, theaters, nightlife, coffee shops, cultural amenities. Look at tons of beautiful historic architecture. Plus leave my car at home and not dealing with clogged freeways and horrible passive aggressive drivers. You can have your horrible Ventura Blvd, your 405 and the ever beautiful Sepulveda Blvd. I'm just fine in DTLA.

Hi PW,

I lived in DTLA from 2010-2013. I also have worked in DTLA since the late 90's, and saw the bombed out disaster zone it was in the early 90's prior to Richard Riordan instituted empowerment zones started bringing business back in on Broadway in the form of mostly spanish speaking swap meets.

By 2010, the homeless had been pushed off even Los Angeles Street and were confined mostly to 5th/San Pedro with 5th street from about Wall to Central being the worst of it. This was the true skid row and for the first time in a very long time you could actually walk on 4th and 7th streets east of Main and not feel like you were gonna get stabbed and not find human feces on the ground.

No longer. Its a crap hole in the worst way possible. There are thick, nasty homeless who crap in the street or even in their tents in the entire area I described. Olvera Street is literally surrounded by tent cities. Its gross, and vastly worse than 7-8 years ago.

FWIW, I'm not at all a fan of the westside either

[saybanana]

We need to ship the homeless to ORange County. Seems people in Orange County are more compassionate. The cleared the river near Anaheim Stadium and bringing them to Irvine and Newport beach hotels. One way tickets i'll pitch in. Better than the slums of skid row.

[Falls14303]

Originally Posted by jm1982

Yeah I have heard about the city paying for hotels for the homeless . Sounds like it’s costing a fortune .

They are also sending homeless from NYC to upstate New York .

Officials want NYC to stop sending homeless people to Upstate NY | NewYorkUpstate.com

There are economic consequences but of course we don’t really hear much about it because it’s not politically correct to talk about the homeless in a negative light at all . There have also been several innocent people killed by the homeless recently in the SoCal area .

Some of us here mentioned building where there is actually land available or where real estate is cheaper but that’s not going to be in L.A . Last I heard these homeless housing units cost $400,000 to build per unit .
We can’t afford that and many people working in L.A can’t afford to live in a $400,000 home .

Yep...I can confirm that living in Niagara Falls. We are also getting a lot of people from NYC who are on SSI and want to stay within the state - no jobs here but if you're on SSI you don't work anyways. On the other hand, I knew a guy from here who got approved for SSI (for anxiety - totally faked it) and discovered you can get over $1300 a month in SSI if you live in California. So he put an online personal ad, met some guy in Victorville, and within a week he had a free place to live in CA and got $300-400 extra a month in SSI. Anything to not have to work and get something for nothing.

I have spent a lot of time in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles and would love to live there if I could afford it. Out here there was a plan to build these 'micro apartments' after the closing of the YMCA housing (dorm-style accommodations; washroom and showers at the end of the hall). This was a few years ago and the idea was to build today's version of that style of housing. I just saw the other day, in bigger cities they have these micro apartments but they're going for the same as regular sized units or even more. Just slap together quartz countertops, brass fixtures, floor to ceiling windows and voila, now you can charge $1500 a month for a room that, in it's most basic form without the luxuries at the 'Y' would cost $165 a month.

On the subject of skid row, when I was in Phoenix I noticed they have what looks to be the beginning of their own skid row on W Madison between 12-16th Ave's. Maybe some of the homeless from DTLA are getting bus tickets to Phoenix now?