The New Face Of Skid Row

Politicians and media pundits scream about the disappearing middle class. The consequence of a disappearing middle class is an ever increasing underclass of poor people who lack jobs, housing, benefits, goods, and services, and then end up on a skid row.

There is a growing divide between the rich and the poor. Soon, there will be no in between; there will be no middle class - no gray area. The rich really are getting richer and the poor, poorer. Los Angeles Downtown Skid Row is leading the way. It is a disconcerting American-made social embarrassment and social humiliation to a growing underclass of people.

Original Skid Row

Los Angeles Skid Row has a rich history. The area in which Skid Row is located was agricultural until the railroads first entered Los Angeles, in the 1870s. The railroads paralleled the Los Angeles River, and the main rail yard and station were near the current Sixth Street/Whittier Boulevard river crossing.

After the arrival of the railroads, the area began to industrialize with an emphasis on agriculture, which is seasonal in nature and therefore includes influxes of short-term workers, especially at planting and harvesting season. The railroads themselves added to the transient nature of downtown as train crews laid over between assignments.

As a result, many small hotels were developed in the 1880 to 1930 era to serve this worker population. Since many of the migrant workers were single and male, the area also saw a proliferation of bars, whorehouses and other houses of ill repute.

Today there is a large mission presence in Skid Row which can trace its roots to that period, when temperament and other groups established such facilities as havens to counteract the ill effects of, and provide a health alternative to, the bars and other potentially self-destructive pursuits. (Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce)

The New Downtown, Above Spring Street

The high fluting, business acumen of downtown Los Angeles is living the high life. Filthy rich real estate developers have renovated many of the historic buildings into fancy loft condominiums. The ads are numerous. One ad reads, Downtown Los Angeles real estate is transforming into the next generation of urban oases. We've become the new destination city for individuals eager to embrace and enjoy the urban lifestyle sensibility. (www.CondoStoreLA.com)

Considering that just a few blocks south of all this affluence and astuteness are people living in squalor and hunger is incomprehensible. Greed and money allow the successful to ignore the grief that is their neighbor. On the weekends, the nightlife is comparable to that of Beverly Hills. Money talks; the nightlife in Downtown Los Angeles is thriving. There are high class night cafes, sidewalk dining plazas, specialty bars, theater, grand performances, private parties, and a host of other enriching cultural affairs. But what about the large number of impoverished, helpless and hungry children and adults south of Spring Street.

Skid Row, Below Spring Street

A concentration of hell exists between the north and south running streets, from Los Angeles Street, west, to Central Avenue, south that are lined with Side Walk Motels rows of tents pitched on filthy sidewalks. The squalor, the filth, the stench, the rats, the heavy traffic, and air pollution, are just a few of the devastating realities of life in downtown Skid Row. Tents align streets that allow the homeless to sleep on them. There is rampant drug sales and abuse. Mentally disturbed people freely roam the streets reeking havoc on others.

Law enforcement, rehabilitation, and the judicial systems are overwhelmed by petty criminals herded through the process, from the arrest, to overwhelmed courts, and then to over populated jails and prisons. Repetitive violations and arrests for drunk in public, littering thumping cigarettes, public disturbance, drug use (addiction and abuse), vagrancy, petty theft, lewd conduct, and other charges recur to bench warrant status, numerous arrests, and jail sentences.

On some streets, pitching a tent is absolutely forbidden and crudely enforced. A large number of flower and plant retailers, wholesale fabric stores, sweat factories, and distributors, mostly immigrant merchants who only employ cheap, undocumented laborers, have forced the homeless population off their streets. In one instance, they negotiated with law enforcement and the city to clean-up the streets.

The city of Los Angeles once employed street cleaning trucks and trash trucks and literally washed away people living on the streets/sidewalks. With a lack on sensitivity, they tossed away these peoples meager personal belongings, and washed them off the streets. It was a horrible site to see. Community advocates and leaders cried foul and the city backed down their efforts, coerced by immigrant merchants who despise the homeless and their presence.

Skid Row and Illegal Immigration

In a story entitled, Illegal Immigrants: A Bonanza of Cheap Labor, by a noted journalist, he explains how illegal immigrants are doing the jobs that many of Skid Rows homeless population could be doing. If you want to know why golf courses and large condo villages can maintain beautiful lawns and gorgeous flower displays, its because of cheap immigrant labor.

The argument that there are no American citizens or legal immigrants who will do these jobs is false. What is true is that they will not do these jobs at the low wages that the illegals do them. (www.newswithviews.com)

According to NumbersUSA, More than 4 million Americans have lost their job since the start of 2009, but the federal government continues to import more than 125,000 foreign workers every month. (www.numbersusa.com, Americas Jobless: Statistics) Then, is it reasonable to say that there are people living on the streets of downtown Los Angeles Skid Row who are capable of doing the jobs Americans wont do. Taking the above information into consideration makes this argument illogical -- an Argument ad populism: Latin for an appeal to the people.

If the flower shops, agriculture warehouses, and sweat shops, would hire/train a small number of legal homeless residents living on Skid Row, the rampant crime, drug abuse and addiction, the institutionalized homeless would have some opportunity to remove themselves from their most unfortunate circumstances.

The New Face of Skid Row

According to the Washington Post, Unemployment for African Americans is projected to reach a 25-year high this year, according to a study released Thursday by an economic think tank, with the national rate soaring to 17.2 percent and the rates in five states exceeding 20 percent. (By V. Dion Haynes, Washington Post Staff Writer; Friday, January 15, 2010) Due to the high unemployment and housing discrimination, African Americans are the new faces of Downtown Skid Row.

African Americans have been silenced about the affects illegal immigration has on their communities. They just allow themselves to be pushed out, fearing repercussions from the power and authority of illegal immigration. (See article, Illegal Immigration Power and Compassion, www.articlesnatch.com) Skid Rows overpopulation of African Americans is due to cheap illegal immigrant labor that has displaced the American working class.

Black populations are affected to a high degree. Fontana, California Councilwoman, Acquanetta Warren expressed concern for the African American working class citizen. She faulted U.S. immigration policy and suggested a new study linking illegal immigration with soaring Black unemployment and violence damning evidence of failure. (www.blackvoicenews.com, Fontana Councilwoman Applauds Arizona Crackdown, April 2010) The new face of Skid Row is African American.

Skid Row Organizational (SRO) Housing

Downtown Skid Row housing is an institution and the people who live there become institutionalized. People feel sorry, do things for the homeless, and it makes them subservient and expectant. Eventually, Skid Rows inhabitants say, this is my reality; this is my life; this is my permanent home; I have nowhere else to go; I cant find work; and repeatedly, I have no way out. The new face of Skid Row is predominantly African American.

Do the SROs meet their goals? Their mission statement is as follows: SRO Housing Corporation is dedicated to building a vibrant community for homeless and low-income individuals. We pursue our mission of community revitalization by providing clean, safe, and affordable housing; managing public spaces; and administering needed supportive services.

Goals: Help people to help themselves overcome homelessness and unemployment; Develop and manage safe, clean affordable housing for people disadvantaged by disability, health or income; Promote community efforts to create public policies which improve the quality of life; Support partnerships to strengthen housing, public safety, economic development, health care, education, transportation and public amenities; Achieve financial vitality; Conduct our business with integrity, be responsible stewards, and treat community members, customers and employees with respect.
(SRO Housing Corporation, www.srohousing.org)

The residents of these SROs would totally disagree with these goals; most are very unhappy and equate living in them to living in prison. The managers are typically rude and controlling. Many of the authorities were once themselves homeless and feel a sense of power over those still struggling.

Everyone who ends up on Skid Row is not a part of the prevalent drug culture. They ended up there due to economic hard times. The missions, the give-away gatherings, the strict rules enforced by Skid Row Organizational housing creates a form of institutionalization in which people living on the streets become dependent upon the efforts of those who attempt to help, feeding and clothing the homeless.

Keep coming back, it works, chanted in self-help groups such as Narcotics Anonymous, is also the same chant of circumstance, if you keep coming back dependent, dependency and self-pity rules. Although there are many blacks living in downtowns Skid Row who are trying to better their circumstances, there are many, many more who have become subservient and accepting of the conditions and hurdles faced living on the streets of Los Angeles. Surely, this underclass is being duplicated in cities across America.

Homeless Statistics

According to official U.S. government statistics issued in November of 2007, more than 1 in 10 people in the United States go hungry. More than 35 million people went hungry in 2006 according to the same report; almost 13 million of them were children and many of the rest were impoverished senior citizens. (www.freedomtracks.com/statistics)

Who are the poor? Two years and a recession later, the 60-year-old couple are both unemployed, have drained their savings and 401Ks, are depending on Social Security, unemployment benefits and COBRA health insurance to stay afloat and are in the process of losing their Florida house in a devastating short sale. (Laura Bassett, www.huffingtonpost.com Disappearing Middle Class)

About 14 to 18 percent of homeless adults in Los Angeles County are not U.S. citizens compared with 29% of adults overall. A high percentage - as high as 20 percent - are veterans. African Americans make up approximately half of the Los Angeles County homeless population - disproportionately high compared to the percentage of African Americans in the county overall (about 9 percent). (Los Angeles Almanac, www.laalmanac.com)

Divided We Will Fall

Let us trust God, and our better judgment to set us right hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs; Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry was a charismatic public speaker and one of the founding fathers of the state of Virginia. Henry was twice Governor of the state from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786. He led public oppositions to the various flaws of governance. Henry was well known for his oratory skills. Two infamous phrases, United we stand; divided we fall and, Give me Liberty; or give me death! have been motivating to generations of Americans. But, did America take heed to these warnings?

If America is divided between the rich and the poor, blacks and others, the proliferation of globalization will continue to rob the American work force. The ending result is surely death poverty and hopelessness. There is absolutely no liberty or justice in the intricate division of American people, especially African Americans who have contributed substantially from slavery to freedom, to divide themselves between the filthy rich and the dirty poor.

An Institution

Any institution that divides America must fall. United as one, we can stand against poverty, hunger, homelessness, and hopelessness. It is up to the United States Government to enforce immigration laws. It is the responsibility of cities and states to care for their legal populous first and foremost. If Illegal immigration pushes any group of legal citizens away from the pursuit of happiness jobs, housing, and social welfare, we are a divided nation sure to fall.

The Black Face of Skid Row Los Angeles and other American cities is part and parcel to an ever increasing illegal immigrant population that promotes racism, classism, and the associated evils that bind other minority groups struggling to make ends meet. The City of Los Angeles bares some responsibility and should own-up to a growing problem.

There are no more black communities. Jobs, housing, benefits, goods, and services are at a premium in Los Angeles a Sanctuary City - now caters to an illegal immigrant population while ignoring the condition and status of African Americans, most living in Downtown Los Angeless Skid Row a forgotten people who are continuously judged, criticized, abused, and left on the sidewalks to root in hell.

The large concentration of blacks on Skid Row is an atrocity to the history of the Civil Rights Movement and perhaps a new form of slavery. How long will city officials and politicians look the other way, while the squalor, crime, drug addiction, homelessness and hopelessness prevails amongst an individual group of people devastated by illegal immigration and economic hard times. The Pledge of Allegiance is an oath of loyalty that has united American. Classrooms throughout America have instructed children to repeat and remember this pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Drive through the streets of downtown Skid Row. Then, ask yourself to repeat the pledge of allegiance, pondering every word. Is America lying to itself and its children?