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The Obamaville Olympics?
I live near Los Angeles’s most infamous green space, the titular grounds of what may be the strangest hit in pop song history (the original hit № 2 on the charts in 1968 for Richard Harris — yes, the actor Richard Harris — while the more famous rendition by Donna Summer topped the charts a decade later). MacArthur Park has seen a lot of problems in the 15 years I’ve lived near it. In that time, it has gone from a No Man’s Land where gangs — notably the 18th Street Gang and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), two infamous international criminal organizations with roots in the area — would sell drugs and dump bodies in the lake, to the vital heart of the mostly densely populated area of the country west of the Mississippi River. The area, known as Westlake (because the lake was on Los Angeles’s western periphery about a century ago), is home to Central American immigrants, many of them illegals, though also some Koreans priced-out of neighboring Koreatown.
Many groups have sought to rehabilitate MacArthur Park, making the area a safer, more livable place for some of Los Angeles’s poorest residents by encouraging families, especially mothers, to use the park en masse. The strategy worked: The presence of moms, kids, and even intact families in the park and on the adjacent streets has gone a long way toward reducing crime and changing the neighborhood for the better. But, in the last year or so, a new problem has shown up in MacArthur Park and the surrounding streets that has beaten back the families and made the streets more dangerous: the tents. In the past few years, homeless encampments and tent villages have proliferated across Los Angeles. The city has always has a massive homelessness problem, so much so that it even became the ultimate punchline of the 2007 South Park episode “Night of the Living Homeless.”
In most cities, “skid row” is a euphemism for a particularly destitute part of town. In Los Angeles, Skid Row is a specific place. Its boundaries stretch from Main Street on the west, to Alameda Street on the east, to Third Street on the north, to Seventh Street on the south. It borders trendy areas such as Little Tokyo, the Old Bank District, the Historic Core, the Fashion District, and the Arts District, all home to some of the city’s hottest restaurants, bars, and boutiques, as well as some very expensive real estate. Expensive, trendy brands such as Acne Studios, Aēsop, A.P.C., Mykita, and Shinola all have stores within spitting distance of the nation’s largest concentration of homeless people.
Starting in the 1970s, the city made a conscious effort to concentrate its homeless in one place rather than have them spread around the enormous metropolitan area. The idea was that this would make it easier to provide services to the homeless, but it also concentrated crime, drug use, diseases, and various other problems. Other cities around Los Angeles would drop off their homeless and (notoriously) mentally-ill in Skid Row, sometimes from as faw away as Nevada. This got liberal do-badders — most notably, that menace to society known as the ACLU — to spring into action and launch a series of lawsuits against the City of Los Angeles, the LAPD, etc.
Jones v. The City of Los Angeles (2007): The lawsuit that really started the ball rolling, the Ninth Circus [sic] Court of Appeals ruled that city ordinances banning sleeping on sidewalks essentially made homelessness illegal and ruled it unconstitutional, citing the Eighth Amendment. The city finally agreed to a settlement that allowed people to sleep on sidewalks from 9 PM to 6 AM, so long as they remained ten feet from the doors of building or entrances of driveways. Afterwards, charities began handing out tents to the homeless.
Desertrain v. City of Los Angeles (2014): The Ninth Circus [sic] Court of Appeals returns again, this time striking down a law making it illegal to sleep overnight in one’s automobile, on a public street, or in a parking lot on the grounds that it “opens the door to discriminatory enforcement against the homeless and the poor,” and that it “violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an unconstitutionally vague statute.” The 1983 statute had gotten renewed enforcement after the seaside neighborhood of Venice saw an influx of homeless rush onto its streets, where they would live in vans, recreational vehicles, or just cars, causing havoc for the people of this gentrified, largely residential area by dumping trash and excrement into streets, etc. (California Coastal Commission regulations about coast access limits the city’s ability to put street parking restrictions in much of that area.)
Lavan v. The City of Los Angeles (2012): Finally rejected for review by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013, letting stand the ruling that city officials could not confiscate the belongings of homeless people as abandoned property. Therefore, the police and sanitation crews must leave the trains of (stolen) grocery carts full of miscellaneous junk laying about the city’s sidewalks alone, even if unattended. Since the homeless did not have to guard their trash wagons as intently as before, they were more free to move about the city, colonizing new areas; and because they could roam further from their hoards in search of stuff, their piles of junk have been steadily increasing.
Starting in 2013, LA’s homeless population began to grow. By 2015, the increase was noticeable: The homeless — who used to be just around Skid Row, Santa Monica, and a few other far Westside locations — were suddenly everywhere. And where one used to just see a single homeless person, one now encounters his or her encampment. They travel with piles of stuff with them, taking up several seats on the subway, or parked like a smelly little kiosk in the middle of the sidewalk. And while this is purely anecdotal, my experience and those of my friends agree: The homeless have become much more aggressive.
Just as Downtown LA hit its stride as the new center for civic life, the fetid decadence once neatly contained east of Main Street has exploded all over Downtown, accosting office ladies and conventioneers, and threatening to return Downtown’s scary’s reputation. Some places have chained-off huge sections of sidewalk to prevent encampments. “That’s what they do in South Africa,” an exasperated friend of mine told me. Even on the well-heeled Westside, I had a scary moment walking past an encampment under a freeway between Rancho Park and Sawtelle: a little pocket of a Mad Max movie right between two upper-middle-class enclaves.
When the Great Depression began, the shantytowns in the middle of cities were dubbed “Hoovervilles.” Why aren’t we calling the mass tent cities in the parks of America’s second largest city “Obamavilles”?
* * *
This coming September, the International Olympic Committee will gather in Lima, Peru to decide which city will host the 2024 Summer Olympics. After Rome dropped out of the running in October, three cities are left: Paris, Budapest, and Los Angeles. If either Paris or Los Angeles win, it would be each city’s third time hosting; it would be the centenary of the last Paris games and the fortieth anniversary of the last Los Angeles games. Hungary is the only of the top ten medals-winning nations of all time never to have hosted an Olympics. The terrorism incidents that have struck France may be a concern, while there is a push in Hungary for a referendum on the Budapest bid. While some may argue that the IOC may dislike America’s choice of a president, France has its own controversial election coming up. Besides, when Barack Obama — golden calf of the international élite — stumped for Chicago’s 2016 bid, it was the first city to be eliminated.
But when the IOC members land in sunny LA and see homeless tents on every street corner… what will they think? When they see an encampment of schizophrenia sufferers with mangy dogs and piles of old clothes and housewares in front of the Memorial Coliseum that was the showpiece of the 1984 Olympics — and would surely play the same role in 2024 — what will they think? Especially when LA is competing against the ne plus ultra of tourist destinations, a city that knows how to charm and dazzle? Will Parisian hosts drive the IOC down streets full of tent cities? As the Paris 2024 Olympic Committee might say: Je crois que non.
And so the contradictory goals of the Leftists who control Los Angeles and California are on a collision course, with their bleeding hearts charging one way and their love of grandiose civic spectacle heading the other. And because they have been unable to say “No,” someone else is almost certainly going to tell them “No” instead.
Published in General
James Taranto’s WSJ Best of the Web column used to have a regular feature called “Homelessness Rediscovery Watch” based on this observation by Mark Helprin on Oct. 31, 2000:
When I was in Paris in December, I was struck by seeing something I have never seen in NYC: Young, seemingly healthy families – man, woman, kids – on the sidewalk at night, sitting upright on mattresses, under blankets and comforters. In NYC, one rarely sees homeless people with such luxurious sleeping arrangements, and usually street people are either on their feet and awake, or lying down and asleep. It was odd to see families on the street, sitting up in bed as if they were watching TV. I figured it was some scam to generate sympathy and contributions, and that late at night, the mattresses were dragged back to their apartments.
Perhaps @Claire has an explanation.
Ah, you get to another of the Liberal Do-Gooder Contradictions that plague this city!
There’s a push to legalize the illegal street vendors that are clogging sidewalks with counterfeit detergent, pirated DVDs, and unsanitary food carts. One can barely move on the sidewalk along Alvarado Street toward Wilshire Boulevard exiting the subway station because of the illegal vendors crowding the pavement – often with very dangerous set-ups such as open kettles of oil for deep-frying perched in shopping carts.
Many of these vendors are illegal immigrants; they do this work because they cannot legally do anything else. Their margins are narrow. Even ignoring their illegal status, now they’re going to have to pay licensing fees and taxes? (They’re already “taxed” by the local gangs.) Look at the pirata above: It’s a car battery hooked up to a baking sheet – I’m sure that’s legal. See any handwashing setup? Where are those hot dogs wrapped in raw bacon being refrigerated? Certainly the people who’ll get licenses will fight to keep others from following suit. (In Venice, vendors are notorious for fighting over selling spaces on the boardwalk.) What happens when the city government starts checking into the legality of those antibióticos they’ve got for sale? And so on…
Adam Carolla on his podcast goes on and on about the shopping cart vendors. Also, he talks about the illegals selling flowers by Forest Lawn cemetery, and the tons of boxes they leave behind, littering the streets. Meanwhile, if a tax-paying citizen forgets to put on his seatbelt it’s “Click It Or Ticket”!
Why can’t law enforcement enforce the laws? (That’s a rhetorical question, because in a progressive municipality such as L.A. or S.F., we know the answer – there is no will or desire, for political reasons.)
In part, it’s because the problem is so big, and the crime is essentially petty. It would take a small S.W.A.T. army in riot gear to stop a city block full of illegal vendors, and dozens of civilians would be caught in the crossfire. Most of the perpetrators would easily skip bail because they’re illegal immigrants with no records; there’s no place to house them in the jails, and the court system is overbooked as it is. It would cost hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars essentially for nothing. It’s like trying to punch water.
Another problem is the street vendors are preyed upon by the gangs, who “tax” them. This helps keep organized crime alive despite all the anti-gang taskforces the city throws at them. Thank you, Sanctuary Cities!
A good friend lives in the gentrified Echo Park/Silver Lake area, walking distance from the park. We walked down there last summer and I was surprised we were able to amble the entire circumference of the lake. Definitely as you have suggested, mostly minority families, millennials and hipsters with latino culinary offerings from entrepreneurs food carts. Quite a pleasant afternoon, and many times better than it was last time I was there (probably in the 80’s).
However, that night we went to a downtown 80’s themed bar/arcade. It is located on the same street as Skid Row. Leaving at 2am and trying to find our car, we walked through central casting for The Walking Dead. As discussed in this thread, the mental health failings of Los Angeles County is on full display. Paranoid schizophrenics, drug addicts, PTSD veterans from multiple wars and FAMILIES broke our hearts. The countless tents butt up against each other as this is valuable real estate to sleep. But in the middle of the night, there was no way anyone could sleep. The din of people screaming at each other, addicts forcefully seeking their next high, and downright scary glares from unpredictable denizens kept us focused on moving quickly to find our car.
LA County is a black hole of spending combined with failed progressive policies which has resulted in what any witness to this area would suggest is nothing short of a humanitarian crisis. We focus on refugees from Syria and other far flung regions, but in our own back yard we have created a destroyed underclass of Americans. L.A. is just another blue city who has placed it’s progressive agenda above practical solutions and this is just one more result.
Time for a realignment of our priorities.
Are you talking here about our corporate welfare problem?
You mean because such corporations defecate where they eat?
Yes, in a manner of speaking.
You went to Echo Park, right? It’s much nicer than MacArthur Park. Its residents treat it like… a park. Several years ago, MacArthur Park’s lakehouse was finally demolished and the paddleboats taken out, unlike at Echo Park.
The north (non-lake) half of MacArthur Park had eroded into bare packed earth like one sees in Third World countries from the endless fútbol, so when the park was being refurbished a few years back, local activists wanted it turned into one big soccer pitch. The Sierra Club sued to maintain the green space; as a compromise, the lawn was converted to artificial turf which had to be of an irregular shape – but it’s a soccer pitch. The city let a group renovate the old band shell, and the sound of the concerts is deafeningly loud; our city councilman’s response when I complained: “You know you live by a park, right?” (Apparently Park = Disneyland.)
The band shell’s now filled with – you guessed it – homelesses.
I think this is the oldest family photo we have. It’s my great-grandfather, who was hired in the mid 1890s as a policeman in a small Minnesota town along a railroad. His main job was to keep the depression-era hobos away from the town, and keep them from stealing chickens and the clothing off of washlines. Some of them may have been Civil War vets, but even if so, most were younger than that. He’d sometimes visit them in their tent camps outside of town – tell them it was time to get jobs (such as were available) or move on. He passed on stories about their back-and-forths on this topic – they had some snappy comebacks. He was handy with his fists and a bullwhip, and there are also a couple of stories of him having to resort to his handgun. Some of his boys (who did not inherit his physical strength or ability to use their fists) observed some of this and thought he was rather harsh on the hobos. My own grandfather admired his father, but had conflicts with him (as is often the case with stubborn Germans) and when I knew him was a soft touch for any bum who’d ask for money, even though he didn’t have much himself.
Moral of the story: Then as now, it’s complicated.
The mental illness going on down there is just no joke. And it’s all over L.A.’s mass transit. The homeless basically camp out on the trains – especially the Red/Purple Lines (the subway) – and just rant and rave to the voice in their heads, occasionally stopping to scream at and intimidate other riders. And people are trapped in these giant speeding metal cages with them; there’s no security in there or in the stations. They’re all over Hollywood, where the tourists want to go. I don’t know why anyone would want to visit this city as a tourist; it’s horrific…
Yes, that looks like the one as there were peddle boats available for rent. So the parks are similar and close to each other? Must get confusing.
I don’t want to sound like a snotty Angeleno, but… not really. Echo Park’s in Echo Park; MacArthur Park’s in Westlake. Echo Park is north of the 101; MacArthur Park is south of the 101. Echo Park is long and thin, surrounded by residences on hills, has lotus patches and paddleboats, and is a place for leisurely strolls and people-watching. MacArthur Park is square and dissected by busy Wilshire Boulevard, surrounded by commercial streets, has a big soccer field on one side and a neglected lake on the other, and is a place for playing soccer, shooting dice, or sleeping outdoors (even before the homeless explosion, many local men would enjoy taking a siesta in the park). They just have a very different character to them.
Echo Park is where filmmakers and commercial directors go when they want a pretty park – such as in its most famous film appearance, 1974’s Chinatown:
MacArthur Park is where filmmakers and commercial directors go when they want a gritty park – such as in its most famous film appearance, 2011’s Drive:
Well on the way to turning LA into a Third Wold held hole. Alta Mexico, here we come.
In the words of the great Homer J. Simpson…
LA is already building a new stadium for the Rams and Chargers. And it already has the Coliseum, Rose Bowl, Staples Center, Forum, Sports Arena, Pauley Pavillion, and probably a dozen others that I am forgetting. That’s how it worked in 1984. They didn’t build anything new. They just used existing facilities and dressed things up a bit. And, somehow, they managed to get the homeless (yes, there were plenty of them even back then) out of sight for a couple of weeks. Probably just shoved them all into Santa Monica, which has been known for decades as “the home of the homeless.”
Oddly enough, the traffic in LA during the 1984 Olympics was the lightest I ever saw during my 55 years living there. I guess the homeless weren’t the only ones who left town.
And Dodger Stadium, Galen Center, and StubHub Center (formerly Home Depot Center). Downtown’s Microsoft Theater is part of the 2024 bid (for the weightlifting events), as well as extensive utilization of USC and UCLA facilities, and the city even already has an Olympic-class velodrome, which was one of the few facilities that needed to be built in 1984.
The L.A. Memorial Sports Arena was demolished a few months ago to build Banc of California Stadium, a soccer-specific stadium. Why they didn’t just pile up a few hundred million dollars and light it on fire is beyond me: That would’ve been much faster and pretty much achieve the same result…
The Democrats did that in Boston for Kerry’s convention. It really was shameful.
I wouldn’t mind, but the Democrats get votes for “helping the poor.” But the Democrats are really cold-hearted toward them.
Meanwhile, up in Oakland, the tent cities have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. There seems to be dozens of them, tucked in various patches of ground all over the city; under freeways, by the railroad tracks, scattered around industrial properties. Some are quite elaborate and must house 100 people or more. All of them are continuously acquiring growing heaps of refuse and of course there are no provisions for sanitation. The city does nothing, or seems to be doing nothing. Housing costs are high here; I often wonder if these people of the tents are the working poor, or on general assistance, or scavengers or beggars or mentally ill some combination of those. At any rate, it’s become so intractable that I wonder if anything can be done; can this population be housed, and at whose expense? I feel, however, the longer this phenomena is allowed to continue the closer to impossible it will be to solve.
It’ll be interesting to watch what airbnb does for Olympic rentals in LA. And how LA will want a piece of the action. And how celebs protest the homeless clearance.
Gee, you’d almost think that Hollywood wants it like that. Just coincidence, I’m sure.
Touche!
But is it different? (In what ways?) Is it the same? (If so, how?)
Are the homeless in America mostly migrants, or are they mostly native born? What about in France?
Australia has a homelessness issue – but it seems to be driven by mental health and addiction issues [and the decision to redevelop/upgrade public housing by coming down heavy on drug dealers who live there] rather than poverty just by itself.
And, just visibly and from how they speak, most homeless people I see/hear in Sydney are Aussies, not migrants.
Is that how it is in America, or is it different again?
(In India, otoh, the vast majority of homelessness is due to poverty, and in fact we have redefined it in our minds – someone who is living in a tent city/’informal housing’ is …..not homeless in India, though apparently they would be counted as such in the US?)
I have the impression that most of the tent settlements near where we live in Michigan are of native born homeless. It might be different in California. They tend to stay out of the way and out of sight, though a careful observer can sometimes see them from the road. Mrs. R once spotted one in low ground near the Kalamazoo River while I was busy driving. When severely cold weather comes, the police sometimes break them up and try to get the people to go to homeless shelters, but they also try to be reasonable and respectful about it. Sometimes they do it in response to complaints or concerns.
There have been mothers with infants in these (usually with drug problems, too).
That’s not true at all around Austin, TX, but it might be in other areas. Here, the homeless who are dangerous hang out on Guadalupe street across from the University of Texas, and wander through the “west campus” area at night. Lots of UT student bikes to steal, as well as other property.
The homeless under bridges and freeways, meanwhile, are generally harmless.
I can speak just about the situation I see in L.A.: Most of the homeless in L.A. see to be American citizens, a great many of them are black, though quite a lot of them – especially in the groups that have spread outside of Skid Row such as in the tents in MacArthur Park in my original post – are white. There are many veterans in the ranks of the homeless, and I mean from the Vietnam War era. Various social agencies have been housing some of them in apartments in the Westlake area, which is one of the reasons why Westlake has resisted gentrification despite sitting in a seemingly desirable location between past gentrification magnets Echo Park, Silver Lake, Koreatown, and just across the Harbor Freeway from the ultimate gentrification success story, Downtown L.A.
However, there is one encampment beside the MacArthur Park Recreation Center that is pretty obviously a camp of illegal immigrants. Besides being Latino, they don’t have the tents that social workers hand out to the homeless; their shelter is made up of tarps tied to the park’s fence like a literal shanty. And I’ve noticed the men frequently come and go as if from jobs, while others clearly keep watch, which most homeless no longer do. But this is an exception. Again, most L.A. homeless seem to be citizens.
Just thinking back on the history of homelessness in LA, I remembered this one, which was pretty damn funny at the time.