History of Los Angeles Skid Row
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
- This file is the first in a series of Skid Row History project produced by UCLA Luskin Social Welfare Department (luskin.ucla.edu/social-welfare). This film was made possible by generous support from UCLA Faculty Diversity & Development Fund and UCLA Luskin Department of Social Welfare.
My granddad used to pick up homeless guys and teach him a trade in construction. He helped a lot of young homeless men out of the streets and make a living for themselves.
It seems a no-brainer to have a federal jobs program that employs people to build (and learn to build) affordable housing, to help solve the homeless problem. I am guessing that there are real estate lobbyists that like things just the way they are, and besides, the pentagon needs every last nickel, screw the homeless and working poor..
@@daviddestin1990 do you understand how expensive wood is?? Not even middle class can build their own houses.
@@HooLeePhucingSheetdo you understand how government subsidies work? Bottom line is, poverty is used as a tool of control in this country . Always has been, always will be
@@danieldelewis2448 I wasn't talking to you.
@@HooLeePhucingSheet does that matter ? The person you wrote to in response of their comment wasn't talking to you, and yet here we are.
I was born and raise in skid row we lived on 7th and san pedro. I also went to 9th st elementary. All the families that lived there would have their kids either go to 9th st or to a place called para los niños. Thank God for alot of those programs that are in place to help out the folk that need it.
God bless you, @josepartida95. I pray you and those you love are well and in a good place. My adult son has schizophrenia, and being misunderstood and not helped by his family here in Maine, he left here 3 years ago. He ended up in Skid Row in LA for awhile. It's a rough place to live, but he got by. I'm sure it was not an easy place to grow up in.❤
I grew up in the LA skidrow area between 1957 to 1973. The Los Angeles CRA (Comunity Redevelopment Agency) forced us all out of our homes. We were all scattered into the wind. It was a relatively tight knit group of residents. We all knew which resident would always take up the leadership if there was ever a serious situation affecting the entire neighborhood.
@@pollyscookies9180How did he end up there so far from Maine? Where is he now?
Love and respect to you, Jose ❤❤❤
What a shit place to be born and raised in
I just want to point out that the presenter was incredibly well spoken and eloquent. Part of my work is in the public relations field, what I wouldn't give to have his speaking skills.
I’ve made a lot of documentary films on local things such as this. My guess is that Donald Spivack’s speaking skills are at least in part due to immense knowledge of the subject. When you know something inside out, and mix that with a natural ability to speak and attention to detail, speaking this well can look (but isn’t) easy.
Anyone who enjoys this kind of video should think about studying Public History. You go deep into these issues and it's incredible to learn the motivations of the good and bad characters that have shaped the modern world
The Spanish displaced the Native people, then they were displaced. Look up Roman history they took over almost all the known world at that time. They kept slaves, systematic genocide. Yet somehow they get a pass when they made Nazi Germany look like rookies.
Thanks for the tip on what it's called.
Skid Row is ten times worse today since this video was made 8 years ago.
Their system isn’t working.
I just saw a documentary on skid road in Minnesota it was fascinating! It goes back to the 1930s✌️.
I'm just trying to find out if there will ever be a solution to clean up these areas! I live about an hour away from Kensington avenue in Philadelphia and it is horrific! People losing limbs over the drug TRANQ IT IS EATING PEOPLE ALIVE!
A great history lesson on the Los Angeles area and so well spoken you just want to listen to this gentleman. He calls it the way it is without adding any political cliches.
Lesson. Why can’t you Americans spell even simple words. You are all so uneducated.
right? That was my first thought too. He just explains it as it happens, no political/racial agenda
Sad subject for me, my father died as an alcoholic on the street of skid row in the 80’s. As a child I could do nothing.
He died so you could live. He was dulling his pain the only way he knew. I almost became you father.
@@brakeme1 you are lying.
Very informative. Thank you! It's amazing that every resident of Los Angeles County knows what Skid Row is, but yet never knew what Skid Row was.. And to not understand what Skid Row was, is to not understand it at all....
Lol California get rich or died quickly......
Everyone would call being on hard times "skid row" is why. It was technically slang.
8:41
You're right... I had absolutely no idea what Skid Row was, which is why I clicked on this video. And I'm so glad I did because now I do. I'm 44 years old and never knew this about my city. This was wonderfully educational. They just don't teach you this kind of thing in school, sadly.
It's a slum with tents now, what it was is irrelevant.
Professor Spivack's balanced and insightful presentation is very thought provoking. Very well presented.
How? These are the same talking points that have been spewed for decades. Yet nothing has changed. People are getting paid to talk, no action.
His name is Donald Spivack. A very well educated and plain speaking gentleman. Nice job. on a very tough subject. I grew up hearing the term Skid Row, and I never thought it was a literal neighborhood designation. A very sad and hopeless part of city life that exists now everywhere.
This is from 8 years ago... since then the crisis of Skid Row has spread like a cancer to every community in the LA County area due to the lack of responsible local governmental authority.
Our state colluding with the federal govt to fund the "party homeless" has had affect, empirically speaking.
How embarrassing to watch such an insightful, nuanced video only to comment something so ignorant and baseless. Do you actually care about the real world?
@@LoLo1k2k3kQuit burying your head in the sand.
@LoLo1k2k3k you can't handle the truth?
Talk to Jesus about it!
Pastors are all the same- give me *your* money- I won I know
33:33
by looking at Skid Row in its current condition, i would say that whoever is in charge of the situation there has failed tremendously and does not have any grasp on how to handle the illness it is.
USA failed
Solution?
@@absurd_patience turn N.Dakota into a Homeless Reform State and ship all sidewalk sleepers there. use federal funding for mental health, education, rehabilitation for that one state and they get released from that state by passing several standards tests and multiple evaluations and sign offs with employment of some sort and a housing plan they must adhere to. repeat offenders get sent to an Alaskan or Chicago facility.
@0darknananewsom
I agree that outlying communities need to put up housing & services when servicing families with children. Skid row is no place for children. I took in my husbands step nephew when we married after the boy suffered extreme tragedies down there where his mother had been raped & eventually killed.
I once sang there at the Res ue Mission for these guys when I was 19 with a friend of mine, Dean McClure, who would go to sing and preach to them about Jesus. It seems that nothing ever changes. There will always be a need for support and help. Now at 78, I hope even my small contribution so many decades ago helped at least one person.
The last thing they need is more "Jesus"
The Rescue Mission, Midnight Mission, Gravy Joe -- they all endeavored to aid and comfort a lot of people. Anyone who detracts from the "religious" aspect is mean-spirited and clueless. I have always benefited greatly from those with more of "Jesus" in their souls than the sort of desperate ignorance we have at present.
I am not a dedicated soul. But I keep my own faith, and let others do the same. Peace.
God bless your soul sir 🙏
This was published on UA-cam 8 years ago. It appears we now have a Skid Row in every city or town in California.
He did say other communities should pick up the slack, as a means to Decentralize Skidrow
Every city in every STATE of the good ole USA. Sad.
In the whole US
@@BobSacamano666It's international.
That's not true, Skid Row is an area of itself.
Sure there's homeless all over Los Angeles and other cities in L.A. County. But nothing like this heavily populated area of Skid Row.
Very well presented, fact-based and so we’ll explained. Like a university class in 22 minutes.
I could listen to this man speak all day long! So informative and straightforward. Thanks for posting this!
I appreciate this content because it gives more context to how / why things happen.
I share this video to people I meet that ask why skid row exists
Great history lesson I just wanted to know about skid row but I learned a lot more
CA cities like SF Bay Area and LA are main tourist attractions for the homeless. Many homeless are from other states, and were given one way tickets, or many heard of the free handouts being given, which attracted them to come (of course, better weather). Millions of dollars (possibly a couple billions) were spent to assist the homeless. The unfortunate thing is, many organizations helping the homeless benefited from the fundings given to them. It was a way to create a job security for themselves, which why they protect the homeless and ask for more funding needed. The answer to this is to use most of the funding to assist the homeless, and send them back to the community of their origin. The burden can’t be put on these high concentrated communities. And the organization need to be held accountable for the funds used.
Same happened during the dust bowl days!
It's called "poverty pimping" and it's a lucrative business.
Well put.
@@mikeh9956 especially when one has been a victim of it.
California might also, I don’t know, curb illegal immigration. So the funds can go to actual homeless citizens.
This man is very intelligent. So knowledgeable about this subject matter. It’s amazing how vast his knowledge base was. And is. Really interesting. They need to really listen to him. Believe him. Now.
He is a professor.
He is a great speaker but it’s clear he is reading and he leaves a lot of stuff out
I could listen to this guy talk all day. What a profound and fundamental deep knowledge of the history of Los Angeles and Skid Row.
As anyone from Seattle knows it is Skid Road not Row. And the road is still there in downtown Seattle , Yesler Way, it was the road they skided logs down to Yesler's saw mill on the water front. The street was mostly unusable and was filled with bars, cheap hotels and brothels.
I was born in La in the 90s but Hotel Cecil brought be here tonight
Fascinating, the history and urban planning tactics…Skidrow the place where the broken and dejected gather. A community of high tolerance…
Very interesting and well documented video.
“Communities of high tolerance” is an interesting term. In my observation, all of the cities I have lived in and paid taxes in since I left suburban New Jersey at age 20 in 1974 have functioned as “communities of high tolerance” for the more affluent “regions” they exist within. Every region in America seems to need the low-income communities on the “wrong side of the tracks” that absorb the destitute working poor and mentally ill. Well off people have sexual abuse, mental illness, substance abuse issues and business / livelihood failures also. They just also have resources that can cushion the fall and keep them from landing unhoused and on the street.
It’s even worse now. I wonder how bad it will get?
There’s already chaos and lawlessness, how much lower can it go?
Its hard to fathom what else can go wrong.
A lot worse. The government forcing business closures will cause poverty on huge scales. Add to that people like bill gates buying up farm land and not farming will result in lack of food. That’s already happening. The government is not your friend
This David Spivek road a government paycheck, virtue signaled and got nothing accomplished for Skid Row. Like most of the idiots in the Hell hole called California.
This is an awesome video. It would be great to see this channel grow.
Facts.
And I like to quote the Good Book where it basically says "Woe to him that establishes a town on bloodshed." Habbakuk 12
I Lived in Los Angeles all my life and never knew all of this.
Ok skid row is world famous and you lived in LA for your whole life and you didn't had any idea? Well you must live in a jar or something!
@@kostasveronis5882 I think they meant they didn't know the history behind it.
You been living under a rock or something??🤔🧐
More people if it doesn't have anything to do with their lives.know very little about it.
..
😂😂 don't live in la I knew about skid row by researching, discovery , expand the mind . So people like u don't stay ignorant of the world !!!
Very well done and I love the narrator. The presentation was so good I have watched it several times and shared it with friends who felt the same.
It's July 30th 2023 and a winning billion dollar Lotto ticket was sold at Las Palmas Market. God help that individual. 💯
See...it's all up to the universe, it chooses who's successful and who's not....suck it up and accept what You have, to the best of Your Own abilities
I appreciate this video provides great understanding,
No right or left wing spin. Just facts. Great video.
totally agree re:spin. rare in these days.
The deeper truth is a little more disturbing.
m.ua-cam.com/video/rKo8Sv99MkM/v-deo.html&pp=ygUPU2tpZCByb3cgcmRsaW5l
Well, all that’s missing to make it right wing is commentary on the facts. Left wing would obfuscate and trivialize them.
@@LostSoxBe quiet you fool
Shut up
So this all stemmed from the beginning of the Railroad and it all unfolded in to agriculture to needing hotels residential homes, then 2nd ww men needed for work in military...
Thanks alot Railroad you turned an insect in to a growing Ugly monster.....geez
Nicely filmed and edited!
Great history review, and very sad. A society's greatness is measured in how those at the bottom are cared for, or not, in this situation. Now we have skid rows in multiple cities. We are not doing great.
Look at how this country started: genocide, internment, treaty breaking, money over mankind.
Curious of your example of a great society that is exemplary in how "those at the bottom are cared for"?
The greatest societies have no safety net so you must take part and not drain.
Even today, the most progressive societies are embracing suicide, abortion, and child abuse.
To clarify: the low sentences for harming a child show our values around protecting them.
But it’s also important for a society to do everything they can to limit and encourage those at the bottom to uplift themselves and not encourage or enable personal destructive behavior
They choose to be at the bottom.
Should we force them into institutions to live like the rest of us?
Lots of privileged folk in here.
Rent costs are too high! Too big and expensive. I just need small, safe, home.
Excellent video - I learned a lot. Thank you for posting.
Interesting history lesson. Thank you.
Interesting information presented . Pretty much straight to the point
Skid Row goes from Main St all the way to the Los Angeles River. My dad's family was from Boyle Heights, and they were very familiar with Skid Row..
People desperately fleeing other parts of the country and being addicted says a lot about the American Dream.
They are not fleeing so much as being sent by judges in small towns .It works like this the judge will say "We have this nice warm jail cell or a bus ticket to nice warm Ca it is your choice."
It's a scam
I forward this video and the latest update to all my overseas friends. especially to all the Asian countries! Yes CHINA!
Very informative, this video should have more views.
Wow, this man knows how to do his job 👏
Tuolume city has a street named skid row, named because logging companies would drag trees down that street to the mill, back in the day,
They went wrong when you said they were against new homes being made squizing people out into the streets
Very good overview of that area.
Unfortunately lot of the old prejudices populated this video. The number one is alcoholism. It has been shown since the 70-s that alcoholism is a result of living on skid row, not a cause of, generally. The other is education. The long-held view that most of skid row residents are illiterate, was also shown false. In fact skid row had higher percentage of college educated residents than the general population, not rarely Ivy League or other elite college graduates among them. While the face of skid row is the elderly single male, there are also a lot of women - except they are much better at covering their tracks that they live on skid row. The crucial insight into skid row was found in breakthrough studies in the 70-s when the large skid rows of America, e.g. the Bowery of New York, that was home to thousands of residents and was a city of its own, was a social phenomena that drew national attention. What they found was that people who have no family, no relatives, are socially hard to fit, suffer from depression, are the most likely candidates for skid row, irrespective of education, jobs, gender or race. Thats why skid row is always with us.
Thank you for your work
Curious photo @10:35. Spivack talks about violence while showing damaged cars suggestive of a link, but abandoned cars were used as shelter and there is nothing presented to indicate a link between the cars and any violence.
Photo is at Fourth and Omar Streets from 1954. Car in foreground has been burned out. Accidentally? Intentionally? By a homeless person or by someone opposing homeless sleeping in jalopies? So maybe there is violence related to the image, but if so you can't say by whom. There's a building there now, but people are still people sleeping on that very corner.
How is concentrating services in one location for a very large region ever not a problem? As long as every part of a region has a skid row to push people to they will without regard for the capacity of the skid row's services.
Sidenote: Skid Row is in the shadow of the iconic LAPD City Hall but rarely do you ever get a perspective of their spatial relationship from pop media.
I learned a lot!
I worked at the Los Angeles Opera costume shop off South Alameda. I saw two dead bodies laying on the sidewalk on different occasions while working down there. It was crazy that the building was still being used but L.A. costs are absurd and the LAOCS is a non-profit, so...
I know that place well. I saw what I think was a dead body underneath that bridge south of there. Heard some homeless people broke into the building next door and caused a fire
IT'S A LOT WORSE NOWS IN 2021
Great video and explanation
This was posted eight years ago. I would love to see an update on the public policies he has talked about - have things gotten worse or better? (My hypothesis is that things have gotten worse but what do I know I am just a regular citizen.)
I wonder why more basic Americans aren’t concerned about public policy? I went through American public schools, college and graduate school and I don’t know anything about it.
Americans are taught that all problems are solved at the Federal level, in D.C., by Congress and the White House. They are not taught about city, county, and state government in school. And that is where all of the most impactful decisions are made. To be educated in those matters, at a city, county, and state level, takes individual effort. Most people are too busy working 2 jobs and living pay check to pay check to have the time it takes to be well read on those subjects. Everyone looks to Congress every time there is a problem and the people at the lower rungs of government, who are always eye'ing a seat at the big table in D.C., do things that impress other politicians and lobbyists, not their constituents.
Country rule by white folks ...who does that ?
Revive this channel!! 🌅
Was the speaker originally from Canada? I detect the accent. By the way, my maternal grandparents were Canadian. So the question is friendly.
All over the World, every city can boast a " Skid Row " ... Real Estate prices hit rock bottom, hence the process of " Gentrification " is activated. Kings Cross , Sydney being a recent example in Australia. Although many Services still exist to cater for the underclass largely gravitating to the area Some say this is true in pockets, in others Apartments/Units can easily demand $1 - 3 m. All in all it makes for an interesting Social mix.
All over the western world that Europeans 'civilized' from 'savages', that is. 👀
I have heard that Skid Row has been around since the 50s and want to know more about the history. This video is very informative and has taught me that Skid Row has actually been around longer. Also well said regarding other communities picking up part of the load. Most people feel bad for these population, yet, they will reject having these people in their neighborhoods. Protests on Project Room Key is an example, which is sad.
Is that 1750, 1850, or 1950 ... Perhaps all. The 18th Century saw the influx of people from the Agrarian way of life to the Cities due to the Industrial Revolution where jobs were seemingly plentiful, but very low paid. Take a look at the social history of London, and Agricultural regions of England. In the cities there was high rates of overcrowding, alcoholism, violence and petty crime leading to Transportation ... This can be coupled with the end of Slavery and a subsequent need for cheap labour. Mostly Seasonal by nature.
It's been around from the time of trans ocean shipping fleets. Lots of merchant marine workers would reside in a flop house in an area such as SR, mainly because it was cheap and easy to rent...
What an interesting film.
Well done video. Has not changed my mind about funding to this type of housing model, however.
This just popped up on my feed. In 2018, I visited LA and went downtown to a restaurant next to Skid Row. Unfortunately, I parked within the outskirts of Skid Row and it was so disgusting. I was so concerned that I almost ordered an Uber to pick me up from my car to take me a few blocks down the road.
I believe it. Was there in March its everywhere smell of piss n poop
OMG DON'T EVER VACATION AT SKID ROW!! omg it's not this passive jolly old place. it's horrible, horrendus place
I've worked in LA for years and every day it progressively worse. When friends and family from out of town ask me what places are best to visit in LA, I tell them, "Orange County."
@@detcordxxxitell him skid row 😂😂😂
I had a girlfriend when I was a teen who had a flower shop in Malibu and I would go to there at 5 am to buy flowers so that she would not have to go alone ,that was in 1979 nothing has changed except that there were many people who died during aids now there are different problems. The church has less money to spend on people now that they are paying settlements out to the people they harmed so less help is able to be given .
Any relation to,' Murray' Spivac? Famed sound and voice special effects on the original RKO 1933 'KING KONG.
@14:53 “..INTENDED to put out of work, the office people…”
Good report i didn't know the
Storie of sky row 💙 thank you for opening
My eyes to this
Very painful
Inviroment for
People to call
Home
America has so
Many super rich
People's that
Could help
People like them
Good blessed
Them all 😢😅
How do they do
When the weather changes from hot to cold and
The heavy rains.
When im in my
Bed i thinking of all this people and Fell
Sad for them.
So do to old policies half of all SRO's were demolished and never rebuilt which caused a major shortage
then Saint Ronnie decided that mental facilities were an unneccesary expense, and turned the patients out onto the streets (70s)
So what I learned is that skid row has been a slum for about 100 years
Yup good job L.A.
Lol
Not true it was made a Slum by politicians.
It became a slum when the Spanish showed up.
omg it's not this passive jolly old place like this video portrays (sorry, it's true). it's a horrible, horrendus place
Great video
This is true I know for a fact about that it is high tolerance area.
❤wonderfully explained
The very first thing that should be done is to get the mentality I'll people back to a facility that can maintain their needs
Retract Ronald Regans move to abolish these kinds of places. That would help enormously. After this is accomplished, then we can get a better view of the next step. One of the biggest deterrence is our government.
At the 1:30 mark, I love how he says: “to pacify” not exterminate
Dopeness. Thank you
All I can say is "good luck". A lot of complicated issues there.
I lived on skid row in the 80s as a young man trying to decide what to do with his life. The missions saved my life, both physically and spiritually. Can't say enough for the people who do this kind of work. The problems of increasing numbers of women and children were already starting back then. It was a strange episode of my life but I managed to make a success of my life. Most do not.
This film was amazing. I had no idea.
I wonder what the Professor would think now? (March of 2024 - St. Patrick’s Day)
This was 2014. It’s gotten so much worse from lack of affordable housing in the area and lack of mental healthcare. Very sad.
ALLOWING tents is not a remedy to a mental health and drug crisis. Giving someone a blanket on cold nights is not a remedy.
Very interesting analysis. I have to imagine that the impact of leaded gasoline was also important here. Lead spewed in exhaust poisoned the brains of a lot of young people (there's tons of research on this, look it up) and made them more inclined to commit crime. Just imagine if you grew up in the inner city around a lot of truck exhaust in this period! But because the US banned leaded gas in the mid-1970s, by the early 1990s you had a whole generation of kids who had grown up without that influence. As a result, crime rates fell dramatically (crime in LA is down 75% from the early 90s) and that led to people wanting to move back into the city (like the "arts district" as mentioned here). I doubt that skid row can survive that change. The real estate location is just too valuable.
Well... that's good to know. A bunch of Okie's went to California, got drunk, and established skid row. 😅😅
That's all you got out of this? Good grief. 😮
@@susankeith326 Pretty much. That and black's are violent.
I remember LA being a cesspool back in the early 70’s I won’t go near there.
good interview.
This is very interesting!
Very accurate description of skid row.
Idk if I've just been playing too much GTA 5 lately, but I keep hearing "Los Santos" lmao
16:05 The ice cream man !
There is another video of him serving up "soft serve" on the sidewalk in broad daylight !
God Bless
Thanks !! Great 👍 video 😊
15000? How is your program working ? When I worked in downtown back in the 80’s it was like 500! Something isn’t working
Sounds like LA kind of got screwed holding the ball not knowing what to do ... passing the buck to the next generation...
Sounds like the indigenous people got screwed-er
Very informative
Well done.
Skid Row anywhere, not just LA, is or was a temporary haven for the displaced, a retirement possibility where one could achieve something like dignified poverty in old age, a resource base for the newly arrived or lost seeking reentry into "regular" society.
For a host of reasons, according to a hundred theories, in spite of mountains of sociological, economic, and historical data -- none of the foregoing statements is true or even a possibility nowadays.
Significantly, there is very little of a "regular" anything to reenter.
Skid Row is a black hole, spiraling into sickness and death, filled with corpses, a buffet for disturbingly large and assertive rats.
I have survived there on several occasions over the years.
To the unenlightened:
Congratulations. None of this would be possible without your earnest and dedicated participation
KNOW YOUR HISTORY. ASCERTAIN THE FACTS. POWER TO THE PEOPLE OF LOS ANGELES.
7:14 If that's one family, that's HUGE.
Donald Spivack really knows his stuff.
I need a brothel to serve my needs as a single man.
Thailand dude. You’re welcome.
@@mmaranta785 I wish I had a passport and the means to travel like that. It’s a struggle just to pay rent, bills, and eat.
@@danieldaniels7571 I’m sorry. When you get you’re life in order and have better means and luck, please go.