People without homes live on the streets at the foot of towers occupied by the rich and hip.
DTLA Skyscrapers. Photo by KEHN HERMANO.
Imagine living at the height of a high rise in Downtown Los Angeles. The view is spectacular. What you don't see is the poverty on the street below.
At ground level, the streets are filthy. People live on the sidewalks, sleeping on them at night, congregating there in groups throughout the day.
Their tent homes come down in the morning but are built back up again when dusk comes. They wander the streets at all hours, begging for dollars. They are hungry. Some eat food scavenged out of trash cans.
View from inside a condo currently on the market in DTLA for $12,00,000. Source.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of DTLA's luxury condos enjoy swimming in the sparkling pools on the roofs of their towers. They grill meats from the organic market on gas barbecues and keep warm by fire pits. They live amid an atmosphere of manicured grounds, with shiny interiors, fit with tasteful, modern furnishings.
Their buildings have 24-hour security, and this is necessary. The towers' locked street-level doors open to that scene of indigence and decay below.
I'm not describing a scene in Mumbai, Nairobi, or Mexico City. The scene I write of can be found right here in Los Angeles —namely in the heart of this city, in Downtown L.A.
Yes, in the richest country on this planet, in the richest state in this nation, in the fourth richest city in the world, we find such scenes of conspicuous Third World inequality. L.A. is a place where the very rich live alongside the very poor, but nowhere do the lives of the rich and poor overlap to such striking degrees as in Downtown L.A.
Only in Downtown will you encounter a scene of luxury high-rise living on the exact same streets where people who don't even have homes scrape out their survival.
Homeless people live on the streets everywhere in Downtown L.A.
Skid Row is ground zero for the unhoused population of Los Angeles. In fact, this area of Downtown Los Angeles contains one of the largest homeless populations in the country. Sure, the pandemic has caused the city's unhoused population to grow and spread across the city. The homeless have set up camps on Westside beaches and in parks such as Echo Park Lake. But the majority of the unhoused population is still concentrated in Downtown L.A., especially on Skid Row.
Photo of Skid Row by Jorobeq.
My boyfriend used to live directly on Skid Row, in a loft complex complete with a swimming pool and hot tub, yet it was not as luxurious as his new location. Last month, he moved out of the Skid Row district into the Historic Core of Downtown L.A. However, there are still homeless people living on the streets here. These days, unhoused people live all over Downtown L.A. It's a reality you can't escape.
Loft and condo prices are still high in DTLA.
One might think that because of such conditions, Downtown L.A. properties would be a bargain. This is not the case. Though you can buy a loft or condo for less than you can purchase a house in another part of the city —say, in Silverlake or Santa Monica where you also have close access to great shops and restaurants—the median sales price in Downtown Los Angeles in March 2021 was over $600,000. When my boyfriend was looking for a new loft, the price range was more like between $750,000 and $2,000,000.
These prices are out of range for most people in Los Angeles — and especially for the impoverished who live on the streets of Downtown L.A. Such high home prices have only widened the gap between the rich and poor in Downtown L.A.
As a result, DTLA now feels like a Third World city. The rich and hip live on the same streets with the poor and unhoused. Only the rich are ensconced in exclusive, luxury condos.
A homeless man and tents. Photo by Theodore Hayes.
In essence, what you see in Downtown L.A. is a reflection of what is happening all over the city and ultimately across the state. California itself is both the richest and poorest state in the nation, with a quarter of the state's population living in poverty.
Maybe it shouldn't be so surprising to see what I do in Downtown L.A. It shouldn't shock me to see such a divide between the haves and the have-nots. Perhaps I'm just getting a better look at our present. Or maybe I'm catching a glimpse of the future of our city.