The topic of homelessness is inescapable in Los Angeles, and media reports are full of stories on the subject. This is as it should be: With 75,500 unhoused individuals in the county, this is the moral and physical crisis of our time.
There wasn’t always this much attention placed on the matter. In fact, it’s only been in the last 10 years or so that it has been treated as a humanitarian crisis. For decades before that, homelessness was, if not ignored, then certainly underplayed—feel-good stories of celebrities serving food at Downtown missions on Thanksgiving, and little coverage the other 364 days of the year.
I know this because I was “early” in reporting on homelessness. I don’t write this for any sort of journalistic credibility. It was wholly a result of my situation—I worked at the weekly newspaper Los Angeles Downtown News for three years in the mid-’90s, and then again starting in 2004. Our territory included Skid Row, a neighborhood dominated by single room occupancy hotels, people living on the streets and a battery of service providers.
At the time homelessness didn’t touch much of Los Angeles, and the subject was effectively ignored by most Angelenos. Sure, there were tens of thousands of people lacking permanent shelter, but they were largely concentrated in Downtown, and pockets of Hollywood, South L.A. or Venice. This allowed many elected officials to treat the matter as someone else’s problem.
There were rare exceptions. Downtown Councilwoman Jan Perry was aggressive on the matter, and then-County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas was ahead of the curve, especially when it came to addressing the disproportionate number of Black unhoused individuals. Later City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana made waves with reports that detailed an insufficient municipal response.
At Downtown News we saw the seeds of a worsening regional crisis. In 2011 we published reporter Ryan Vaillancourt’s three-part series “Skid Row’s Perfect Storm.” A few years later we ran an editorial titled “Are L.A.’s Leaders Capable of Leading the Fight Against Homelessness?” The answer was in the question.
When L.A. began waking up, it was primarily in a reactive mode. In 2015 Mayor Eric Garcetti announced plans to dedicate $100 million to address homelessness. It was the city’s biggest investment ever, but would come to be seen as drops in the bucket. Mayor Karen Bass’ 2023 budget allocated $1.3 billion for homelessness.
So much has changed about the situation, and about reporting on it. In the ’90s unhoused individuals in Downtown often bedded down at night in cardboard boxes discarded by the many import businesses, and the makeshift shelters disappeared during the day. Now, much sturdier tents fill sidewalks and parks. Court rulings that prevent police from seizing personal items, or forcing someone from the streets if adequate shelter is not available, led to the encampments in nearly every neighborhood.
The numbers are daunting. The current 75,500 people experiencing homelessness in the county represents a 61% increase over the 47,000 individuals in 2016 (according to the Greater L.A. Homeless Count). More than 2,000 unhoused people now die each year, with fentanyl wreaking havoc across the region.
The crisis is no longer ignored. This is not just among the political class, but with the media, too. While there remain plenty of if-it-bleeds-it-leads headlines, numerous local outlets have reporters dedicated to homelessness and housing. This has produced a wave of thoughtful and humane stories that encompass the take not only of policy makers, but of people on the streets and those with lived experience. I recommend especially the podcast series “Samaritans” and “City of Tents” by KCRW’s Anna Scott.
I’ve learned plenty along the way. At Downtown News we evolved to report on Skid Row as we did other communities, with a spectrum of stories. This meant writing about crime and the state of the streets, but also on a thriving 3-on-3 basketball league and the people who strived to improve the neighborhood. Ethan Ward, a reporter I worked with at the data-driven website Crosstown, and who has written about living in his car, taught me to use the phrase “people experiencing homelessness,” rather than “homeless individuals.” It may seem a small point, but Ethan made me understand how this reflects a phase in life, not a definition of the person.
I’ve written enough the situation to know that, despite campaign trail proclamations, Los Angeles will never “end” homelessness. The housing shortage is too great, the bureaucracy is too complicated, there are too many severely mentally ill and addicted individuals, and any proposed solution ignites some kind of political battle. And as Bass herself has indicated, the end of COVID rent protections could lead to more people losing housing.
It has been a struggle, and it remains one. But people are paying attention, and more people than ever care, including those in the media. That’s a good thing.
