Marina Litvinsky
AMST 570
Spring 2016
Working Title: City vs. the Homeless: Conflicting Meanings and Presence on Skid Row
“We don’t call it homeless, we call it houseless. Homeless is state of mind”
-Khalil, Skid Row
Abstract
Taking Skid Row as an example of spatial appropriation, using empirical evidence from
historical data, media coverage and academic literature, this paper conceptualizes how
this is done by the city and by the homeless in very different and conflicting ways.
Homeless people in Skid Row use the space as a rebellion against the city and related
forces of the capitalist market, which attempt to use Skid Row to keep the homeless
contained while simultaneously stigmatizing their presence and status. The physical
space of Skid Row is defined as a zone of danger, policing and containment by the city,
while figuratively, it is called a “problem” which carries a stigma for its inhabitants. The
homeless, in turn, use the physical space as a home, making social ties and participating
in informal labor, while figuratively working to erase the stigma of the space by
organizing to assert their dignity and human rights.
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Introduction
Using Lefebvre’s (1991) notion that space is a social product, I examine the
appropriation and reproduction of Skid Row in Los Angeles, the homeless capital of the
world, by two opposing forces, the city and the homeless, who simultaneously vie for
control over the physical and figurative place, its meaning and image in the eyes of the
public. The city, as the hegemonic class working under the capitalist economy, attempts
to appropriate the space as a form of domination over the unhoused, marginalizing and
stigmatizing them through various policing and social service programs, in order to
control, while at the same time making it impossible for them to leave. Following
Rennels & Purnell (2015), who state that place helps to “shape, maintain, and transform
our individual and collective identities” (p. 5), we see that the city’s construction of the
meaning of Skid Row dehumanizes its inhabitants and paints them in a very negative
light, as an attempt to keep the space under control. By painting Skid Row and its people
as negative and dangerous, the hegemonic class reproduces its control over the meaning
of that space because no one wants to set foot there or contend with this definition,
except for the homeless. The homeless who physically inhabit the streets of Skid Row
assert their agency in constructing an opposing meaning of Skid Row by engaging in
behavior that turns it into a home, thereby humanizing themselves and de-stigmatizing
themselves and their space. By organizing around their collective identity as Skid Row
residents, the homeless find new ways to take back control over both the physical and
ideological space. This research adds to work previously done on the lived experiences of
the homeless (Borchard 2005; Casey et al., 2008; DeVerteuil et al., 2009; Dordick 1998;
Rosenthal 1994; Ruddick 1996; Snow and Anderson 1993; Snow and Mulcahy 2001;
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Wagner 1993; Wasserman and Clair 2010; Wright 1997), and, like several others,
focuses on the agency of homeless people in the production of meanings of their
physical space in an attempt to paint them in a more complex and nuanced way
(Rennels & Purnell, 2015; Wagner, 1993).
Brief History
While homelessness has existed in various forms for centuries, up until the 1970s
the homeless population in the US remained relatively low (Wasserman & Clair, 2011).
In the 1970s, as inflation increased, real-dollar wages declined and manufacturing jobs
disappeared, homelessness was more than ever connected to static unemployment
(Arnold 2004; Gibson 2004; Mossman 1997; Wasserman & Clair, 2011). This was
further exacerbated in the 1980s with the decrease of funding to low-income housing
and Reagan’s deinstitutionalization, which saw the shutting down of mental institutions
and the release of the patients out into the streets (Moore, Sink, and Hoban-Moore
1988; Ropers, 1988). Los Angeles became the homeless capital around this time, as the
regional economy was restructured, the defense sector, especially the aerospace
industry, downsized and the welfare state shrunk (Stuart, 2011; Wolch, 1996). Skid Row,
an area in downtown LA comprised of 50 city blocks (0.4 square miles), was home to
many transient, migrant male workers, who stayed there when they lost their jobs due to
deindustrialization. No longer able to afford the single room occupancies (SROs) which
housed them, and with nowhere to go, they moved to the streets (Wolch, 1996).
Churches saw this vulnerable and needy population and installed shelters and soup
kitchens, to provide help, healing and indoctrination. The 1970s saw a major increase in
Litvinsky 4
the number and types of social service and shelter providers on Skid Row (Rowe &
Wolch 1990). This increase in shelters and services brought other needy people from
different parts of the city to Skid Row, making it the largest service hub in the city. In
1990, there were approximately 2000 shelter beds and 6700 units in SRO hotels
available (Hamilton et al. 1987). While before 1980 the population consisted mainly of
older, white men, many of whom were alcoholic or disabled, and lived on public
assistance, more recently, the population has become younger and includes African
Americans and Latinos, single women and families with children (Hamilton et al. 1987;
Rowe & Wolch 1990). The services and shelters have not kept up with the increase in
population, especially as more SROs are demolished and construction of replacement
housing has been slow. This has left many sleeping on the sidewalks and alleys of Skid
Row (Rowe & Wolch 1990). Current estimates put the homeless population of Skid Row
at anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000, on any given night, with some alternating between
the SROs, shelters and the streets (Los Angeles’ Skid Row).
Skid Row as Envisioned by the City
As anti-homeless laws were passed all across the country, the homeless
population in Skid Row increased, others moved out and the area became a homeless
space, differentiated from the rest of the city and its residents. By regulating acceptable
behavior in public space, these laws sought to eliminate the presence of homeless
people, to regulate their existence, “all in the name of recreating the city as a playground
for a seemingly global capital which is ever ready to do an even better job of the
annihilation of space” (Mitchell, 1997, p. 7). The homeless were literally evicted from the
Litvinsky 5
“private spaces of the real-estate market” and, because of these laws and other
institutional efforts to keep them out of sight and away from parks, certain
neighborhoods, etc., they came to occupy the public spaces of the sidewalks on Skid Row
(Smith, 1992). Because of the social services and shelters that were already there, Skid
Row was the permitted place for the homeless to be, as the rest of society distanced
themselves. Skid Row was seen as a jungle and its homeless inhabitants, because they
were seen as rejecting normalcy, were viewed as members of a tribe, victims or parasites
needing to be saved or controlled (Bahr, 1973; Bittner, 1967; Kawash, 1998). By
gathering the homeless in one area the authorities formed their identity not only as a
segregated population, different from everyone else, but also as a “problem” to be dealt
with (Kawash, 1998). The people are no longer seen as humans, but as the components
of an issue against which LA is waging a war. In this way, it does not seem to be a
priority to help the homeless so much as it is to protect others from them (Kawash,
1998). By perpetuating this through containment and policing, the space of Skid Row
and its people is further erased from public view (Smith, 1992), ensuring stigmatization
for anyone that inhabits it.
The homeless are the most stigmatized social group in society. As Bahr (1967)
further explains, “Stigmatization as a defective and unsalvageable person, it is proposed,
stems from the homeless man’s occupying, or being thought to occupy, several
stigmatized statuses at once, e.g., he has an unsightly or broken body, a presumably bad
character, he is dependent on welfare or charity, is aged and impoverished, and is
possibly an alcoholic” (p. 15). A homeless person’s presence on Skid Row provides a
heuristic for this stigmatization. Because the area is already characterized as a
dangerous and negative place, a homeless resident, without knowledge of their
Litvinsky 6
circumstances or characteristics, may already be stigmatized just by being there. In this
way, the image of Skid Row dictates the image of its inhabitants, taking from them the
power to define their own identity. Bahr (1967) points out that this powerlessness is
what makes society fear and loathe the residents of Skid Row – “social abhorrence of
powerlessness” (p. 29). A homeless person is further made powerless by their presence
on Skid Row because they can no longer control their physical or social environment.
Once there, they depend on the soup kitchens and shelters for meals, beds and other
necessities of daily life, and on the city for their continued tolerance of their presence on
public property. The homeless even have no say over the organization or operation of
the institutions and services set up to help them (Kawash, 1998). The city and service
providers reproduce this powerlessness by making the homeless dependent on them,
while keeping them from having control over their environment and image. The
homeless in this process are “rendered helpless, social gumbies, the pathetic Other,
excused from active civic responsibility and denied personhood” (Smith, 1992, p.58).
As Snow & Mulcahy (2001) write, out of fear and discomfort at any interactions
with the homeless, which disrupts their urban order, residents often pressure the city
and law enforcement to control their behavior and movements. Based on their
observations of the Tucson, AZ homeless population, Snow & Mulcahy (2001) point to
three strategies used by local agents to control the homeless, which are also seen in Skid
Row: containment, displacement and exclusion. Containment refers to reducing the
visibility of the homeless and their interaction with other citizens by reducing their
mobility. This is done through three major tactics: greater monitoring of the homeless;
stricter enforcement of existing ordinances; and the disruption of their daily routines
and practices (Snow & Mulcahy, 2001). Containment takes advantage of the lack of
Litvinsky 7
spatial mobility of the homeless, who cannot move around the city because they have
nowhere to store their possessions (Smith, 1992). In 1976, the City of Los Angeles
instituted the Containment Plan, which called for affordable housing and social services
to be relocated to Skid Row from other parts of the region (Goetz, 1992; Haas & Heskin,
1981; Stuart, 2011). The plan, which was supported by business owners and city
planners who planned to revitalize downtown LA, also called for the construction of
public restrooms, benches and recreation areas to keep Skid Row inhabitants
comfortable and keep them from leaving. Another component of the plan was the
creation of a three-block buffer zone around Skid Row made up of light manufacturing
and warehouses. Stuart (2011) cites recommendations to the citizens advisory
committee on the central business district plan for the city of Los Angeles (1976): “The
buffer would deter exit from the quarantine area as ‘’the psychological comfort of the
familiar Skid Row environment will be lost; [the Skid Row inhabitant] will feel foreign
and will not be inclined to travel far from the area of containment’ (p. 204). The
Containment Plan allowed the city to not only appropriate and brand Skid Row as a
homeless space, but also to construct it in a way that made it unapproachable and
undesirable to others. This served to further reinforce the stigmatization of
homelessness, ensuring their distance, literally and figuratively, from society. Further,
the fact that the Plan was supported by developers looking to capitalize on the newly
cleaned up streets of downtown shows that the fencing off of Skid Row was a direct
implication of the market economy. So, the most vulnerable people, who were excluded
from the market because of their status, were taken advantage of under the guise of
altruism for profit.
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More recently, in 2006, under LAPD Chief William Bratton, the city launched
the controversial Safer Cities Initiative (SCI). SCI deployed 50 extra police officers to
patrol 15 square blocks of Skid Row, as well as redeploying 50 plainclothes, narcotics,
mounted, bicycles and scooter officers (Stuart, 2011). Stuart (2011) points out that the
colossal increase in the number of arrests and citations after the SCI went into effect is
the result of “geographically specific targeting of previously noncriminal behavior and
previously nonenforced municipal codes” (p. 205). These codes included an old anticamping ordinance, under which police started to arrest, cite and confiscate people’s
possessions for sleeping on the street. After a legal battle in which the American Civil
Liberties Union represented several homeless people, a compromise was reached in
which the police would not arrest people for sleeping on the street between the hours of
9pm and 6:30am (Moore, 2007). These harsh and aggressive LAPD tactics have
continued, culminating in today’s zero tolerance policing campaign, in which minor
behaviors like sitting on the sidewalk are met with jail time (Boden & Selbin, 2015;
Stuart, forthcoming). By policing Skid Row in this way, the city sends the message that
the presence of the homeless is illegal and perpetuates the image of Skid Row as a
danger zone in need of regulation and control. This of course adds to the stigma and
isolation of its inhabitants. Further, the arrest of homeless people for living on the
sidewalks of Skid Row marks the space as ambiguous because it is intended as a
homeless area. The city seems, again, to take advantage of the homeless by first creating
a space that is attractive to them and where they are seemingly allowed to exist, but then
arresting them for it.
Skid Row’s social service and shelter providers are also part of the city’s
containment tactics and depend on the homeless for their continued existence. Stuart
Litvinsky 9
(2011) points out that the private service providers take part in a “pay per bed” funding
arrangement in which they cannot collect on government contracts until they have
rendered service. This means that they must have a steady flow of clients despite the fact
that a myriad reasons exist for why some homeless people refuse to use them, including
religious requirements in some facilities and racial discrimination, physical and sexual
abuse (Stuart, 2011). In 2002, the service providers took part in the Streets or Services
program, which gave those arrested on Skid Row the choice of jail time or participation
in one of the missions’ rehabilitation programs. While in the programs, the homeless
serve as free labor for the missions, taking part in cleaning, food preparation, etc., which
allows the organizations to keep their costs down (Stuart, 2011). The missions also use
the police to maintain their monopoly over service distribution in Skid Row. As Stuart
(2011) points out, proponents of the Safer Cities Initiative supported Councilmember
Jan Perry in the introduction of a municipal ordinance criminalizing individuals and
organizations that distribute food, blankets and other resources to the Skid Row
population. It mandates that all donations be turned in to the LAPD, who will be in
charge of distribution. Even the institutions that are on Skid Row to seemingly help the
homeless take advantage of their status because they have nowhere else to go. The
homeless are at the mercy of the capitalist market and its players, as they become the
commodity the service providers trade for profit. In this way, the space of Skid Row is
very much a part of the market, in which the homeless, whose status excludes them
from participation, are trafficked, further dehumanizing them.
The second strategy of homeless control is displacement, which involves the
removal of the homeless from any space in which they congregate, panhandle or use as a
home (Snow & Mulcahy, 2001). Examples of this on Skid Row include the shutting
Litvinsky 10
down of “Justiceville,” a 60-person camp on a former playground in 1985 (Los Angeles
Skid Row City Bulldozed, 1985) and the routine law enforcement sweeps, begun in 1987,
to get rid of encampments for health and safety reasons. Eventually, all 50 blocks of
Skid Row became off limits for street cleaning and the LAPD tried to confine the
homeless to the sidewalks in front of the six largest missions (Wolch, 1996). Though
they have been physically and legally evicted out of other parts of the city, and enticed to
stay in Skid Row, homeless people’s presence there is not without conflict. Through
displacement the city exerts their spatial control over the homeless, dictating where they
can and cannot exist. Even though the area of Skid Row has been carved out for the
homeless the city continues to define and regulate the way the streets are used,
sometimes in contradicting ways. This leaves the homeless, even in the small confines of
the 50 blocks supposedly intended for their use, constantly in flux, never knowing what
the next law or ordinance will bring or when they will have to pack up and move. In a
sense, they are forced to relive their original eviction over and over again, but now from
an area that is supposed to accept and help them.
The third control strategy is that of exclusion, which involves keeping the
homeless out of designated areas (Snow & Mulcahy, 2001). This tactic, as previously
mentioned, is seen all over LA and is what pushed the homeless into Skid Row in the
first place. Examples of exclusion include zoning codes, which make it difficult to site
homeless facilities, municipal codes restricting access to public parks at night, bans on
loitering and soliciting, and the prohibition of trespassing on private property, as well as
ordinances which prohibit the homeless from sitting, eating, sleeping or even being in
public spaces (Rennels, & Purnell, 2015; Wolch, 1996). Exclusion can also be less
formal, like the threat of harassment. This is clearly seen in the gentrification of
Litvinsky 11
downtown, which brought Business Improvement Districts with their private security
guards, who have been accused of hassling and driving the homeless out of the area
(Dickerson, 1999). When the homeless do not obey, they are criminalized. Their
presence, when it is in violation of a law excluding them because of their status and lack
of participation in the market, is a punishable act. Through their exclusion from much of
the city, Skid Row becomes the only option for existence for many homeless people, who
are at the mercy of its changing formal and informal rules. These control strategies are
of course interrelated, producing the space of Skid Row as fickle and, at times, very
ambiguous, to its homeless residents. It both attracts and detracts, contains and
excludes, bowing to the whims of the market at the expense of its most vulnerable
population, who are meant to have no control over its rules and functions. While this is
very much how Skid Row is conceived by its creators, it functions in another way at the
hands of its inhabitants.
Skid Row as Rebellion
Although the city uses Skid Row to control and reaffirm its homeless residents’
lack of power, the homeless, through their presence and actions in the streets, actually
rebel against the city’s regulations and assert control over their bodies and status. Snow
& Mulcahy (2001) point out that the homeless are not passive actors, but rather active
agents “in negotiating and reacting to the spatial and political constraints they
encounter” (p. 165). They point to four modes of response the homeless use: exit,
adaptation, persistence and voice. Exit entails the homeless person leaving the contested
space. The increasing homeless encampments throughout LA are a testament to this
Litvinsky 12
strategy, despite the containment and attraction tactics of the city in Skid Row.
Adaptation involves modifying a behavior by expanding or changing one’s repertoire
while staying in the space. An example of adaptation would be stealing food or money in
an area where panhandling or begging is not allowed. Persistence involves no change in
behavior and its pursuit relies on the kind of control tactic that is deployed in the area.
For example, in an area where displacement is used as control, persistent behavior is not
an option, while a containment zone, where policing is infrequent, allows for this.
Finally, voice involves the collective expression of dissatisfaction with control strategies,
usually in the form of a protest or action (Snow & Mulcahy, 2001). In the context of Skid
Row, I focus here on the modes of persistence and voice to explain how the homeless
respond to the city’s spatial containment tactics. I further specify these as the following:
appropriating the streets of Skid Row as their home, forming social ties and organizing.
Although the policing strategies on Skid Row, which constantly disrupt the lives
of and dehumanize the homeless, take away their power over their own bodies and
space, the homeless find ways to reassert control and create a literal and figurative
home. Gieryn (2000, pg. 482), in Rennels & Purnell, (2015), states, “to be without a
place of one’s own—persona non locata—is to be almost non-existent, as studies of the
homeless imply.” Homeless people not only lose their place of dwelling and protection
form the elements, but also their sense of security and self -identity, as homelessness is
often a chaotic and uncertain state (Rennels & Purnell, 2015). The Skid Row inhabitants,
through the constant city-imposed boundary-drawing, as well as in their erasure from
the market, are not seen or acknowledged, and therefore lose both their physical space,
and their place in society. However, the poor and homeless use creative strategies to
seek out and remake a space for themselves that meets their needs in which they feel at
Litvinsky 13
home, thereby asserting their place in society (Borchard 2013; Low and Altman 1992;
Rennels, & Purnell, 2015; Wright, 1997). This is done through the redefinition and reappropriation of space (Rennels, & Purnell, 2015).Through their presence, the homeless
on Skid Row make the space more than just a street, it becomes a home. This is done by
bringing their belongings there – things people would normally have in a home: clothes,
toiletries, and other everyday items that reproduce the amenities of a home, like buckets
of water for washing. In this way, the homeless show themselves to be just like everyone
else, in their desire for a home, and give the street a new meaning and purpose, rebelling
against the functions dictated by the city. The appropriation of the street as home –
public property into private residence - changes and prevents it from being used in the
ways that it was previously – for walking, for example. This actually makes the
individual tents more like homes in a neighborhood and the street like a community.
According to Rennels, & Purnell (2015), this collective occupation of space is also what
makes the street feel more like home, as home is defined by the interactions that take
place there.
In further appropriating the sidewalks of Skid Row into home, the homeless
engage in the establishment of relationships and social circles amongst each other.
These peer interactions make the homeless part of an in-group and counteract the
exclusion from the rest of society constructed by the policies of containment. They also
serve as a way of coping with their circumstances, bringing some normalcy to their lives
and reestablishing time-space continuity. “Network relationships can also serve as
substitutes for place-based stations in the daily path such as home and work” (Rowe &
Wolch 1990, p. 184). The physical space of Skid Row, in which tents and carts are set up
side by side, makes daily interaction easy and inevitable. The homeless people’s
Litvinsky 14
experiences and circumstances give them a clear point of relation with each other and a
collective identity that they do not share with outsiders. Through daily interactions in
very close quarters in a shared space bonds are formed through which the people of Skid
Row begin to act as a community with common interests and attitudes.
Finally, through these relationships and networks, homeless people see
themselves as a community and organize to reassert their control over the space of Skid
Row. Organizing around their collective identity erases the stigma of homelessness
because it shows them to be like everyone else in their desire a place to live and
recognition in society. As Yeich (1996) writes, the first Union of the Homeless was
formed in Philadelphia in 1983 to fight for housing rights and economic justice. Ten
years later, 23 American cities had a homeless union. Various studies since have
documented protest activity among the homeless (Cress and Snow, 1996, 2000;
Rosenthal, 1994; Wagner, 1993; Wright, 1997). Through collective action the homeless
counteract the common stereotype that they are powerless victims or lazy (Snow &
Mulcahy, 2001). Through this they also reassert control over their identity. In Skid Row,
formal collective action by the homeless is most clearly seen in the community
organization the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA-CAN). LA-CAN is a
community organization, started in 1999, which counts both housed and unhoused
people from Skid Row and surrounding areas as members, working to organize those
living in poverty around housing rights and civic engagement, among other issues (Los
Angeles Community Action Network). Through membership in LA-CAN homeless
people are able to define their identity based on their actions not just their status. The
fact that LA-CAN was started and is based in Skid Row adds to the area’s image as more
than a dangerous and illicit place, but as a place of collective change dictated by its
Litvinsky 15
inhabitants, not by the city. This gives the homeless control over their own space and
gives them a voice in society, which containment and policing have taken away. One of
LA-CAN’s initiatives is the adoption of the Homeless Bill of Rights, which calls for added
protections for homeless people against segregation, laws targeting homeless people for
their lack of housing and restrictions on their use of public space, as well advocating for
privacy and property protections, among others (Homeless Bill of Rights). The Bill of
Rights highlights all of the mistreatment and constraints that have been put on Skid
Row residents by the city. By organizing as a community with the common goal of
recognition and protection of their rights, the homeless people stand up against the city
and the police.
Another way the homeless of Skid Row use the space as a rebellion against the
city and its forces and assert their power over their identity is through their
participation in illegal activities, such as selling drugs and prostitution (Rajendra, 2014).
Although this is negative and deviant behavior, which reinforces the stereotypes of the
homeless as criminals, it is also a way for the homeless to have an income and a job, to
survive, which is something quite normal. It is a way the homeless cope with their status
and try to assert their independence from social services. Because they are prevented
from working in the formal economy due to their status, taking part in illicit activities
shows them to be resourceful, which disproves their identification as lazy. However, the
fact that their work is illegal distances the homeless further from society instead of
integrating them into it, perpetuating their stigmatization and exclusion.
Litvinsky 16
The Value of Space and the Future of Skid Row
In Marxian economics, the capital market conceptualizes space in terms of use
and exchange value (Logan & Moloch, 1987). The use value is the utility in the
consumption of a space, such as an apartment providing shelter and a home for its
renter. Exchange value is the utility of the space as a commodity on the open market,
such as the rent on an apartment for a landlord. Finding this conceptualization too
narrow because it does not account for marginalized people or the fact that land can
have political and symbolic value, Snow & Mulcahy (2001) propose to add political value
as another generic type of value (of land). In terms of Skid Row, the space clearly has a
use value for the city because it is a place to contain and control the homeless. Although
it is at times a problem because of crime, it is still a good space to aggregate the social
outcasts of society, where they can be monitored. In terms of political value, the city
uses Skid Row to both show its success and how far it has come in curbing
homelessness, using the space to experiment with new laws and regulations; as well as a
testament to how much work still remains to be done, using the backdrop of Skid Row
as center stage for politicians’ battle cries against homelessness. In the same regard,
though for different reasons, the space is also of use value for the homeless who reside
there. While probably not the ideal space and maybe not a substitute for the home they
once had, the homeless people make the most of their space, turning it into their new
home and community. With the increasing participation of Skid Row residents in
political organizing, the space is also their meeting headquarters and rally point. With
the aforementioned redevelopment of downtown, it seems that the exchange value of
Skid Row may be rising, as it becomes more attractive to developers. With greater value
Litvinsky 17
put on the land, the homeless people, who, despite their organizing efforts, have no
value or voice in the market economy, will be evicted from here too, even though they
are now the only people who physically inhabit the space.
Snow & Mulcahy (2001) point to three general categories of space: prime,
transitional and marginal. Prime space is that which is being used by housed residents
for residential, recreational, business or political purposes. Marginal space, in contrast,
has little or no use value for residents, no economic value for entrepreneurs and no
political or symbolic value and, for this reason, is usually ceded, either intentionally or
not, to the marginalized and powerless. Transitional space has mixed and ambiguous
function and use, neither fully prime nor marginal. “Such areas are often the object of
reclamation efforts for economic or political reasons or both” (Snow & Mulcahy, 2001,
p. 157). Based on this, Skid Row may be categorized as a marginal space as, in its current
state, it has little to no value for residents or entrepreneurs. However, the
redevelopment efforts of downtown, directly adjacent to Skid Row, have made the area
an increasingly hot commodity and therefore potentially transitional. As Marshall
(2015) writes, “Skid Row is widely regarded as the greatest obstacle to the rebuilding of
a first-class downtown in Los Angeles.” Although Skid Row is clearly designated as a
homeless space, making it off limits for most residents, the increasingly high prices and
lack of space in downtown, has already started to encroach on and shrink the area,
which has lost about 10 of its blocks to redevelopment (Marshall, 2015). The homeless
people, of course, have no control or say over their space as it is the market that dictates
the gentrification that is fast approaching. A gentrification that seems quite inevitable in
a city with ever increasing rental and housing prices that is rapidly selling every inch of
land to the highest bidder.
Litvinsky 18
What will happen to the homeless when the use and exchange value of Skid Row
increases, when Skid Row becomes a prime space? Where will they go and how will the
city interpret and convey these developments? It seems LA, scrambling for money to
deal with this “homeless emergency,” may desegregate the locations of social service,
shelter and housing facilities (Lazo, 2016). This will of course change the nature and
purpose of Skid Row and scatter its residents, and the responsibility for their control,
across the city. While perhaps helpful in terms of curbing crime and deviance, it will do
nothing for the stigma of homelessness. Dispersed over LA, it will be even more difficult
for homeless people to make a home with their peers, to form social ties and to organize
to assert their human rights. The idea is that, without these bonds and relationships,
homeless people may be more motivated to get out of poverty. However, this
conceptualization treats homelessness as an individual matter, instead of the structural
problem that it is. Those who are not motivated to “pull themselves up by the
bootstraps” will sink further into insolation and exclusion from society because we do
not value those who do not contribute to the market – ignoring the fact that it is the
market that got them there in the first place. Space helps us to see the homeless, how
they behave and interact, and how they are in turn treated by that space. Changing
spaces, however, will not help the homeless, only those who do not wish to see or
acknowledge their existence. Without dealing with the structural issues that cause
homelessness, as well as the stigmatization that comes with this status, it does not
matter how many housing or shelter facilities exist or where they are sited. As long as we
attach value to human life base don the dictates of the market, people will continue to
fall into poverty and fight for recognition and acknowledgement in a society that prefers
to ignore them.
Litvinsky 19
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