Issue: What Will It Take to Revitalize Downtown? : Manual Lopez, <i> Fish market worker at Grand Central Market </i>

They need to get rid of the homeless who come in and bother the people while they’re eating. People don’t want to come in here because they’ll be sitting down for lunch and the homeless come in begging for money. (The homeless) are always in front of here and they discourage people from coming in. They say, “Give me a quarter,” always asking everyone for some change. I’ve worked here for 25 years and it’s never been this bad. They don’t rob, but they’re always asking and bothering people. The government has to do something to get them jobs or something so they are not homeless.

James A. Jones, Homeless and unemployed

From what I’ve seen, the parking seems to be bad down here. Once they get Pershing Square done it might get better. The transportation seems to be doing better with the Metrolink but I think parking still needs to be improved. If they fix that, more people will come into town and the Metrolink will help cut down on pollution. Another thing is that people are afraid to come out at night because of the homeless around here. There are a lot of people out there that are out of a job. That’s why people are out on the streets.

Teresa Sanchez, Long-distance operator

I’m interested in the young people. There are too many gangs. The most important thing is having more things for the young people. Families are very busy these days and the children are not learning what they need to learn, so they’re learning from the streets, where they see bad things. We have drunkards here that don’t have respect for the people and make people scared always asking for money. We need better schools and a stronger belief in religion because these kids don’t love. It’s so easy for them to kill. This would help the Downtown area.

Judith Velez, Bridal dress saleswoman

They need to clean the streets and increase the security. One time, someone took my purse in the morning right across the street. I was looking for security and nobody helped me. (The shops) are very cheap downtown. We have customers come from Pasadena and Santa Ana, but they tell us that maybe their grandmother didn’t want to come here because they’re afraid. We have one security (person) for all this building and there’s too many people for that. A lot of customers don’t want to come Downtown because we don’t have good security.