Skid Row Exiles Create Sidewalk Village

For three of its four-block run on the losing side of downtown Los Angeles, Industrial Street contains the usual dead-end collection of flophouses and fenced-in factories.

But in the 1300 block, there is a sudden crazy-quilt eruption of color. Bedsheets--flowered sheets, candy-striped sheets, sheets with deer--Mexican blankets and bright blue tarpaulins are strung single file the length of the block. The sheets and tarps and the rare real tent are home to the city’s newest subdivision, a homeless encampment some call “the Bottom.”

The homeless aren’t placeless. This bunch ended up here over the last four months. Their migration followed a decision by Los Angeles police in November to increase enforcement of laws against offenses such as jaywalking and blocking sidewalks throughout skid row. Those blocks, just east of downtown, are home to about 11,000 transients.

As many as 150 people live on this block of Industrial Street in a row of lean-tos, three and four to a tent, like a boot camp barracks. Each spot, the size of a tiny bathroom, slopes down the slanted, cracked sidewalk. A few feet of bare concrete between homes serve as porches, with milk crates for chairs. Borders are marked with shopping carts.

The few empty slots show through like missing teeth. The community keeps to the south side of the street, up against the fence of a vacant lot that has become an open-air trash bin, littered with orange peels and paper napkins.

The name of the place rings true. In rank order of residences, this would be very near the bottom of the city.

Life at the Bottom

The bruised and burned blotches on the street are reminders of last night’s fires. The aroma of burning wood lingers, a barbecue with nothing cooking. The smell of urine fights the fish scent from surrounding seafood factories. Pigeons squabble for crumbs. A fish truck accelerates by. An airplane hums overhead. A metal shovel scrapes the pavement for trash. A maroon car drives through, the radio’s bass so loud it’s felt.

Drug deals are common; in an hour one might see four.

Stuff spills out of tents: dry-cleaning hangers with paper wrapping, a Nike sneaker, one white pump, a pair of black loafers, a travel-size tube of Colgate, an empty Minute Maid orange juice carton, an empty purple bottle of menopause medicine, one twisted and torn orange beach umbrella, one Gillette deodorant, a pocket-size paperback novel (“A Kiss Before Dying”), a plastic miniature American flag. Sheba, a mixed-breed dog, sleeps on a pillow.

Despite appearances, there is some order in this village. Willie Dean gets the lumber for nighttime fires. Johnny Gil finds hygiene products and clothing. Nelson fixes the bikes. Captain Paul cooks. Curtis Thomas collects aluminum cans and bottles to recycle for cash.

Money is pooled for pots, pans, food, dish soap and sometimes medicine.

There are rules, though bendable. No pregnant women. No rapists. No arsonists. No stalkers.

“There’s a hidden constitution,” said Douglas Edwards, a 36-year-old former resident. “You can shoot dope all day long and still get a hug.”

While some rely on drugs, others rely on one another. Edwards recalled a time when he was stabbed: Another resident stitched up his wound. Jeanette Hall, 42, has AIDS and an infected gash. She said her neighbors pitched in to buy her ointment.

Roy Edward Blount Jr., 38, loves to draw. Neighbors got him a silver-colored plastic frame to hang one of his pieces, “Freedom of Speech.”

Madelyn Barkus, 43, and her baby left her abusive ex-husband: A homeless woman offered up her tent for a week--while she slept outside.

There’s romance here, too, although sometimes you have to pay for it.

“Teardrop,” 26, works the west corner of Industrial Street to pay rent at a low-income hotel nearby. When asked what she does for a living, she pulls condoms from her shirt pocket. This is her seventh pregnancy, twins. She waves a greeting to a client with her tattooed hand.

Residents mosey from tent to tarp in soiled white socks, others barefoot, some wearing shoes. One woman constantly sweeps the sidewalk in front of her tent, seeming to seek order with every broom stroke.

“If you care anything about yourself, you take care of this little space like it’s your apartment,” said resident Kirk Williams.

Villagers said a spot can be acquired if its dweller moves on. Sometimes spots are sold.

Freddie Davis Jr., 48, watches the Midnight Mission food line through a small opening in his blue tarp. Inside, his home is like a sheet tent a child might make. It’s a blue bubble, crosshatched by the checkerboard shadow of the wire fence. Humidity and body odor thicken the air. Shopping carts draped with flowered sheets serve as closets and cupboards for clothing and food. Davis has made an ashtray out of tinfoil. It sits next to a pillow with no case. His black leather Lakers cap rests near his fake, fiberglass leg, which wears a black sock and a pair of jeans.

How It Got There

Tracey Lovejoy founded this homeless village, but she’s not proud of it. She is director of the Central City East Assn., which represents downtown businesses eager to clean up skid row.

“Police kept saying for years: ‘Well, what do you want me to do with them?’ ” she said.

So in 1999, she pulled out a map and pointed to the stretch of Industrial between Alameda Street and Central Avenue, she said. “I was the creator of the Industrial Street problem,” she said. “I’ll be the first to say it shouldn’t have happened.”

Police say they did not tell the homeless to move to Industrial. The homeless say they did. However it happened, an unspoken understanding was reached with police, security guards and business owners: It was OK to sleep on Industrial.

In January, Los Angeles County environmental health and public health agencies declared the street unsanitary because of trash and the lack of toilets and running water, though city and privately contracted cleanup crews come by routinely several times a week.

The city is making plans to reroute area storm drains after finding a sharp spike in the amount of organic and fecal waste seeping into the Los Angeles River from the skid row area.

Even though county health officials have not confirmed any outbreaks, mobile outreach coordinator Joyce Swan said such diseases as gonorrhea, chlamydia and hepatitis run rampant in the Industrial Street encampment. She estimated that one in eight of its residents has AIDS. Hypertension, respiratory infections and skin abscesses from drug use are also common.

The Leviloff family, which owns the empty lot, was cited by the county Department of Health Services for allowing an “illegal public encampment.”

“It’s unbelievable,” said Lester Olson, who is handling the property’s sale for the family. “We have tried everything we can to make them go away--short of using guns.”

Terminal Hardware Co., which for 52 years used the vacant lot behind the tent village for parking, relocated last fall. “You would see urination, sex, drug deals--you would see everything there,” said Jim Hastings, manager for six years.

David Tran, general manager of South China Seafood Co., put up a barbed wire fence to deter transients from breaking into cars on his lot. “Customers are nervous,” he said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority owns a parking lot now separated from the encampment by a 12-foot wall. The agency is considering buying the lot from the Leviloffs for parking.

If they do, the homeless will have to pick up and, like a circus troupe, move to the next stop. With no ready alternative, police have tolerated the encampment, citing a lack of officers as one reason for not moving the Industrial Street group.

Police are also constrained by an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed in November, alleging that officers harass the homeless. A temporary restraining order bars officers from citing the homeless for loitering, among other things.

Since the court order, “Encampments have gotten worse here, just like I said they would,” said Central Division Lt. Paul Geggie.

Ted Hayes, the advocate who created the Dome Village homeless community, said that when social problems are left to police, the system has failed. He wants the lot donated to the homeless.

Hayes says the responsibility lies with the city. “What the city of L.A. has done, in conjunction with the cleaning crews, is created a makeshift, haphazard, illegal homeless shelter on Industrial,” he said.

City Councilman Nick Pacheco, whose 14th District encompasses Industrial Street, said the city has bigger worries. “I have to trim trees and repair sidewalks,” he said. “If we have made shelters available . . . and they choose not to go down that path . . . I don’t think you can hold government responsible.”

Shelter-Resistant

Skid row has about 200 shelter beds open many nights. So why don’t the homeless just go to shelters?

They say the answer is simple. They don’t want restrictions and chores. They want freedom. Many want to drink, smoke and use drugs without any rules.

“It’s just like being a kid [at the shelters],” says Williams, 52, who likes watching TV news, “Star Trek” and the detective drama “Arrest and Trial” on his battery-operated TV. “You got a curfew.”

Another Industrial Street resident, Brian Collins, 36, says he prefers the street because of the amenities offered by mobile social providers. “L.A. enables the homeless to be homeless,” he said.

The street sign on Industrial says, “No Stopping Anytime.” But that doesn’t keep volunteers from stopping at the curb, bringing food and, sometimes, clothing. The Midnight Mission delivers meals every afternoon.

On Wednesdays, Sam Chung, known to the homeless as “Papasan,” parks his white van and gives out McDonald’s hamburgers, pretzels and sodas.

Even the city cleaning crews are accommodating. City street inspector Mary Long asks people to dump their discards onto the street for her to pick up with bulldozers, which are escorted by Los Angeles police.

The street cleanings don’t appease local businesses, whose customers complain about harassment and theft.

Even though Lovejoy initially sanctioned the encampment, she is appalled that the city has allowed it to grow and continue for so long.

“It’s like Mardi Gras out there,” she said. “And you know what? Nobody bothers them.”

On a recent night, two bonfires warm Industrial Street against the cool air. A full moon and the random flicker of a lighter create silhouettes, people laughing, arguing, talking. Some lie cuddled under layers of quilts. Others stay near the blaze.

Someone has hung a coat over the vacant lot’s “For Sale” sign. The Goodyear blimp floats across the sky; its lighted message board asks: “Looking for high adventure?”

It’s 7:41 p.m. and 50 degrees. Teardrop walks home.

Willie, left, who says he has been on the streets of L.A. for eight years, warms himself at “the Bottom,” a sidewalk encampment near downtown. Below, Alice Dekeyan, manager of the Midnight Mission’s mobile kitchen, hugs Mary Cole, who lives in a hotel near Industrial Street.