City and state officials Tuesday promised a new attack on the persistent problems of Los Angeles' skid row, beginning with a crackdown on rampant drug dealing in the area, which police say generates roughly one-fifth of the city's drug arrests.
The Los Angeles Police Department plans to install video surveillance cameras on skid-row streets and increase the number of undercover detectives and uniformed patrol officers, officials said.
For the longer term, state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said they plan to push new state laws to reduce the area's problems.
One would require law enforcement agencies to return inmates released from county jails to the communities where they were arrested.
The idea, Cedillo said, is to reduce the number of inmates who end up on skid row after being released from the Men's Central Jail.
"If they came from Calabasas, they should be released to Calabasas. If they come from Palmdale, they should be released to Palmdale," said Cedillo, whose district covers downtown and much of the area around it.
Three months ago, LAPD officials publicly accused other law enforcement agencies and medical facilities of dumping homeless people, mental patients and released criminals onto skid row.
In a report issued Tuesday, the Police Department cites dozens of cases of people being taken to the downtown neighborhood by 12 police agencies and at least three area hospitals. The report was compiled by reviewing the logs of facilities that provide care to the homeless on skid row.
Downtown community leaders and service providers praised the new effort.
Although the proposals would make only a dent in the problems, they mark the first time in years that political leaders have taken the area's ills seriously, they said.
"We've been waiting 20 years for this moment to happen," said Estela Lopez, executive director of the Central City East Assn. "We've got law enforcement, business owners and social service providers all sitting down on the same side of the table. We've got policymakers giving skid row the attention that it hasn't been given before."
Still, she was quick to add: "We want more than attention. We want results."
Officials who discussed the plan at a meeting of the Los Angeles Police Commission acknowledged that more services are needed for the homeless. But they said the first step in alleviating skid row's problems needs to be crime reduction.
