Moving with a shuffle, Jimmy turned up in late December near Alvarado Street and Glendale Boulevard -- a new face among the established groups of Echo Park homeless and the latest in a series of migrants from downtown.
"Everyone's just kind of scattering in all directions," said Jimmy, who declined to give his last name. "Hollywood, Elysian Park, down to the beach."
The 62-year-old former construction worker used to camp downtown near 7th and Spring streets.
But last fall, Los Angeles launched a major crackdown on crime and blight around skid row, rousting homeless people who camped on streets during the day and deploying 50 additional officers to focus on crime.
The campaign has resulted in a distinct migration of homeless people out of downtown, significantly reducing skid row's transient population but also putting more strain on homeless service providers in Echo Park, South Los Angeles, Hollywood and Santa Monica. A head count last month by the Los Angeles Police Department found 875 people living on the streets, a 35% drop from the 1,345 counted about the same time last year. The drop is even more pronounced when compared with last September, when the count was nearly 1,900.
"Half the population that I'm used to seeing downtown is not there, so they're going somewhere," said Chris Van Winkle, director of the Dream Center's Under the Bridge program, which passes out food downtown daily.
While shelters and homeless service organizations in Pasadena, Glendale and the San Fernando Valley report no noticeable uptick in numbers, shelters to the south and west -- the places skid row denizens can directly reach by bus and by foot -- tell a different story.
"It's been a nightmare," said Brenda Wilson, president of New Image Shelter near the Los Angeles Coliseum. "We're beyond bulging. Food and supplies are way over budget."
Wilson, a 17-year veteran of local homeless services, said the situation at her shelter worsened soon after the LAPD crackdown began last fall. The 400-bed shelter was suddenly overflowing, and Wilson had to hire security guards to turn away people at the door.
"We were turning away 200 people a night," she said. "It's overwhelming -- more than we can stand."
Most of Los Angeles County's homeless services organizations are in skid row -- and it remains to be seen whether the homeless who have left will eventually come back.
