Central City East

Few things are more crucial to improving the vitality of Los Angeles' Skid Row than the outcome of the debate over raising the amount of money the city's Community Redevelopment Agency can spend on what is known as the Central Business District Redevelopment Project. Natural tensions exist between the area's business establishments and those who provide services for the homeless, whose population has swelled in the past several years.

Skid row in downtown Los Angeles is not what it used to be. Just three years ago, close to 10,000 people may have been living on the streets from Third south to Seventh and from Main east to Alameda, many of them the destitute and troubled single men who had long gathered in the area when they ran out of options, but joined increasingly by women and their young children. People huddled in donated tents and discarded cardboard boxes, waiting for meal times at local missions, defending themselves from the drug dealers who preyed on them or seeking them out to help dull their pain.

In Downtown Los Angeles, some business owners can't wait to pay more taxes. Shop owners in the Little Tokyo and Central City East business areas hope to form special tax assessment districts to fight urban crime and try to boost sales. If the two campaigns are successful, Downtown will be home to four such districts, which would allow the annual collection of a special tax on businesses or property owners.

THE STEAM CLEANING of the streets of skid row a few weeks ago -- when homeless people were literally swept and hosed out of their makeshift encampments in downtown Los Angeles by employees of the local "business improvement district" -- was a troubling moment in the battle over the neighborhood's future. But it was hardly a unique one.

The Times is to be commended for its editorial ("Give Them a Chance," Jan. 13) urging the Central City East business community to cooperate with efforts to establish a novel program to provide housing and job training for the mentally ill homeless of Skid Row. The Los Angeles Men's Place is a project that has interested me for a long time. I have worked to get the funding to help start it and I very much want to see it succeed. By their affirmative vote at City Hall, the members of the Los Angeles City Council also have shown their support for this project.

Self-taxation is catching on Downtown. Little Tokyo and Central City East are considering forming special tax assessment districts to fight urban grime and slow sales. If the two campaigns are successful, Downtown will be home to four such districts. Their popularity is increasing as the city and county struggle to provide maintenance and security services. The districts allow the annual collection of a special tax on businesses or property owners.

The article, "City's Commitment to Skid Row Housing Falters" (Metro, July 21), implies that the action taken by the Community Redevelopment Agency to encourage an evaluation of the agency's policy in the Central City East area is an indication that the agency is retreating from its 10-year commitment to provide affordable housing in Skid Row. This is not the case and I would like to set the record straight. The study panel from the nationally respected Urban Land Institute is being sponsored by the mayor's office, the CRA and the Select Committee for Housing and Social Services for Skid Row Residents to address a multitude of issues facing the preservation of housing in the diverse Central City East.

Great controversy has been caused by the city's present effort to create a safer and cleaner environment for all who live and work in Central City East. The "Crime Sweep" program, if it does nothing else, has succeeded by calling greatly needed attention to the deplorable criminal and sanitation problems of our area's businesses and residents. Our light industrial business community provides a significant tax base to the City of Los Angeles. The multi-agency city task force, responsible for the program, is the first sign that the city is taking direct action to improve the pitiful living and working conditions we face everyday.

As a long-time worker with the poor of Los Angeles' Skid Row, I am greatly dismayed over the forced exit of Ed Helfeld, director of the Community Redevelopment Agency, (CRA). Probably no other big city redevelopment agency enjoys the level of support and trust of those who work with the poor and dispossessed to the degree that Los Angeles' does. This is solely because of Helfeld's leadership. The CRA plan for Central City East, developed under Helfeld's administration, is a forceful and eloquent statement that the politically impotent and economically impoverished of Skid Row are of major concern to the city and the mayor.

Skid row in downtown Los Angeles is not what it used to be. Just three years ago, close to 10,000 people may have been living on the streets from Third south to Seventh and from Main east to Alameda, many of them the destitute and troubled single men who had long gathered in the area when they ran out of options, but joined increasingly by women and their young children. People huddled in donated tents and discarded cardboard boxes, waiting for meal times at local missions, defending themselves from the drug dealers who preyed on them or seeking them out to help dull their pain.

Re "MTA's Unique Traffic Plan," Oct. 24: A high-occupancy vehicle lane would have a huge negative impact on the toy, seafood and produce businesses in the eastern part of downtown Los Angeles. The MTA must not forget about the vibrant downtown industrial and manufacturing community that needs these streets for trucks. This area, Central City East, provides most of the produce and seafood that is eaten throughout Los Angeles County. Our trucks must be able to get into and out of downtown quickly because of the perishable nature of our products.

In Downtown Los Angeles, some business owners can't wait to pay more taxes. Shop owners in the Little Tokyo and Central City East business areas hope to form special tax assessment districts to fight urban crime and try to boost sales. If the two campaigns are successful, Downtown will be home to four such districts, which would allow the annual collection of a special tax on businesses or property owners.

Self-taxation is catching on Downtown. Little Tokyo and Central City East are considering forming special tax assessment districts to fight urban grime and slow sales. If the two campaigns are successful, Downtown will be home to four such districts. Their popularity is increasing as the city and county struggle to provide maintenance and security services. The districts allow the annual collection of a special tax on businesses or property owners.

CITY COUNCIL * SOCCER FIELD: Approved a proposal to temporarily turn a vacant lot at 3rd Street between Bixel Street and Lucas Avenue into a soccer field. The lot's owners, Cathay City Development, do not plan to develop the property in the near future and agreed to the proposal by a nearby YMCA. The field is scheduled to be completed by July.

As a business owner in the Central City East area of downtown Los Angeles, I find Jeff Dietrich's theory on Skid Row (Opinion, May 26) quite interesting but inadequate in addressing the homeless problem in our community. Dietrich is correct in pointing out that a large number of poor people end up on the streets in the light-industrial district of downtown as a result of redevelopment in the financial district. His idea to turn seedy Skid Row hotels over to nonprofit control is quite admirable.

Few things are more crucial to improving the vitality of Los Angeles' Skid Row than the outcome of the debate over raising the amount of money the city's Community Redevelopment Agency can spend on what is known as the Central Business District Redevelopment Project. Natural tensions exist between the area's business establishments and those who provide services for the homeless, whose population has swelled in the past several years.

CITY COUNCIL * SOCCER FIELD: Approved a proposal to temporarily turn a vacant lot at 3rd Street between Bixel Street and Lucas Avenue into a soccer field. The lot's owners, Cathay City Development, do not plan to develop the property in the near future and agreed to the proposal by a nearby YMCA. The field is scheduled to be completed by July.

The Times is to be commended for its editorial ("Give Them a Chance," Jan. 13) urging the Central City East business community to cooperate with efforts to establish a novel program to provide housing and job training for the mentally ill homeless of Skid Row. The Los Angeles Men's Place is a project that has interested me for a long time. I have worked to get the funding to help start it and I very much want to see it succeed. By their affirmative vote at City Hall, the members of the Los Angeles City Council also have shown their support for this project.

I am writing to congratulate Prof. Michael Dear on his (Op-Ed Page, Aug. 7) article on Skid Row, in which he supports Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley's policy of preserving Skid Row as a major housing resource. In 1976, I served as the chairman of the 19-member Citizens' Advisory Committee on the Central Business District Redevelopment Project--the group which established what is now referred to as the city's 1976 philosophy on Skid Row. We did an intensive study of Skid Row and its impact on the downtown community and came up with the policy of containment and increased services.