Despite assurances from homeless officials that this won’t happen, Skid Row is again a playground for children.
On Thursday morning, a 2-year-old boy, riding a broom like a horse, galloped past a tent where he lives with his parents. His 5-year-old friend, who lives in the tent next door, ran with him.
A 9-year-old girl emerged from her own family’s tent to show her mother how she styled her hair with beaded clips.
And a one-year-old boy was found sleeping inside a car as his father tried to protect him from the cold in his family’s tent.
1-year-old Josias Carrasquero sleeps in a car with his father on Town Avenue on Skid Row.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Just a month after a Times report migrant family with children While living on Skid Row forced officials to move several families to a motel, a more extensive community has formed on Town Avenue, with at least seven new families, including at least 10 children, living in large tents, The pups are living in a series of tent and tarp shelters. ,
Some families said they were there for several days. Others said it had been weeks.
Although several families told The Times that outreach workers told them housing was not available, county officials say they offered area families “immediately available interim housing,” but some decided to decline it. .
Homeless officials claim they have prepared resources to quickly identify and locate proper shelter For families with kids on Skid Row.
In response to The Times’ report, Cheri Todoroff, executive director of Los Angeles County’s Homeless Initiative, told the county Board of Supervisors during an April 9 meeting that “outreach teams on Skid Row are able to immediately identify families who need help.” “They are watching without shelter.” on Skid Row, and they have the resources available to get those families in right away, the same day.
Officials told observers that the number of homeless families had increased by 45% compared to the previous year.
“In the day-to-day efforts of providers, front-line workers, it has become clear that the number of unsheltered families in the county is increasing,” Todoroff said. “Our teams are working quickly to determine whether this is a new norm or a one-time surge.”
The Homeless Initiative released a statement Thursday saying it was “deeply troubling to see families with young children experiencing unsheltered homelessness on Skid Row” but arguing that each family engaged by outreach workers in the area Interim accommodation that is immediately available has been offered.
“These opportunities are completely voluntary, and those who do not feel that the housing options available that day meet their specific needs,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, some people have chosen to reject it. “We and our service partners will continue to engage with these families to house them and resolve their homelessness as quickly as possible, given their individual circumstances.”
The families living on Town Avenue this week came from Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela Entered the US in Texas and Arizona. Some said they reached Los Angeles buses and planes Which was paid for by people they did not know. Others paid their own way, thinking they would get an opportunity in L.A.
Members of three families said they were living here union rescue mission For about three months, until they were asked to pay a monthly fee they could not afford. The parents said they did not have a permit that allows them to earn money legally in the country.
Currently, about 75% of the 400 family members at the mission are migrants. Last year, facing financial strain, the mission instituted a policy requiring residents staying 90 days or more to pay a fee.
But Jeff Hudson, the mission’s interim chief executive, denied that anyone was required to leave for non-payment.
“It’s the opposite of what we do to get people off the streets,” Hudson said.
He said the only reason anyone could be evicted would be violence or drug or alcohol abuse.
“If someone can’t pay, we’ll find them somewhere else to go. They will not be put on the road. It wouldn’t make any sense. The word ‘migrant’ is irrelevant for us. “We want to remove all the women and children from the streets.”
Hudson said he could not speak about individual customers, but speculated that people might leave out of a sense of honor when they could not pay, or because they saw the street as a better route to housing vouchers than the Mission. Seen as having no access to public support.
“When the city declares us a sanctuary city and they say to the URMs, ‘We will not give you any support because you (ban substance use) and you are faith-based,’ it squeezes us on both sides. ,” They said.
During an April 9 board meeting, Va Lesia Adams Kellam, chief executive of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, told the board that a plan was being worked on to help subsidize families living in shelters.
“We’ve made some progress.” Adams Kellam said. “We have a team in place now because we learned that some of the families who went to the mission do not have money to pay the rates. For some of us this is the minimum. But for some families this is impossible to consider.
“so Lahsa We’re going to start paying that fee in partnership with HI (Homeless Initiative) so that families don’t have a barrier to staying indoors while we work on a more permanent plan. I have asked teams to be deployed on Skid Row to search for those families. … We’re meeting with the missions to make sure we can be that support and also keeping the motels aware that we may have urgent needs at the last minute.
LAHSA released a statement Thursday saying that for several weeks, it has remained focused on Skid Row to identify unsheltered families and place them in interim housing as quickly as possible.
It says, “So far, we have moved 30 families living on Skid Row into a motel and seven into a building operated by a collaboration between the Downtown Women’s Center and LAHSA.”
Katherine Gonzalez, left, Thean, 2, and Jhon Valencia live on Town Avenue.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
“Some of the families we encountered have left the Union Rescue Mission and we are working with them to get them back in. LAHSA has offered to cover the dues of nine families, but so far all have refused. Because family systems are overwhelmed, we have temporarily placed those families in a motel while we work on alternative options to house them.
“LAHSA is working with multiple partners to increase its resources to support these families, including identifying additional staff and discussing opening additional spaces for families at the Union Rescue Mission.”
Migrants keep coming regularly At the Union Rescue Mission, the only open door to the families of grave victims on Skid Row Overburdened and disjointed system,
It’s the only crisis shelter where people can be accepted without a referral from a provider, but it’s not connected to the county system, said Avián Weiswarda, clinical coordinator of mental health and homeless services at the nonprofit Para Los Niños. Said, which has hundreds of customers, a dirty slum of drinkers.
Weiswerda said the influx of migrants is a new tension that is creating new rifts. “But as long as I was in Para los Niños, those cracks were always there. I would not say that the system worked well or flawlessly before this.”
,There is not enough crisis sheltercrisis assistance, transitional shelter or permanent housing,” she said, causing families to stay in transitional shelter for much longer periods of time.
Alejandra Lozada said she landed on Skid Row after being asked to pay $370 to stay at the Union Rescue Mission with her husband and 2-year-old daughter, Flavia.
“I didn’t have money to pay,” she said.
In exchange for the fees, she was told she could work as a volunteer on night cleaning shifts to cover the amount, but she could not do that because she had nowhere to leave her child. , He said.
She has applied to dozens of job agencies but was never called back because she doesn’t have a work permit, she said.
As they ended up on the street two blocks away from the shelter, aid workers arrived but told them there was nowhere for them to go. “There is no help right now,” Lozada said.
Sometimes people come and tell them that if they don’t get off the streets, their children will be taken away, he said.
“We are on the street because we have no place to stay, not because we are doing anything bad.”
On Thursday, families living in the town received a social call from Glenda Bustamante, who arrived with two children in a stroller. She said she has been at the mission for a year and is paid $200 a month which she raises by caring for the children of other working parents.
Although they are not legally eligible to work, some parents still believe informal jobs In the form of daily wage labourers, child-minders, utensil washers or street vendors, he said.
John Valencia and Katherine Gonzalez and their 2-year-old child, Ryan, came on a bus from Texas through Denver.
Gonzalez, who was caring for two other children, ages 5 and 2, while her mother worked, said she and her son left the mission last week after being asked to pay $300 a month Was.
Makeshift housing lines a footpath on Town Avenue.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
They joined others who had relocated to an area across the street from the Skid Row Community Refresh Spot, where they could shower and wash clothes.
Thursday morning, Gonzalez fried an egg on a burner while Thian sat in a child’s camping chair, watching a video on his phone.
She needs a job and a place to live, she said.
“With homes and jobs we can move forward,” he said.
Euhendry Carrasquero, whose 1-year-old son slept in the car in the morning, said he works as a plumbing worker, picking up jobs whenever he can, but the work is unstable.
He and his family have been on and off the streets since November, he said. Sometimes, when he earns enough money, they rent a room or stay in a motel. At present, they are in a tent. On Thursday, Carrasquero said his wife had gone to local agencies to ask about housing while he was living with their child.
At the southern end of the tent row, Dori Mera shares a tent with her husband and daughters, 9 and 10.
She said she had first left the mission voluntarily to live with her brother, who was ill and living on the street. She thought she was allowed to leave temporarily, but when she tried to return she was told she was no longer able to do so, she said. Recently, workers told her she could go back, but she said she was no longer comfortable there.
Her husband has a temporary job washing dishes at a restaurant, which serves a sick friend of his. He earns enough to buy food.
“The only thing we want is a chance to work,” he said. “An apartment, something stable to be able to work.”
“We just need a little encouragement, and we can take care of the rest. We came here to work,” he said.
