L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis launched the initiative in 2022 to address historic racism and disinvestment in the neighborhood, where the majority of the unhoused population is Black.<\/p>\n
\u201cEngaging the community was not just important; it was essential,\u201d said Solis, whose district includes Skid Row. \u201cTheir voices must guide the path forward. Real transformation can only be led by those who live this reality every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
A committee of 10 current and former Skid Row residents collaborated with government agencies in 2023 to come up with recommendations<\/a> for the plan in 2023. That group, known as the Skid Row Action Plan Resident Advisory Committee, recommended the new campus. <\/p>\n They said they wanted a fun community space where they could connect with services and a place where drug users can pick up harm reduction supplies, such as clean needles or pipes, overdose reversal medication and drug testing strips.<\/p>\n As a member of the advisory committee, Skid Row activist General Dogon said he pushed for the campus entrance to be staffed by \u201ccommunity ambassadors,\u201d rather than private security guards.<\/p>\n \u201cUniforms don’t go good with homeless people,\u201d said Dogon, an organizer with the L.A. Community Action Network. \u201cWe want everyday faces to be at the door, not some G.I. Joe in a uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n General Dogon observes an encampment sweep along a block of Skid Row. <\/p>\n L.A. County officials said input from members of the unhoused community is sometimes ignored, and they are not properly compensated for their efforts. So authorities said they wanted to take a different approach at the care campus. <\/p>\n After the Skid Row Action plan started taking shape, the county hired an additional eight unhoused or formerly unhoused people to serve on resident councils for the Skid Row Care Campus. Each is paid a $10,000 consulting stipend and tasked with surveying other community members about what\u2019s working and what isn\u2019t. They also provide training and technical assistance for the campus\u2019 programs. <\/p>\n \u201cI like the fact that it’s focused from the ground up and not the top down,\u201d said Dwight Wilson, a member of a resident council. \u201cIt wants to \u200aincorporate the actual feeling of the people in the community that need the resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the name, \u201cSkid Row Care Campus,\u201d came from the community. It was suggested by Henri\u00ebtte Brouwers, associate director of the L.A. Poverty Department, a nonprofit arts organization and theater group that\u2019s been in Skid Row since 1985. <\/p>\n \u201c\u200aPeople often talk about Skid Row like it’s a bad place; they don\u2019t care to find out why it\u2019s here,\u201d Brouwers said. \u201cBut people recover when they build relationships, and you build relationships when you care about somebody.<\/p>\n \u201cI think if we want to end homelessness, we need to actually care.\u201d<\/p>\n An estimated 3,593 homeless people live in Skid Row, including those in homeless shelters, according to the region\u2019s latest count<\/a>. While the overall unhoused population in the neighborhood has declined by 27% since 2022, the remaining population faces greater health risks, according to survey data.<\/p>\n About 41% of the people in Skid Row\u2019s unhoused population have a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or post traumatic stress disorder. Roughly 31% deal with substance use disorder, and 26% claim a physical disability.<\/p>\n To meet some of those needs at the Skid Row Care Campus, the nonprofit health agency John Wesley Community Health Institute runs an on-site clinic and a 48-bed board-and-care facility, which provides permanent housing to people who need help with basic activities like dressing or eating. It\u2019s moving in residents this week, according to county officials.<\/p>\n In several months, Skid Row\u2019s first-ever methadone clinic will open here.<\/p>\n Case workers from the county\u2019s three health departments, LAHSA and other departments rotate through booths within the main courtyard of the Skid Row Care campus.<\/p>\n People can check in at the medical wing, which includes a clinic, a harm reduction dispensary and dozens of respite beds. The first methadone clinic in Skid Row is expected to open there this year. <\/p>\n Harm reduction<\/p>\n Many programs at the facility focus on harm reduction, a public health approach that recognizes addiction is a health condition and that some people aren\u2019t going to immediately quit using drugs.<\/p>\n Harm reduction interventions typically focus on minimizing the negative health effects of drug use.<\/p>\n Public health officials and addiction experts<\/a> say there is ample evidence these approaches not only save lives, but can also help people<\/a> get into treatment or sobriety, connect them with other services or get them off the street.<\/p>\n But harm reduction remains controversial. Some view these approaches as enabling illegal behavior.<\/p>\n Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order<\/a> encouraging the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to give priority for housing grants to local agencies that enforce laws against open illicit drug use. <\/p>\n Trump\u2019s order directs his attorney general to ensure that federal substance use disorder grants do not fund harm reduction programs. It also directs HUD to require people with substance use disorders or serious mental illness to seek treatment before they participate in federal housing and homelessness assistance programs.<\/p>\n Days before the executive order, a Trump-appointed HUD administrator told L.A. County officials<\/a> at a meeting that he believed the region wasn\u2019t doing enough enforcement and was critical of providing housing subsidies to people who use drugs, according to local officials who were there. L.A. County officials said it\u2019s too early to tell what the actual effects of the new order will be.<\/p>\n Drug overdose is the leading cause of death for unhoused Angelenos, according to the county Public Health Department<\/a>. Skid Row is home to the largest homeless population in L.A. and the highest rates of drug overdose mortality.<\/p>\n There are no designated safe-consumption sites \u2014 where people are allowed to use drugs under supervision \u2014 in California, although some exist in other parts of the country. A few years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed<\/a> a state bill that would have allowed them. <\/p>\n On the street outside the Skid Row Care Campus, there are many signs that people are using illicit drugs. But they can\u2019t use them inside the facility. The staff won\u2019t allow it. <\/p>\n Last month, when one woman hit her meth pipe while lounging on the patio, a staff member tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to put it away. She complied.<\/p>\n The Skid Row Care Campus\u2019 main harm reduction provider is Homeless Healthcare L.A., best known for its overdose response teams who roll through Skid Row in Jeeps <\/b>to pass out supplies like clean smoking kits and naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug.<\/p>\n \u201cHarm reduction was created by people who use drugs,\u201d said the nonprofit\u2019s Aurora Morales. \u201cAnd everything that we do reflects what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n On a recent afternoon, Floyd Howard Jr. folded squares of clean tin foil to be packed into kits for fentanyl smokers, as part of a campus work program.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople that smoke fentanyl, they use the foil to put their drug on and smoke it,\u201d Howard said. \u201cSo it’s safer to get this from them than to just use some off the ground or something that’s not clean.\u201d <\/p>\n Howard added that he\u2019s seen supplies like these save countless lives, including his own.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it wasn’t for these people, a lot of people would be dead,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a whole lot of people that I met downtown here that passed from overdose.\u201d<\/p>\n An unhoused couple who go by \u201cPorkchop\u201d and \u201cAngel\u201d prepare to visit the Skid Row Care Campus to take their first showers in months. Both had recently taken long-acting injectable doses of buprenorphine to quit using fentanyl, after years of daily use. <\/p>\n Building community<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/scpr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/1293311\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1024x682+0+0\/resize\/792x527!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fscpr-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fb2%2Fce%2F3aebba3d4e6eaf22209eea01f916%2Fgeneral-dogon-calmatters.jpg\")
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