As the city fails them \u2014 there\u2019s a new beacon of hope for the homeless population of LA\u2019s fentanyl-fueled MacArthur Park \u2014 a local business owner digging into his own pockets to get these desperate people a ticket home.<\/p>\n
This park didn\u2019t collapse by accident,\u201d John Alle said, handing out flyers into open hands as the chaos churned. \u201cIt fell off a cliff because of ideology. City Hall refuses to act \u2014 so we do it ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Alle talks with a homeless woman at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles about his ticket to home program. Ringo Chiu<\/p>\n
A homeless man lies lifeless outside MacArthur Park, a sight that is no longer unusual in a neighborhood overwhelmed by open-air drug use. Obtained by New York Post<\/p>\n
Alle runs Safe Cities, a no-frills reunification effort built around one unforgiving idea \u2014 get people stranded on the streets of Los Angeles back to their families for good. No housing roulette. No cash handouts. No nonprofit middlemen. Just verified contacts, strict rules, and a one-way ticket home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe handle transportation. Period,\u201d Alle said. \u201cBus, train, plane. That\u2019s it. We don\u2019t warehouse people. We don\u2019t hand out money. We get them back to the people who actually care about them.\u201d<\/p>\n
In just four months, the privately funded effort has already sent 36 people home, with what Alle says is a 100% success rate. <\/p>\n
Most of the people he encounters, Alle says, aren\u2019t deeply entrenched in drugs, sex work, or violent crime \u2014 they\u2019re disconnected, still reachable, and running out of time.<\/p>\n
Inside MacArthur Park, the city\u2019s experiment is on full display.<\/p>\n
The Post toured the historic park once again Tuesday and witnessed how it has morphed into a grim, drug-riddled sprawl \u2014 tents jammed against walkways, dealers posted openly, addiction operating at street level with government-funded tools.<\/p>\n
A woman locked in a violent fentanyl spiral screamed uncontrollably while others \u2014 many young, hollow-eyed and shaking \u2014 crouched low, loading pipes for their next hit. Needles flashed in the dirt. Pipes passed hand to hand. Open-air drug deals unfolded without urgency, barely registering to people too consumed to look up.<\/p>\n
The damage was written on bodies. Hair matted and filthy. Fingernails black with grime. Skin blistered raw from months of sleeping on dirt and concrete. Some shuffled barefoot across damp grass despite the cold, feet cracked and swollen. Addiction wasn\u2019t hidden \u2014 it was the organizing principle.<\/p>\n
John Alle talks with a homeless woman about his Safe Cities program at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Ringo Chiu<\/p>\n
Fentanyl folds are a common sight inside MacArthur Park. Ringo Chiu<\/p>\n
MacArthur Park sits in the district of Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, whose tenure has coincided with the park\u2019s accelerating collapse. City Hall and Hernandez\u2019s district have poured more than $27 million into the area for homelessness initiatives \u2014 including outreach contracts, on-site programming and the distribution of drug paraphernalia like crack pipes.<\/p>\n
The New York Post has sought comment from Hernandez for more than two weeks since reporting began on conditions inside the park. She has not responded.<\/p>\n
Midway through the walk, Alle stopped to speak with a woman who said she was flown to Southern California for rehab, lost her placement and slid straight into homelessness. Her family is in Alabama.<\/p>\n
Homeless people shoot up inside MacArthur Park \u2014 another grim snapshot of a park where open-air drug use has become routine. Ringo Chiu<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll have a year sober in April,\u201d she said. \u201cI fight it every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the park makes staying clean feel nearly impossible. When Alle asked how often dealers or recruiters approach her, she didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day. Several times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
She condemned a system she said feeds addiction instead of stopping it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should be offering people help \u2014 not aid,\u201d she said. \u201cIf someone had enabled me when I was using, I\u2019d be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city has spent $27 million on MacArthur Park, yet the conditions remain largely unchanged. Ringo Chiu for NY Post<\/p>\n
She also alleged identity theft is rampant, saying a government-issued phone in her name was flipped for cash, cutting her off from basic services. None of it surprised Alle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis system doesn\u2019t just fail people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt feeds on them \u2014 keeps them stuck while politicians posture and bureaucracies swell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working entirely on private donations, Alle often spends just a few hundred dollars to deliver a permanent solution \u2014 a verified ticket home, out of Los Angeles and off the streets. His rules are strict: stay clean, get to the airport, verify who\u2019s receiving you \u2014 and don\u2019t come back.<\/p>\n
Fresh off a successful reunification the week before, he was hoping for another \u2014 a home-for-the-holidays ending.<\/p>\n
For those deep in addiction, the park doesn\u2019t just trap them \u2014 it holds them in place. Ringo Chiu for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cFamily is the support system,\u201d he said. \u201cNot the street. Not the park. Not a tent.\u201d<\/p>\n
After about ten minutes, Alle laid out his offer. The woman\u2019s voice cracked. She said she was ready. He told her to call her family and start the process \u2014 he would do the same on his end.<\/p>\n
Not everyone was there yet. A 29-year-old woman from Massachusetts waved him off, gesturing toward the steady flow of handouts in the park \u2014 pipes included. Her family, she said, won\u2019t take her back unless she\u2019s clean.<\/p>\n
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For those still deep in addiction, the park doesn\u2019t just trap them \u2014 it grips hard, offering just enough to keep them exactly where they are.<\/p>\n
No ticket that day. Just a flyer, a phone number \u2014 and a shot at escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019ll take it,\u201d Alle said. \u201cI can tell when they\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the city fails them \u2014 there\u2019s a new beacon of hope for the homeless population of LA\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":467736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,13239,7265,2961,224,5337,1154],"class_list":{"0":"post-467735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-city-hall","11":"tag-homelessness","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-us-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115771700958072525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}