More homeless camps are appearing beyond downtown L.A.'s skid row
Evicted four months ago from their Highland Park apartment, Louis Morales and his 18-year-old stepson, Arthur Valenzuela, live half-hidden by brush along the nearby Arroyo Seco riverbed.
Morales, 49, keeps a framed bible verse and a stuffed monkey in his tent. Water hauled by bike from a park heats up on the camp stove.
Next door, their friend Johnny Salazar fixes bikes and shattered computer screens on the cheap for people who live in the neighborhood. A brother and sister Morales has known for years live up the river, and three couples stay down by the bridge.
"Everybody here is from Highland Park," Valenzuela said. "We don't allow other people."
Over the last two years, street encampments have jumped their historic boundaries in downtown Los Angeles, lining freeways and filling underpasses from Echo Park to South Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county agency, received 767 calls about street encampments in 2014, up 60% from the 479 in 2013...
Whether homeless people are more numerous or simply more visible could be answered by the biennial tally taking place this week.
As many as 6,000 volunteers will go out Tuesday through Thursday searching for homeless people living in alleys, riverbeds, cars and RVs. For the first time, homeless people will be asked about their gender identity, domestic violence and prison histories, and years of military service - information that could better track where they came from and why.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/more-homeless-camps-are-appearing-beyond-downtown-las-skid-row/ar-AA8yhp5?ocid=iehp
= new reply since forum marked as read
