Central City East : Downtown Los Angeles

I applaude Alice Callahan for saving the SRO Hotels in Central City East , but to use mentally ill people as pawns? Who in their right mind would put their most mentally ill people in a 10 story hotel? I remember when people were being thrown out of the rossylyn and the Frontier and jumping from them too. It is almost as if the whole point is to exacerbate the chaos throughout Downtown and she can secure the property downtown for services. I mean just put them in there. Sounds good. But it only sounds good.


you guys really do need to read this paper to truly understand what the real battle is downtown.

“Because then, we own ten stories, and we move our most mentally ill
people into it and now nobody wants the others. And that’s the whole plan. And then again
once we secure the housing on the Row—so the poor can live here forever—
ALice Callahan

Skid Row Housing Trust intentionally, when it was set up in the 80s,
purchased hotels along the border of the Row. The idea was that if we could
protect our borders, then it makes it less attractive to come in. The other group,
SRO Inc., basically bought in a very small concentrated area of the Row. They
were willing to say “Okay here is the Row, 5th and San Julian.” They did not
mind if they shrunk the Row down. They do own a few hotels outside the area.
They are prepared to give up the Row. Again, their politics are different. The
redevelopment agency people are on their board. They are a city group.194
Callahan’s combat plan is to try to keep the young professionals out until she has
secured enough property to make sure that Skid Row remains Skid Row. Callahan has her
eyes on the large hotels. “That’s why Main Street is so important,” she explains, “because it
has all these huge buildings. . . . If we could buy this one, the Cecil, almost six hundred
rooms, on Seventh and Main, then we would be okay. . . . I feel if we can get the Rossmore,
then no one else will want to do the Frontier.”195
“If we can buy this one hotel I feel like we’ve check-mated this whole block,”
Callahan explains.196 “Because then, we own ten stories, and we move our most mentally ill
people into it and now nobody wants the others. And that’s the whole plan. And then again
once we secure the housing on the Row—so the poor can live here forever—then the service
is going to stay here, because that is what it is to service them. Then they can do anything
they want. But you always have to secure the property.”197
“The most important thing for us to do is to buy the housing on Skid Row,” Callahan
emphasizes. “I think it will take a decade or more because there is so much happening off
the Row that is beginning. And my hope is that, by the time they run out of stuff [off of Skid
Row but near by], we will own the buildings.” When she will have all the property she
needs, then there will be no problem gentrifying the area: “I don’t care if they do that on
Skid Row once we secure the housing. Then fine. Put all the wonderful building you want
on Skid Row. It is only an issue before we secure the real estate. That is all it is.”198 She
continues:
We want every building on the Row. And then we want to put up some
additional housing to house people. Every single affordable housing unit on Skid
Row has a waiting list. Every single one of those 45 hotels owned by a non-profit
has a waiting list. If we opened seven more hotels tomorrow, they would be fille

d.