Skid Row is an area
of approximately 50 square blocks located just east of downtown
Los Angeles. Also known as Central City East, the area has
a longstanding history as a residential neighborhood for
those with the least.
Since the early 20th century,
many of the City’s working poor,
unemployed, disabled and otherwise marginalized residents have
found homes in the single-room occupancy hotels located throughout
this relatively small neighborhood. But between 1950 and 2000,
15,000 residential hotel units, the most affordable housing
in Los Angeles, were destroyed, threatening Skid Row’s
residential community and forcing thousands of people onto
the City’s shelters and sidewalks.
In 1989, community
activists and business leaders of Los Angeles’ downtown
community responded to the alarming disappearance of affordable,
permanent housing by coming together to create Skid Row Housing
Trust. The Trust swiftly mobilized private equity through low
income tax credits, public finance and conventional debt to salvage
hundreds of housing units that would have been otherwise lost.
Dilapidated
hotels were renovated and transformed into safe, attractive
and affordable permanent housing in which low-income and formerly
homeless men and women could live and thrive.
Over
the past twenty years the Trust has refined its homes to provide
not just housing but a supportive community as well. The Trust
has increasingly targeted its homes to long-term homeless and
disabled men and women, with an emphasis on co-locating housing
and services together. By providing an integrated approach
to housing, primary healthcare, mental health treatment, substance
abuse treatment, and counseling, the Trust provides the tools
to overcome the many causes of homelessness.
The combination
of beautifully designed, high quality housing, professional
property management, and innovative social service provision
has made Skid Row Housing Trust a national leader in ending
homelessness.
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