Politics
Commentary: On Skid Row, it’s been decades of frustration. Will the next mayor have a plan?
On my way through Skid Row to meet up with Estela Lopez, things looked pretty much as they did when I spent time there more than 20 years ago and first heard the promises that things would be better soon.
Tents lined some of the sidewalks, making them unpassable. Some people wore the damage of physical or mental disease, addiction, poverty, or all of the above. Outreach workers with ID lanyards strode through the trash-strewn landscape like lifeguards working against endless tides of fresh emergencies.
When I arrived at Lopez’s office in the 700 block of Crocker Street, where she runs a business improvement district on behalf of 600 or so beleaguered merchants, she had just completed a tour of the neighborhood with John McKinney, a candidate for city attorney.
She held a note card in her hand and shared some numbers, telling McKinney that by her latest count, 131 of the 702 streetlights in the district were out, 27 children were living on Skid Row, and 72 RVs were parked in the area.
“I came out here because I think this symbolizes the greatest failure in government,” McKinney said. “I think it’s the result of bad law and bad policy. I think it’s the result of a lack of leadership and indifference to the way people are living out here. To me, it’s completely untenable.”
But will anything ever change?
It’s a question two people in particular need to address, and I’ll get to that in a minute.
A lot of people I trust and admire work tirelessly to make a difference on Skid Row, and they’re always eager to share the success stories of those who move through and move on. (I’ve got a column on that coming up soon.)
The long-standing problem is that Skid Row is both a social service center and a mecca of drugs and other vices, with traps on every block. And so it’s a neighborhood at war with itself, with some viewing Skid Row as one of the largest recovery centers in the country while others see a snapshot of social collapse.
Estela Lopez has reached out to me several times over the years. About illegal dumping. Typhus. Calls to City Hall that don’t get answered. About the relentless plague of fires, overdoses and assaults.
“Can you imagine, in 24 years, how many people I’ve seen dead on these streets?” Lopez asked me near her office last week.
Estela Lopez runs a business improvement district on behalf of 600 or so beleaguered merchants.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
When the local post office closed recently in part because of security issues, Lopez told The Times’ Melissa Gomez that “we have reached a point in this city where we are unable to address criminal activity. … It’s surrender.”
We walked to the corner of 8th Street, where paramedics had just pulled away from a medical emergency. Cars and pedestrians stopped at tents for brief transactions, leaving little doubt as to the nature of the business being conducted.
We passed a caged dog and saw a puppy on a short leash being loaded into a vehicle. There’s a lot of talk about dogs being bred and sold, and Lopez said she’s seen evidence of animals being mistreated.
On 7th Street we passed the charred residue of a recent fire. A half block east, four men were slumped on the sidewalk, hitting pipes. Lopez gets calls from exasperated merchants dealing with vandalism and with people blocking their storefronts.
“I’ve never seen so many people overdose right here,” said Sergio Moreno, who runs a check-cashing business and said his family has been in business going back to the ‘70s. He said he’s seen paramedics use naloxone to revive opioid users, only to see the same people go down again just days later.
“How can you run a business?” asked Moreno, who chairs the board of the business improvement district Lopez runs. “This business is our life. This is how we got through school, this is how we put our kids through school.”
And yet despite paying city taxes and BID fees, Moreno said, problems persist and his customers fear for their safety.
Dr. Susan Partovi, a street medic for 22 years, has been advocating for more proactive intervention for those in obvious distress. Partovi told me she recently saw a man rise from a gutter, pull down his pants and defecate in front of her. She called to get help for him but said neither paramedics nor police determined him to be gravely disabled.
Lopez walks past residents of Skid Row last week. By her latest count, 131 of the 702 streetlights in the district were out, 27 children were living on Skid Row, and 72 RVs were parked in the area.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“We have become complacent with having people lying in the gutter, having diarrhea, speaking nonsensically and putting their lives at risk,” said Partovi, whom I once accompanied as she administered long-acting anti-psychotic injections, arguing that people need clear heads to make better choices.
One sore point for Lopez is the Skid Row Care Campus in the 400 block of Crocker Street, which opened a little more than a year ago and offers all sorts of social services, meds that reduce drug cravings, and supplies that allow for safe use of drugs.
Lopez said she understands the theory of harm reduction: Engage people with a goal of getting them into treatment and back on track. But she wonders how successful such programs are, and argues that they become magnets for lawlessness.
As we talked, a young man approached and told Lopez he’d seen her airing her grievances on TV news.
“I’m wondering, what would be your solution?” he asked.
“I would hope that people could return to life in sobriety,” Lopez responded.
The man said he is “trying to elevate” himself, but that he’d been on a waiting list for housing for six months.
Lopez is tired of being on a waiting list, too.
“If something is working down here,” she told me, “you can’t prove it by me.”
Progress is undeniable, said Sieglinde von Deffner, a social worker and Skid Row coordinator for the Los Angeles County Department of Homeless Services and Housing. But given the “highly vulnerable” nature of the population, “the need is colossal,” she said.
A man stands among his belongings along 7th Street in Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“I have not yet met someone here who doesn’t want housing of some kind. We just don’t have enough affordable housing for everyone,” Von Deffner said, and long-term homelessness makes people harder to reach. “Now, if we could just stop the inflow.”
Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor who researches homelessness and served as an L.A. County consultant, said there are other ways to get people indoors than investing billions of dollars in new housing that takes years to build. Culhane said single adults who are not veterans, including the elderly and disabled, constitute a majority of the homeless population. But assistance is scarce.
“It’s like you have a famine, and you’ve only got food for 15% of the people,” Culhane said.
Rapid rehousing is critical for the newly homeless, he said. But it can take two years for them to qualify for Social Security disability, and once they do, the $1,000 a month “is completely deficient in the face of rising rents.”
Culhane recommends faster approval of SSI benefits and supplementing that income with additional sources of rental assistance. He believes there are enough vacancies at the low end of the housing market to make a sizable dent in homelessness without new construction.
Judy Mauricio, 65, who has been homeless for nine years, rests inside her tent next to her walker. She says her drug addiction has kept her on the street. She receives state disability funds and says she has cancer.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
As campaign season warms up, I’d like to know if Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, Councilmember Nithya Raman, agree.
The mayor of L.A. is limited by a power split with the City Council, and the county oversees most addiction and mental health services. But Skid Row sits just a few blocks from the seat of city authority, and nobody has more power or responsibility to address the decades-long human catastrophe on Skid Row than the mayor.
Estela Lopez and the merchants deserve better. The people on the street deserve better. Thousands of housed residents deserve better.
Does Bass have a plan other than what’s currently in place? Does Raman have a better one?
If so, I’d like to hear the details, and I’m available.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
Supreme Court justices are asking lawmakers on Capitol Hill to increase their 2027 budget, with most of the additional funding earmarked for security. Ann E. Marimow, a New York Times reporter, explains why the justices say these measures are necessary to protect them from rising threats.
GOP scrambles to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham
Former Kevin McCarthy communications director Mark Bednar discusses the urgent political scramble to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. He emphasizes President Donald Trump and Gov. McMaster’s need to quickly coordinate an interim appointment and rally around a strong Republican candidate for the impending special election. Potential candidates include Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Rep. Russell Fry, with warnings against infighting.
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President Donald Trump teased who he may like to see as a long-term replacement for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as a special election to lock in a candidate for the seat fast approaches.
Private and public jockeying is already underway to snag Trump’s coveted endorsement in the special election, which is slated for Aug. 11, with two lawmakers already expressing interest in launching a campaign.
And as members of the South Carolina GOP congressional delegation and beyond line up for the race, the president hinted that he may already have a favorite: Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C.
GRAHAM ALLY RIPS ‘THIRSTY’ REPUBLICANS JOCKEYING TO REPLACE LATE SENATOR
Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks with reporters aboard Air Force One with President Donald Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on the way back to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 4, 2026. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
“I think Russell Fry, a young congressman, is outstanding, and that could happen. I could see that happening,” Trump told Newsmax on Monday night. “I think he’s a very, very talented person.”
Trump backed Fry in his first bid for Congress in 2022, where he toppled former Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., in the primary. Rice was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on Capitol Hill.
‘THE HALLS OF THE SENATE ALREADY FEEL EMPTY’: TEARFUL THUNE HONORS LINDSEY GRAHAM AS SISTER TAKES HIS SEAT
“He took the place of somebody that was — I mean, he’s doing much better than the person that preceded him,” Trump said. “He’s been very popular in the state, so I think a name like Russell Fry is somebody you can watch out for and there are probably some others.”
Trump’s comments on Fry come after Politico reported that the lawmaker has been communicating with the White House about a run and was viewed as a top contender for the president’s stamp of approval. Fox News Digital did not immediately hear back from the White House or Fry on whether he’s being eyed for the special election.
LINDSEY GRAHAM’S SISTER APPOINTED TO SENATE AS GOP RUSHES TO PROTECT FRAGILE MAJORITY
Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., arrives for a House Republican Conference caucus meeting at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on May 13, 2026. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
In the meantime, Trump threw his support behind Graham’s sister, Sen.-designate Darline Graham, to take over the lawmaker’s seat for the remainder of his term. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster appointed her on Monday, and she’ll be sworn in to the role Tuesday afternoon.
Trump said that he believed Graham would be there “only on an interim basis.”
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Meanwhile, Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., are eyeing the race, too. Norman has gone so far as to ask Trump for his endorsement.
Both Mace and Norman failed to clinch the GOP nomination for governor in South Carolina, which ultimately went to South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who toppled Trump-backed South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pam Evette.
Politics
Commentary: Two Lorenzos from Mexico. One fulfilled his American dream. ICE killed the other
They were Mexican immigrants, both named Lorenzo.
They came to this country without papers as teenagers. Lack of legal status didn’t stop them from building beautiful lives — a wife, a home, a loving dog. A blue-collar job that paid the bills, weekend carne asadas with friends and family, children who followed their father’s example of hard work.
The Lorenzos enjoyed the fruits of their labor in their adopted land, even as they battled to become American citizens while politicians demonized immigrants as invaders and worse.
Lorenzo Arellano arrived in the United States in 1968 and didn’t get his citizenship until nearly 30 years later. Back then, the path to naturalization was far easier.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo arrived in the early 1990s, when those opportunities were becoming severely limited.
Lorenzo Arellano is my father, a happily retired truck driver living in Anaheim.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, who ran his own construction crew, was on his way to a job with his brother and two other men when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot him dead on July 7 in Houston.
When I see a photo of Salgado Araujo beaming in front of a cake with the number 52 on it at the well-kept home he built with his own hands, I’m reminded that we’ll be celebrating my father’s 75th birthday next month. When I see video of Salgado Araujo’s feet twitching on the ground with two ICE agents next to him as he bleeds out and moans for help, I weep.
Only geography, age and Donald Trump separated the Lorenzos. Even their children — he had three boys, while my father had two boys and two girls — are similar. The Salgado Araujos, like the Arellanos, are college-educated. The eldest son, Ronaldo, is a teacher like my sisters. He wears glasses like me and is now telling the story of his father to the nation, as I have for decades.
I write about my Papi as the puckish personification of immigrant America.
Ronaldo is eulogizing his dad way too soon.
“He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” Ronaldo said proudly at a news conference the day after his father’s death — words I’ve always said about my Papi. “He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE’” — words I hope to never utter but can sadly see as a possibility given la migra’s unapologetic shoot-first approach and indiscriminate targeting of anyone brown.
Salgado Araujo’s killing came as part of the Trump administration’s newest deportation surge — the New York Times reported that the feds have arrested nearly 2,000 people a day since the end of June. The rate is higher than ICE’s campaign of terror last summer, yet it hasn’t drawn the same attention, fulfilling the promise of newish Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that la migra would operate far more quietly and efficiently than under his reckless predecessor, Kristi Noem.
Those quiet times are over.
Ronaldo Salgado, son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, dries his tears while talking at a news conference on July 8 in Houston. His father was shot and killed by ICE agents the day before.
(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
Vigils are popping up across the country in Salgado Araujo’s name. Stories about his life and death have replaced those about Mexico’s World Cup run on my social media timelines. They are heartbreaking, infuriating and a baleful reminder for Mexican Americans that these last five weeks of soccer, as joyful as they were, didn’t change our precarious status in this country under President Trump.
“He deserved to live a quiet life as a husband, a father and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream,” Ronaldo said at the news conference through tears as his younger brother, Lorenzo Jr., comforted him. That their father never will — that the Department of Homeland Security is now smearing his name by claiming he “weaponized” his van by trying to run over an agent, even though video evidence proves no such thing — is the latest indictment against the Trump administration’s cruelty toward the undocumented.
Salgado Araujo wasn’t even the target of ICE’s operation. His family said he had applied for a work permit and was on his way toward finally obtaining legal status.
We should heed Ronaldo’s words about his father. As people protest and seek justice, we should also hail the life of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo the way we one day will hail the life of Lorenzo Arellano — as Mexicans who made it, challenges be damned. And we should continue to fight for immigrants who remain in legal limbo, afraid for their lives more than ever.
I called my father to ask how he felt about a tocayo — someone with the same first name — losing his life to la migra.
“I put myself in his place and lament that ese [that] Lorenzo couldn’t get the citizenship that I could,” Papi said in Spanish.
He remembered how immigration agents “did it with respect” when they caught him living in this country illegally in the 1970s and 1980s.
“They asked you for your papers, and if you didn’t have them, they put handcuffs on you, you got deported and that was that. None of these beatings or shootings that are happening now under Trump,” he said. The worst it ever got was when he said he was going to Los Angeles, and an agent snapped that he was going to L.A. but now had to return to Mexico.
Papi asked me what justification ICE has offered for killing Salgado Araujo.
“I hope they put those people who killed him in prison for many years,” he said with disgust. “Will they?”
I replied that probably wasn’t going to happen. ICE has shot and killed 11 people during Trump’s second term, both citizens and noncitizens, and scores more have died in immigration detention. No agents have faced charges for any of these deaths. The agents involved in Salgado Araujo’s killing didn’t even have dashboard cameras or body cameras, a convenient oversight that a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson blamed on “multiple government shutdowns.”
“Pues, Dios sabe que todo se paga en la vida,” my dad responded. Well, God knows you reap what you sow.
Ronaldo Salgado and Lorenzo Jr., sons of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, hold a photograph of their father during a news conference July 8 in Houston.
(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
Nothing can bring Lorenzo Salgado Araujo back to his loved ones. But I hope they find solace in his namesake, St. Lawrence. Tradition has it that Roman authorities roasted the Spanish deacon to death after Emperor Valerian demanded that he turn over the treasures of the Church. Instead, Lawrence presented the emperor with the city’s poor and maligned, insisting that he confront the oppression he had forced on them.
May we remember Lorenzo Salgado Araujo as a modern-day martyr, killed because our government refused to give him and so many others a chance at living in this country without fear.
May his name resonate through the ages as embodying the promise and tragedy of the American dream.
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