LAND-USE AND HOMELESS POLICY IN LOS-ANGELES

Economic restructuring has provided urban officials with a strong incentive to carefully manage downtown land-uses and to prepare land for what Harvey (1985) calls the secondary circuit of capital, investment in the built environment. Many cities have facilitated such investment by eliminating 'Skid Row' areas and low income housing. In Los Angeles, however, an historical compromise preserved Skid Row as an area of very low cost housing and social services for the poor. This paper is a study of homeless policy in Los Angeles and the tension between the social welfare and the land-use objectives of city officials. The analysis shows that despite some successes by advocates for homeless persons, the city has successfully pursued a strategy of physical containment of the homeless, reflecting the land-use objectives of city officials in facilitating downtown revitalization.