documentary & q&a
quick notes to self:
- the commodification of space
- the right to space (life liberty property)
- the criminalization of poverty
- skid row–arrested for crates. property taken. then moved down the road to other homeless. addicts arrested for “dealing”
- dispersion instead of containment
- Rand—Santa Monica housing study
_____________________________
written for papermade digest #3:
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” —Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach)
Background:
The Los Angeles Community Action Network is a membership organization composed of low-income, homeless and formerly homeless residents in the Central City East community of downtown Los Angeles (“Skid Row”). L.A. CAN’s goals:
- Organize and empower community residents to work collectively to change the relationships of power that affect their community.
- Create an organization and organizing model that eradicate the race, class, gender barriers that are used to prevent communities from building true power.
- Eliminate the multiple forms of violence used against and within their community to maintain status quo.
Film Screening:
Last month the L.A. CAN building downtown hosted a screening of the unfinished documentary From South Central to Skid Row: A Look into the “Corridor of Poverty” as part of a Southern California Library exhibition. The film shows the tie between poverty in South Central (due to the shutting down of the steel plants and other factors) and downtown—one narrative of how people end up in the affordable housing hotels, in shelters, or on the streets in Skid Row.
The downtown scenes show the low-income hotels in the area, which are being bought and turned into lofts. The current residents, sometimes illegally kicked out of their homes with only a few hours notice, end up on the street because there aren’t enough shelter beds or affordable rooms left—there’s nowhere else to go. Other footage shows police using heavy machinery to pick up homeless people’s things, which are then crumpled and disposed of, the people themselves arrested for having crates or shopping carts.
Implications:
A continuation of a common story in Los Angeles history (see also Chavez Ravine)—relocation and disintegration of undervalued, overlooked communities: With new lofts and possibilities of future investment, the police are trying a method of dispersal to get people off the streets in Central City East, an area which is these people’s home and community. L.A. CAN takes legal and political action to fight the injustice against the homeless and low-income residents and what they call the “criminalization of poverty.”
The filmmaker concluded his opening remarks with: “Just remember, these people are homeless because you’re not.” It may not be as clear cut as that, but it is true that in L.A. space and jobs are limited and therefore commodities. L.A. CAN puts forward the claim that they’re rights.
[event details]__________________
Saturday, February 10, 2 p.m.
From South Central to Skid Row: A Look into the “Corridor of Poverty”
showing at:
@ L.A. CAN
456 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, CA
L.A. CAN works to build indigenous leadership among the Central City East community. The film focuses on the “Corridor of Poverty” between downtown and South L.A. For more information, visit the Southern California Library site.
MOVE! Housing and the Struggle for a Livable L.A. —
Learn more about the challenges faced by homeless and very low income residents, who are struggling for a decent life.
RSVP to (323) 759-6063, ext. 15