The Starbucks thing

Mustard, relish, meat chili.

 

Believe me when I tell you that on that little sojourn I got LOTS of offers for different ways to top my hot dog.

 

Mayonnaise, Shredded cheese, bell peppers and diced onions.

 

I am with @SpeedTchr on this one.

 

Try the stadtwurst auf semel mit senf.

 

Oddly enough I did almost the exact same thing. Grew up 30 miles from downtown LA but had never seen Skid Row. Went over to visit my parents and go to a concert late last year. My dad looked up how to get to the theater and it took us right through Skid Row. Holy shit.

And it's very close to an area I've been to repeatedly, and in fact I've been to the Starbucks nearby. It's the only Starbucks I've been in that required a bathroom code. Ya know, just to bring the conversation full circle.

 

I used to live 4 nights a week in downtown LA, about a decade ago. What was fascinating then is the homeless would filter across downtown to street corners and freeway exits (hi, Poin!) but around 5 every evening they would all head back to Skid Row, because they know the police would harass them if they didn't. It made for blocks after blocks of very safe, very pleasant stretches of urban life.

Today, not so much!

 

I've never been to Los Angeles, but listening to some radio (via internet) from out there and other things has gotten me fascinated about the homeless situation out there and local reaction to it.
From the sound of it, there's a crazy level of denial from local and state governments about the severity of the problem, and also some disturbing incidents that are pushing things to a tipping point. From what I gather, people who actually live in houses are getting pretty pissed that local officials are bending over backward to accommodate the homeless and make excuses for their bad behavior.
For TigerVols and the other SJ folks still in SoCal, just how angry are people out there about it?

 

I heard dr. Drew on KROQ Friday morning and came in the middle of the conversation, however they were talking about people getting sick from the airborn activity of fecal matter in public places from the homeless. Nausea and vomiting. Dr. Drew's son lives in Hollywood and walks by homeless and came down with this. Apparently it can be a big problem this summer.

One of my freeway exits, Imperial Highway and the Harbor Freeway, I saw a huge rat the other day on the corner where the homeless guy usually sits.

And the public officials in LA and the surrounding municipalities who have to clean up these homeless encampments? It is a Hazmat situation to protect the people who have to clean up.

 

Speaking of rats, a NatGeo photog has been photographing NYC rats. He found one of those metal grates around a tree in the sidewalk where he counted at least 40 of them living.

City life is disgusting.

(Of course, y’all don’t have to worry about copperheads in the yard.)

 

And, of course, the sight of city employees going down to a homeless encampment dressed in a Hazmat suit comes across as insulting.
There's also a lot of weird entanglements of California's public policy causing problems with this. For example, so many cities have banned plastic shopping bags that it's causing a real public health issue. The homeless used the bags to shit in. Now that they don't have that, they just let 'er rip wherever. That caused a hepatitis outbreak a couple of months ago.
So it's all just one big mess. Let them into places like Starbucks to poop and it helps with the public health, but it also emboldens the homeless and makes places like that dangerous because it's overrun with crazy homeless people.

 

That is the fundamental issue. It is difficult to differentiate between those who are deadbeats and those who are mentally ill and unable to take care of themselves. The cops must make quick determinations every day on what to do.
My hometown -- Santa Monica -- has been the focus of homelessness going back to the 1960s. As homeless people wander around, they reach the ocean and it's the end of the line. They have nowhere else to go, so they stay. There are similar problems in all of the beach cities. Santa Monica is overrun with homeless people at the beach, in the parks, on the Promenade. Back in the '80s, our work softball team had a game on a Saturday morning at a public park. I showed up at 7 a.m. and found a homeless guy sleeping in our dugout. It was Houston McTear, homeless after his track career ended.
Skid row? My brother-in-law and his wife had a small business for which they needed a warehouse type of place to store supplies and also to live. For those familiar with downtown L.A., it was located on San Pedro St. between 4th and 5th -- across the street from the Union Mission. The first time we went there, my wife's parents were in the back seat of my car. We were driving through downtown L.A., turned a corner and I was right in the middle of the crowd at Union Mission. "Holy shit," was my first reaction, the first and only time I cussed in front of my mother-in-law. The warehouse was enclosed by a tall fence with razor wire atop. They were actually prisoners in their warehouse/home.
For USC football games, my friend found a reasonably priced parking lot at a small factory on Hill St. and 39th. It's about a 15-minute walk to the Coliseum. You have to walk under a Harbor Freeway overpass. For the past few years, there were homeless encampments -- tents, makeshift tarp coverage, mattresses, shopping baskets -- under both sides of the overpass, extending up the block on both sides. Between the first and second game last season, those encampments were removed. That week, the IOC was in town to inspect the facilities for the 2024 or 2028 Olympics. The city obviously cleaned out all of the homeless. As the football season progressed, one tent returned. What will next season be like? There are tent cities at every overpass on the Harbor Freeway.
Santa Monica has evolved into an upper-crust city, but there is still no solution to the homeless issue. The typical reaction is: We don't want to be harassed, but if they are mentally ill, they need help.
Move south into Anaheim. The Santa Ana River (which has mostly dried up) runs between Angel Stadium and Honda Center. There were large homeless encampments along the banks. The city decided they shouldn't be there. They did get some motel vouchers for some of homeless. When they came in to clean up the mess, they found more than 14,000 discarded syringes. So it is much more than mental illness, it is drug addiction, too.