Echo Park is just the tip of the iceberg. Was a nice park, a refuge in a cement jungle, a nice like, lots of greenery where you could picnic and play with the kids. Not so much anymore. First, it became associated with local gangs. Then drug addicts.
Look up the history and current status of Skid Row - which is not really a “row” at all it is many square miles south of downtown L.A. sprawled across many city blocks. It’s not really that close to Echo Park, but not really that far either. I think about 6,000 people live there in tents and boxes, with thousands more that come in and out for their own reasons. It is probably the largest open air drug and prostitution market in the world.
For decades the policy of the city has been to just push homeless “down there” and cordon it off. But that policy changed now you can camp outside your local starbucks. They’ll even let you use the bathroom.
It goes back to depression era really; when the once swanky hotels lost all their swanky customers and had to turn into ‘transient’ hotels for people who came to L.A. for temporary work. Over time the transient population became somewhat permanent, and then couldn’t actually pay for shelter so eventually just moved into the streets. It’s now so large and out of control there is little they can do about it.
It might be less of a problem if there was actually work for transients, too. But the business laws are configured, hiring them is risky.